Consider This from NPR - 'American Pie', and the bygone era of raunchy teen comedies

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

Raunchy sex comedies had a moment at the end of the 20th century. And perhaps the king of them all, was American Pie. Even people who have never seen the movie probably know the most memorable scene has something to do with a sex-obsessed teenage boy doing something unseemly with a homemade apple pie. Flash forward a quarter century and Hollywood is making fewer teen comedies than it used to. For the 25th anniversary of American Pie, Scott Detrow speaks with one of the film's stars Alyson Hannigan about its legacy.A warning for listeners, this episode contains language and references to scenes not suitable for younger audiences.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

If you look at some of the highest grossing movies of 2024, you might notice just how high the stakes are in their plots. The fate of the world in Godzilla Kong, The New Empire. Something is coming. Something even they're afraid of. The fate of multiple worlds in Dune Part 2. This is a form of power that our world has not yet seen the ultimate power. The fate of a comic book universe, or I don't know, or something, in Deadpool and Wolverine. I'm the Messiah.

But if you go back to the films of 1999, like we've been doing all summer, you will find a good number of stories where the stakes were only as high as this. Here's the deal. We all get laid before we graduate. That is high school senior Kevin making a pact with his friends Jim, Finch, and Oz in the teen classic American Pie. The obsession with sex wasn't limited to stories about white kids. In The Wood, released the same year, about three black high school juniors, Mike, Slim, and Roland had the same thing on their mind. The first one to get some s*** is five bucks. To put it simply, horny teenagers were just about everywhere on screen that year. In 10 Things I Hate About You, remember when that rich jerk Joey was willing to pay the cool outsider,

played by a young Heath Ledger, to date the sister of the girl he wanted to get with? Look, I can't take out her sister until Kat starts dating. You see, their dad's whacked out. He's got this rule where the girls... That's a touching story. It really is. Not my problem. Would you be willing to make it your problem if I provide generous compensation?

Or just look at the twisted mind games two step-siblings play in Cruel Intentions. I hate it when things don't go my way. It makes me so horny. I hate it too. 1999 was the culmination of a bunch of things that had happened prior to that. Whitney Friedlander is an entertainment journalist living in Los Angeles. She says the prior success of films like Clueless and Romeo and Juliet proved to studios that teenagers were a powerful ticket-buying force. And you also had the advantage of having smaller studios like MTV Films that were looking at these films and being like,

we can make all these movies to an underserved market. Many of these films were also based on classic text whose rights were in the public domain, which made them cheaper to license. Ten Things was inspired by the Shakespeare comedy The Taming of the Shrew. Cruel Intentions came from the French 18th century novel Dangerous Liaisons. But something like American Pie came from less reputable sources. The people who are making the movies are the ones who grew up on the John Hughes movies, the ones who grew up on the poor Hughes movies,

The Revenge of the Nerds and things like that. So they're catering to what they know. These were very raunchy films and not all of their jokes have aged well. Dude, I took some MILF. What the hell is that? M-I-L-F. In fact, NPR's Chloe Veltman reported that a recent study found that today's young audiences actually want less sex in their entertainment.

UCLA asked more than 1,000 13 to 24-year-olds to participate in its Romance or Nomance study. Consider this. Hollywood is making fewer teen movies than it used to, but the classics still have passionate followings. Coming up with American Pie at 25, we discuss its legacy with one of its stars. From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow. It's Consider This from NPR. Like many raunchy comedies in the 80s and 90s,

American Pie was made primarily with white teenage boys in mind. And full disclosure, in 1999, I was one of those white teenage boys. But one of the most memorable characters in the film introduced herself this way. And one time, at band camp, we weren't supposed to have pillow fights, but we had a pillow fight. That was band geek Michelle, who turns out not to be such a geek after all. And she's played by Allison Hannigan, who by the time American Pie came out, was already starring in the hit TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Since she was a part of two iconic portrayals of teenage life, I figured I had to start the conversation asking about what her teenage experience was like.

I mean, it was terrible. And as it should have been, because, you know, it makes me, it prepared me for being happy after it was over. I sort of was just like, all right, I'm here. Four years. I'll try to get out unharmed and just keep my head down and get through it the best I possibly can. But it was by no means, it would not have been a comedy, my experience. It would be more like a drama. Do you remember your initial thoughts about the script and the plot when you first came to the movie? Yes. I remember first being sent the script from my manager at the time, and he prefaced it

by saying, you're either going to love it or hate it. There's really no in between. And I loved it. I absolutely loved it. It made me laugh out loud. And I remember just reading it very quickly because I enjoyed it so thoroughly. And I adored Michelle, I thought. As soon as I sort of started reading her lines, I could hear her voice in my head. And I knew that that's the part I wanted to audition for.

