Jerry Seinfeld has reflected on the “uncomfortable sexual aspect” of the 2007 children’s film Bee Movie, and jokingly apologised for it.
Appearing on The Tonight Show on Friday (1 October) to promote the arrival of Seinfeld on Netflix, the comedian said: “I apologise for what seems to be a certain uncomfortable subtle sexual aspect of the Bee Movie.
“It really was not intentional, but after it came out, I realised this is really not appropriate for children. Because the bee seemed to have a thing for the girl, and we don’t really want to pursue that as an idea in children’s entertainment.”
Bee Movie stars Seinfeld as a bee called Barry B Benson who befriends and develops a crush on human florist Vanessa Bloome (voiced by Renée Zellweger).
Back in 2017, one of the film’s writers, Spike Feresten, noted that while people are generally either “entertained or repulsed” by the story, an “interspecies love affair” isn’t something they wanted to sell to children.
He added: “Often, we would lose sight of those characters in the room. They would just be Barry and Vanessa, and we would write this dialogue for Barry and Vanessa, and read it over and have to remind ourselves, well, this is a tiny bee saying this, and the tiny bee is fighting with her boyfriend, so let’s dial it back to friend, and make it less romantic, because it’s getting weird.”
Bee Movie is currently available to stream on Netflix.
