Seth Rogan's Doing It
So are we now allowed to mock identity politics dogma?
OK, I admit it, there might be something to the so-called “vibe shift.”
A little something.
When it comes to the debate about Cancel Culture, I’m on Team Pessimist. Unfortunately, I still think I’m right, but it’s heartening to see that cultural gatekeepers are allowing some freer speech to slip into the world.
Today I’ll highlight an example from one of the monoculture’s favorite new comedies.
Critics adore it (96% on Rotten Tomatoes!), but don’t let that sour you on Seth Rogan’s new Apple TV+ series. The Studio really is very funny. Occasionally, it’s even a tad subversive.
Consider Episode 5, “The War.”
In it, a young, junior movie studio exec (Quinn) picks a fight with an older, senior exec (Sal). Quinn wants to undermine Sal’s project and elevate hers, so she engages in various kinds of sabotage. She even breaks into the computer of the studio head’s assistant to torpedo an important meeting Sal scheduled. Eventually, Quinn sets her sights even higher (lower?). She realizes she could get Sal fired and take his job.
The opportunity arises thanks to an errant burrito.
Quinn’s Big Burrito Break
The two antagonists face off at lunch in the middle of the studio lot.
Quinn keeps getting the best of Sal, and in a fit of frustration he chucks his burrito at her. He misses, and the burrito hits an assistant director driving by in a golf cart. He crashes into a ridiculously expensive film set and the whole structure comes tumbling down.
The head of HR launches an investigation and Sal knows it’s serious business. So he appeals to Quinn, “We need to get our story straight!”
He concocts a tale in which a bee landed on his burrito and he swiped at it so hard that the burrito went flying. But Quinn’s not going to play along. A look of ghoulish glee stretches across her face as she declares, “You are going down.”
Now let’s pause for some important details.
Middle-aged Sal is also a white male while young Quinn happens to be a racial minority. Up to this point, the series hasn’t mentioned Quinn’s race, but the actress who plays her (Chase Sui Wonders) is half Chinese.
Quinn looks like she’s savoring a butterscotch candy as she tells the increasingly panicked Sal what she’s going to say to the head of HR.
QUINN: I’m gonna tell her that you threw that burrito at me and when I do you’re out of here!
SAL: You were asking for it!
QUINN: That’s not going to hold up in the court of HR! You are so fucked!
SAL: Alright, yo, for real, I will get massacred in there.
QUINN: And I’m technically a bit of a minority, a bit of a woman of color, so you’re doubled fucked! I’m gonna be a hero. There are gonna be marches in my name!
SAL: Please don’t do this.
QUINN: And when you get fired, I’m definitely getting promoted.
What? You mean virtue and vice aren’t doled out at birth according to identity characteristics!
You mean the line between good and evil really does cut through every human heart! You mean the much-heralded “power dynamic” isn’t some immutable force that only social justice extremists can see! You mean power really can corrupt anyone, even a young woman of color!
Why didn’t Sal just summon his white male privilege to reestablish his dominance? It’s almost like the makers of The Studio are saying there really are some cases where being a woman of color gives you the upper hand against your white male oppressors.
Blasphemy!
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Tastes So Good
Now I’m the one savoring an imaginary butterscotch candy.
You see, this moment of wrongthink was brought to you by the same Seth Rogan who apparently thinks Cancel Culture doesn’t exist, the same Seth Rogan who can’t seem to think of any topic that might have been frozen out of “respectable” circles over the past decade or so.