Superbad

I've never seen Superbad, but there seems to be a quite obvious connection between it and what Zupancic was saying. It is a coming of age story with many references to sex and phalluses, which directly connects to our most recent reading by Zupancic. In that article, Zupotnic talked about how the phallus is a universal symbol of sex and what people are able to lose. Knowing this, Superbad's use of it as a part of a coming of age story is interesting and is possibly able to show the characters maturing through something as immature as a phallus. As well, it seems to draw into the incongruity theory of humor which is constant throughout the film.

In the scene mentioned in the main blog post, one of the characters, who is very obviously underage, attempts to buy alcohol with a fake id and everything that could go wrong goes wrong. the whole scene is built upon the incongruity of this 15-year-old character who looks even younger thinking that he'll be able to get alcohol easily. The description of the character by the cashier as an "African Jew with a hoodie" is incongruous all in and of itself, but the fact that it seems that the police rolled with the description is also incongruous because it would not be expected for police, who are normally represented as no-nonsense, here seem to be portrayed as pretty nonsensical, which adds to the humor of the scene.

Superbad seems to draw on Zupancic's theories to great effect in order to tell this coming of age story. As someone who has never seen the film, learning more about it has made me think about how a movie which seems like a generic coming of age comedy can have a lot deeper meaning and can tie into obscure and very academic theories about comedy and philosophy.