Can we talk about Bo Burnham for a sec? The guy is straight and started out his career by releasing a fucking gay joke song in 2006 while managing to not be homophobic in the slightest, the song is still adored by The Gays. The song you’d expect to be full of stereotypes, to be a caricature of gay people, is actually low-key a caricature of toxic masculinity and/or the concept of being repressed and in denial, in a way that is actually funny and relatable to actual queer people. Since then he has not only continued making gay jokes without being homophobic, but took it upon himself to create comedy songs constantly defending minorities he’s not even a part of, low-key standing up against racism and sexism (to the question of whether or not he considers himself a feminist he answered that it’s not his place to decide whether he is or not, which makes him just that much more awesome), as well as homophobia. He wrote a song openly and viciously mocking Straight White Men™ as an actual straight white man. And his songs about social problems in general? He has called out his own industry (both music and comedy ones) on multiple occasions. His existential songs? His mental health songs? The dude had severe anxiety, had panic attacks ON STAGE and just carried on with the shows??? Left comedy to work on his mental health?? Found out a big part of his audience consisted of teenage girls and instead of looking down on them, he went “Holy shit they get me and they need to be heard” AND DECIDED TO MAKE A FUCKING MOVIE ABOUT TEENAGERS??? About real teenagers, and not all that fancy melodrama shit where everyone is a stereotype and everyone is perfect?? HE ASKED FOR HELP FROM ACTUAL TEENAGER BECAUSE HE SAID THAT HE’S NOT QUALIFIED TO WRITE ABOUT “REAL TEENAGERS”, SINCE HE ISN’T ONE??????
The scene in Shrek 2 when the Fairy Godmother sings I need a Hero when the giant gingerbread man attacks the castle is still the greatest scene in cinema of all times
Sometimes I think folks in this town don’t really understand the power they have. Movies don’t just show us how the world is, they show us how the world can be. If we change the way that movies are made, take a chance and make a different kind of story, I think you can change the world. – HOLLYWOOD(2020)