Flak Magazine: Review of American Pie 2, 08-18-01

A collective groan met the return of teen sex comedies led by the original American Pie. They were seen as hackneyed, exploitative, pedestrian and an infiltration of the unwelcome teen pop culture back into film: Save the Last Dance. Dude, Where's My Car? Tomcats. The blatant sexuality and simple plots of some gave a bad name to even the good examples, like Bring It On and Josie and the Pussycats. But, however dismissed teen movies might be, they still tell an important story — the same story that has been told in various cultures for thousands of years.

Joseph Campbell, one of the most respected scholars of folklore and myth, described a Monomyth that encompasses the stories of every culture. In it, the protagonist leaves the safety of his village to seek out the elixir and return a hero. Any story can be stripped down to this basic structure, as any Star Wars fan can, and will, tell you. Those who have added to Campbell's work have theorized its cultural significance. The Monomyth represents a boy's coming of age into a man, and the events of the story mirror his removal and return to his village during the rituals of that event.

So, too, do the events in American Pie 2 mirror the coming of age rituals in our society. At the beginning of this sequel, the four friends from the first film — Jim (Jason Biggs), Oz (Chris Klein), Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) and Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) — return home from their first year of college. But they and a trickster character named Stifler (Seann William Scott) soon leave the safety and comfort of home to seek out their manhood. So they rent a beachhouse.

The elixir they seek is sex — sex at end of the summer party they plan to throw. They prepare for this separately. Kevin attempts to regain his lost relationship with his ex-girlfriend, Vicky (Tara Reid). Oz repeatedly attempts phone sex with his girlfriend studying abroad (Mena Suvari). Finch studies tantric meditation to impress his lover from the first film, Stifler's mom (Jennifer Coolidge). Jim asks band geek Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) to teach him how to become a better lover.

Why shouldn't sex be the elixir in this story? It certainly is the main coming of age ritual in our society; nothing else fits the role. College is hardly a universal experience; that's why the film avoids it. Turning 21 can't be it; teens are introduced to alcohol much earlier at house parties like those shown in the movie. Getting to vote? What 18-year-old votes? No, it is the first mature sexual relationship that makes one a man.

By the end of the first film, Oz has already found a stable relationship and Kevin has maturely allowed one to end, and so the beginning of American Pie 2 drags in its attempt to re-establish their original roles. This is probably why the film focuses more time on Finch and much more on Jim. Jim, though he had had the sex he pledged to by the end of the original, was left unfulfilled. So, he must return to his one night stand, Michelle, and ask her help in becoming able to sexually impress his dream girl, Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth), who'll be at the big party.

The story of American Pie 2 fits the role of the Monomyth in past cultures, not only because of its structure, but also because of its similarity to oral storytelling. Oral storytelling allows interaction with the audience — learning what they like and dislike. From this, the storyteller can create patterns and poetic repetition of elements to use in the next recounting of the story. This film reproduces that phenomenon well: As a sequel, the storytellers could look at was well-received in the original, and repeat it or build upon it.

Examples of things that return are Jim's ultra-embarrassing, though ultra-caring father (Eugene Levy). He even consoles Jim after another botched attempt at masturbation. Stifler has another encounter with bodily fluids at a party. A new titillating sexual encounter is broadcast to the general public; this time it's over CB radio, rather than the Internet. Even the party at the end mirrors the climactic post-prom party of the original.

The best thing brought back for the sequel, though, is Alyson Hannigan's Michelle. In American Pie, her socially awkward flautist had been simply a punchline, a waste of her comic talent. Here, she is better fleshed out, and she plays well off Biggs, who is, himself, a natural comedic talent.

To ignore the importance of the teen sex comedy is to ignore the importance of story itself. When Babylonian storytellers told of Gilgamesh, when Homer sang of Odysseus, when Vergil wrote of Aeneas, they were speaking about their first times. Coming of age is an important step in creating our place in culture. American Pie 2 explores that step as we have always done: through Monomyth. And, it also slips in some very funny masturbation and mistaken-lesbian jokes.

— Andy Ross (apross@earthlink.net)