In 2007, culture as we know it was divided into two categories. For the rest of recorded history, there will be a period of Before Movie bee (“BBM”) and the time After Movie The Bee.
It’s hard to believe we’ve already marked 15 years since this day — November 2, 2007 — when Jerry Seinfeld and DreamWorks Animation debut magnum opus. A decade and a half ago, Renée Zellweger saw a script in which she played a woman in love with Jerry Seinfeld. like a bee and said, “Sure, why not!” It’s a strange cultural artifact born a thousand memes almost a decade after its release, a magical black and gold illusion.
And speaking of hallucinations, Movie bee also the producer gave us Jerry Seinfeld zip lining off the roof of the hotel in a gourd costume — a pop culture moment of the late 2000s that is etched into my memory with the same intensity that most reserves for photographs of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears party together in that car.
The medium is the message and no image encapsulates the true meaning of Movie bee rather than Jerry Seinfeld lifting the curtain on a hotel roof, with nothing to hold but a rope and a dream. We’re all as busy as bees (!) In our lord’s year, 2022, it’s important that we all take the time to reflect—honest Bee ?!—On the gift this film’s silly advertising cycle (e) has to all of us. (After all, this is the month when those of us in America must express our gratitude.)
The key to success of Movie bee Gambit costume is the main suit. This is not a soft sack you can get at your local Target, or even God of Halloween. This is big. This is ring. This thing comes with a Jupiter-sized headgear and two protruding pipe-cleaning antennas that don’t stop bobbing up and down. The net wings were too small for that large bee’s body, reminiscent of a flightless bird in flight as Seinfeld swings back and forth from his rope. And you can’t miss those shiny black clown boots, Doc Martens by Comfy couch.
One imagines that Seinfeld might not be fanatical about the idea, which just makes it all the more comical. Like Seinfeld sarcastic at the time, “You know, one thing I hate is any form of movie advertising that causes despair in any way.”
Then again, the comedian seems to have played the game to wear that suit and tights more than once. He also wears it in a promotional trailer for the movie in which he tries to do a live-action Movie bee in costume before a bewildered Steven Spielberg asked, “Why don’t you make it a cartoon?”
According to Seinfeld, we have Spielberg to thank for Movie beethe existence of; apparently, he uttered it during his first dinner with the famous director.
“I am a Jew,” Seinfeld told Oprah Winfrey in the film’s first release. “I grew up on Long Island. [Having dinner with Spielberg] like having a second bar. As the conversation subsided, Seinfeld shared his culture-changing idea: “I thought it would be fun to make a movie about bees called ‘bee movie’,” he says. “That’s it – not, ‘I want to make this movie.’ Nothing.”
But the man who gave us ET clearly believed otherwise. Seinfeld recalls him saying, “It was a movie. we yes to make that movie. ” (My emphasis, based on imagination.)
And so it’s time for Seinfeld to figure out what his movie is really about — and how these bees will live. Can they walk places? Do they own a car? Will they one day become a meme thanks to speeding YouTube videos every time someone in the movie says the word “bee”? All of this will be found out soon. And finally. As they say, is history. (Good, hivestory.)
In any case, see for yourself the Jerry Seinfeld zip-lining on the Frenchman Croisette while dressed as a bee. It’s called history:
