I Liked Meme Films Before You (Part 1 - Bee Movie)

21 May 2022

Two movies I have seen more than any other went on to become internet memes. Thanks to Tumblr, I can no longer take the movies that defined my late pre-teens seriously.

The first of these I'm going to talk about is Dreamwork's 2007 animation flop; Bee Movie. Written by, produced and starring the menace of the high school gates, Jerry Seinfeld. I remember my aunt showing me the trailer for Bee Movie, I think she must have been a Seinfeld fan thinking back - I'm not sure who else this movie was for if not the generation that grew up with the NBC sitcom - I can't imagine kids in 2007 even knowing who Seinfeld was, I certainly didn't.

One line from the trailer I remember distinctly is the use of the word "crap". I found it hilarious at the age of 11. In a sort of Bart Simpson-esque way. Seeing animated characters swear will never not be funny. They ended up replacing "crap" with "crud" in the final film, to my disappointment, à la Indiana Jones' "part-time".

The same aunt who showed my the trailer got me the DVD as soon as it was out. She was babysitting us, as my parents were away for the weekend. I remember at 6am, opening the DVD, the casing was bright yellow (the only yellow case in my illustrious collection of physical media) and watching it with the curtains drawn. I don't think I'd ever found an animated film as funny, engaging and wonderful. The icing on the cake was the cover of The Beatles' Here Comes The Sun during the final act, for a young fan of the Fab Four I was in love.

I went on to abuse that disc hard. Thankfully, I had a partner in crime. My best friend at the time, who I spent most weekends with, was also a huge Bee Movie fanatic. We would challenge each other to see how many consecutive days we could watch it, texting each other to see if either of us had broken our streak, sort of like the Seinfeld Contest episode. I wish I was joking now I write this, but I went 3 months watching Bee Movie every single evening before bed. Full disclosure; I would sometimes fall asleep before the end, but the point still stands. I was obsessed.

I think my favourite scenes in Bee Movie are the courtroom scenes, I still think they're hilarious. Rewatching the film you can hear the Larry David/Seinfeld influence, and as a hipster 23 year old who grew up to love the show, its a delight to watch.

Staying with my fellow Bee Movie stan one night we decided, when we couldn't sleep, to try and recite the film forward to back. In his living room, me on one sofa and him on the other. Taking the film, line by line, we actually managed it. Bee Movie back to front.

And this is the important part to all this. This was in 2010 and Bee Movie wasn't a meme at that point. Tumblr hadn't co-opted the post-ironic adoration for the film, there weren't fan edits, t-shirts with the scripts on it, and those pictures of James Gandolfini at the premiere weren't as shared as they are now. We had a legitimate and genuine love for Bee Movie.

"Yellow, black, yellow, black, yellow, black - ooo black and yellow, yeah, let's shake up a little"