With flicks like No Hard Feelings and Netflix’s Hammer Hard Guys, flat-out sex comedies are slowly making a comeback. Finally! Especially in the cinema, we’ve had to do without below-the-belt humour for far too long.
As one of the films after her Hollywood hiatus, Tribute to Panem star Jennifer Lawrence has chosen a comedy in which her character deflowered a 19-year-old before college. On Netflix, the sequel to the hit German comedy Harte Jungs about a talking penis has recently become available to stream 21 years (!) after part 2.
For me, thanks to No Hard Feelings and Hammerharte Jungs, it looks like the platitudinous sex comedies of my youth are slowly making a small comeback in cinema and on streaming services. And there are few developments I’m more excited about this year.
Pubescent humour and penis jokes are the perfect antidote to prudish superhero blockbusters
When I think back to the best comedies of my youth/pubescence, it was about the main character getting caught having sex with an apple pie. American Pie, Superbad, Eurotrip, Jungfrau (40), männlich, sucht … and Road Trip – Heißer Trip nach Texas ran up and down with me and my circle of friends because they hit hormone-stricken teens exactly in this vulgar emotional chaos.
In Germany, the success of these US productions also caught on quickly, resulting in similar films being made in this country in the early 2000s such as Harte Jungs, Mädchen, Mädchen, Schule, Sex Up – Jungs haben’s auch nicht leicht or particularly delicately titled flicks like Popp Dich schlank!”
In retrospect, puberty is pure foreign shame for many and crude comedies like the aforementioned films were part of at least feeling understood and not alone during this time. At the same time, I also felt somehow rebellious when I watched films that my parents just shook their heads at. But the hype only lasted for a short time.
From the 2010s onwards, hardly any films of this kind were shown in cinemas, which revolved around hormone-ridden teenagers or young adults and their immature misadventures. Vulgar sex jokes were generally considered the lowest drawer, which meant there was hardly any room left for films à la American Pie.
This was also reflected economically: dick humour made less and less money. Cinema also seemed to be adapting to a new zeitgeist that questioned gender clichés and wanted to tell a different, at first glance less platitudinous kind of coming-of-age story.
Nostalgia at its best! Watch the trailer for American Pie here:
