Creepy things

Web Extra: Bee Movie's ethnic metaphors sting | Sam Thielman

As far as kids are concerned, Bee Movie is a series of nice thoughts and clever jokes. The superb design and kinetic visual set pieces make it an eye-candy buffet, with some minor, very vaguely sexual humor and one minor pun on the Lord's name. Still, it's refreshingly free of bodily functions and pretty easy to watch.

For adults, Bee Movie (PG for mild suggestive humor) is a different story. The film follows Barry (Jerry Seinfeld), an insect with a lot on his mind—he's worried he won't be able to adjust to adult life, a fact that he confides in his buddy Adam (Matthew Broderick) with no small measure of anxiety. Seinfeld can't really act, so he's once again put himself in the same position that made his TV series a success: He doesn't have to act at all. Barry is an indecisive loser in a tight-knit, ethnically unified community that looks an awful lot like Manhattan. Sound like a creepy comparison? Don't shoot the messenger. There are a lot of excruciatingly uncomfortable ethnic metaphors here: Bees are Jews, apparently, and wait... black people are mosquitoes? Seriously?

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November 17, 2007, Vol. 22, No. 42

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