Cross-posted from my Times Union blog:

It is fairly well-known among my family and friends that despite my distaste for low-brow entertainment, I love comedy aimed at the 13-30 year old male set. Family Guy, South Park, Little Nicky, Dane Cook… you name it, I probably love it. It’s generally racist, classist, endlessly misogynistic, and mindless, but, come on, how can you not love a good belly laugh? The movie was so good that, even with my crazed schedule right now, I plan to see the movie again this week.

However, I have never laughed so hard in my life as I did at a Friday night showing of “Superbad.” I was literally gasping for air and falling out of my seat laughing. The movie goes as follows: one socially awkward fat white kid and one socially awkward skinny white kid (with his sidekick, another socially awkward skinny white kid) are going to graduate from high school virgins, but have one last chance of getting their crushes drunk and henceforth sexually available at a party that night. The boys end up in charge of providing alcohol for the party, but when one of the boys (with a fake ID with the name “McLovin” on it) befriends two Supercrazy police officers, the movie turns out to be an irreverant two hours of penis jokes, hilariously defying authority, and drinking “blue beer.”

(After crashing a house party, one of the boys emptys a huge container of laundry detergent and fills it with beer stolen from the fridge, and brings it to the party he was actually invited to).

Sounds flippant, right? Actually, I feel that Superbad does young people a real service. The movie is centered around the concept of bringing girls alcohol to be liked, getting the girls drunk to get sex, and getting the girls drunk enough to not be held responsible (which some would call “gray rape,” but that’s for another blog post).

But let’s rewind: in the movie, the overweight awkward boy who labors so extensively to bring alcohol to the party finds out that the girl of his dreams doesn’t even drink. He starts crying (which is an act totally atypical of your average adolescent male comedy) and the next day when she sees him at the mall, they shop for concealer today (see the movie, it’ll make sense). The skinny awkward boy (who played George Michael in the hilarious series Arrested Development) gets drunk with his crush, but when they start making out, he rejects her offer to go further because he doesn’t want to take advantage of her. (In fact, before he and his crush go upstairs, he drunkenly proposes a toast to the “respect of women” to the party attendees, in anticipation of his mixed feelings regarding sleeping with a drunk girl). The last fifteen minutes of the movie display a respect of women and the concept that it pays off to do the right thing.

For two hours, the movie proposes hilarious adolescent antics and an outward defiance of laws and social norms. However, I would argue that by showing an audience that I would boldly assume is largely not open to or aware of the majority of feminist tenets, Superbad’s overall impact is in fact Supergood.