This, I think, for anybody who saw this movie at the time, this is a very obvious question. But what do you think it was about Michelle, about the character, about the scenes that left such a big impression on audiences, despite it being one of the smaller roles in terms of minutes on screen of the movie? I think it was just, I mean, obviously the element of surprise, you know, at the reveal of what her true intentions with Jim were. But I think it was just, you know, she was very much a relatable character in the like, oh, yeah, there's that band camp girl that no one really probably spends the time to get to know in actual high school. So it made sense that she was just a peripheral character in the first one because that's how it would have worked in most people's high school experience. But then you've got this like element of, hey, maybe you should have gotten to know her. Because she's pretty awesome.

Looking back at the movie as a whole, two parts here. First of all, is there anything in it that just as an adult decades later makes you cringe, makes you think, oh, my God, I can't believe that wasn't a movie? I mean, as a parent, probably the entire movie because I'm now looking at it through the lens of like I have a teenage daughter whose friends will most likely watch this and then tell her about it. And I'm dreading that day. I've been dreading that day probably since I got pregnant, but I'm also not at all sorry. Like, you know, I love it, and, you know, I'll just have to deal with that when that comes about. I mean, hopefully she'll be so embarrassed and then that she won't even want to talk to me about it, but no, I don't want that. I mean, hopefully she'll be so embarrassed and then that she won't even want to

talk to me about it. But no, I don't want that. I should probably be the one to tell her, but I really, I'm too chicken. It's a little, I'm playing an ostrich right now where I just want to sort of stick my head in the ground and ignore it. But I'm sure that day will happen. And we'll all need therapy after it. To soften the blow a little bit, what do you think about this movie holds up the best, the spirit of it that makes people still look at it fondly despite the cringy twists and turns of the plot

and craziness that happens in it? Well, I think even though obviously it was heightened, you know, for comedy, I do think it was a very relatable portrayal of the high school experience. Everyone's performance was really grounded and authentic, so you could believe everything. And so, you know, when Jim is getting intimate with a pie, you buy it. Jim? It's not what it looks like.

Listen, I was a high schooler when this movie came out. And I will say none of my high school experience was that cinematic. But certainly, I found myself in incredibly embarrassing situations. My friends found themselves in really embarrassing situations from that same teenage roadmap that kind of leads you from point A to point like, how did we end up here? You know, the movie got that really right. Definitely. And I think that there's there was probably, I would assume, some relief that, hey, at least your experience wasn't like that. It wasn't as embarrassing as this one. So so, you know, it's a feel-good movie.

I don't know how closely you've been following this, but it seems like there's been a lot of articles and thought lately about what seems to be a dearth of sex and sex scenes in mainstream movies today. And, you know, there's polls that say that Gen Z actually prefers a lot less sex in their entertainment. Is that development that given doing movies like this and being a part of that you've thought about? And do you think that has changed the way that a movie like American Pie has a place in pop culture today? Well, I don't actually know.

It's a great question. But the question of, oh, does it have a place in today's pop culture? It's still finding new fans. So it's obviously a movie that is holding up in a strange way, even though I think the landscape of comedy and especially teen comedies has changed. But it still has new fans. And I know because they're coming up to me and they clearly were not alive when the movie came out.

So it's still striking a chord with a new audience. What is the most surprising place to you that American Pie has popped up in pop culture all these years later? I mean, I have to say a Taylor Swift song, obviously. Of course. Yeah. I mean, that's just, that's probably the cherry on top of this incredible 25-year-old Sunday. I'm watching American Pie with you on a Saturday night. And she gets into the line, I'm watching American Pie. I'm like, wait a minute.

And I start doubting, like, well, were there other American Pies? Like, wait, was she talking about the song? And so I had to keep rewinding it. I'm freaking out because I'm a big Swifty. I'm like, no, she's definitely saying they were watching American Pie. I was in that. Well, thank you for indulging our teenage geeky selves as well and talking to us about American Pie 25 years later. That's actress Allison Hannigan.

It was great talking to you. Oh, well, thank you so much. This episode was produced by Mark Rivers, who has produced all of our movie episodes looking back at 1999 this summer. It was edited by Adam Rainey, and our executive producer is Sammy Yannicka. Thank you to our Consider This Plus listeners who support the work of NPR journalists and help keep public radio strong. Supporters also

hear every episode. Without messages from sponsors, you can learn more at plus.npr.org. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow.