{"id":1684594,"date":"2022-10-12T07:11:15","date_gmt":"2022-10-12T11:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1684594"},"modified":"2022-10-12T07:13:58","modified_gmt":"2022-10-12T11:13:58","slug":"netflixs-do-revenge-teen-comedy-trades-humor-for-wokeness-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/netflixs-do-revenge-teen-comedy-trades-humor-for-wokeness-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Netflix\u2019s \u2018Do Revenge\u2019 Teen Comedy Trades Humor For Wokeness"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fnetflixs-do-revenge-teen-comedy-trades-humor-for-wokeness-2%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1684594&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>Despite what one might think, it is actually possible (though difficult) to make a teen comedy movie that\u2019s funny, deep, and palatable for all age groups. The best example of this would be the now classic film \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0377092\/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mean Girls<\/a>.\u201d The film\u2019s almost two decades old, but it stays relevant because it balances great performances, smart writing, and solid production that explores the themes of social hierarchy, adolescence, and friendship in surprising depth. More importantly, it\u2019s funny and entertaining, daring to make unflattering observations of people and be politically incorrect.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s painfully obvious that the creators of the new teen comedy \u201cDo Revenge\u201d are hoping to reproduce the success of \u201cMean Girls.\u201d Unfortunately, it fails on nearly every measure. True, it follows the formula of girls in high school backstabbing one another while trying to fit in with the cool crowd, but the characters are all flat and annoying, the plot and setting are utterly unrealistic and inconsistent, and the performances and writing are amateur. To top it off, in typical 2022 fashion, the movie tries to compensate for these deficiencies through predictable woke signaling.<\/p>\n<p>The story stays faithful to the tropes of its genre. The main protagonist Drea (Camila Mendez) partners with social misfit Eleanor (Maya Hawke) to get revenge on their respective enemies who start rumors about them. There are some side plots involving their love interests, but none of it offers anything meaningful about the characters or their world.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond their quest to be on top and get their revenge, there\u2019s nothing much to Drea and Eleanor. Their budding friendship feels forced, and neither really grows over the course of the film. What\u2019s remarkable is how casually immoral everyone is. No one gives a second thought to their duplicity or hedonism, nor is there any discernible goal or motivation in the characters beyond their vanity. It\u2019s not obvious how Max is the antagonist when he plays by the same few rules as everyone else. He\u2019s a toxic male, and the audience is supposed to root for the two girls trying to take him down.<\/p>\n<p>Unsurprisingly, very little about the plot is believable or consistent. Drea and Eleanor alternate between immature teenagers whining about their grievances to masterful plotters putting together elaborate schemes of sabotage. The characters around them are all quite obliging, leaving innumerable opportunities for them to carry out their plan. There\u2019s a twist at the end intended to shock the audience, but the buildup is minimal and the story\u2019s resolution is essentially unaffected.<\/p>\n<p>All this plays out in the most glamorized prep school imaginable that is entirely devoid of actual adults, except the headmaster (played by a very un-headmasterly Sarah Michelle Gellar) who makes a few cameos. The kids never attend class and spend most of their time lolling about on fountains and strolling through a verdant luxurious campus that puts the fanciest country clubs to shame. Little details like parents and finances are mentioned, but have no bearing on reality, as the kids strut through the scenes in beautiful pastel uniforms. Even the most privileged celebrity would struggle to relate to them, let alone actual adolescents in high school.<\/p>\n<p>This escapism could be forgiven with noteworthy performances and good dialogue, but these elements are also lackluster. The handful of laughable moments come from Max championing the interests of \u201cpeople who identify as women\u201d along with his hype man Elliot who keeps the messaging upbeat despite the many setbacks. Outside of this, the \u201cwit\u201d of Drea and Eleanor is supposed to come out in their conversations and voiceovers, but all of it is contrived. It also doesn\u2019t help that every actor humorlessly plays to a type, eschewing any possible depth or nuance.<\/p>\n<p>For all this though, the film has received <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/do_revenge\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">more than a few positive reviews<\/a> from movie critics. The only likely explanation for such acclaim is the movie\u2019s diverse and representative cast and its ham-fisted critique of the \u201cpatriarchy.\u201d True, the movie is generally mediocre, but Drea is a person of color who\u2019s poor, her friend Tara is black, her love interest is a South Asian metrosexual with turquoise hair, Eleanor is gay, and the antagonist Max is an irredeemable misogynist pig who gets his comeuppance. This alone, so the thinking goes, should make these characters and their story interesting, but it doesn\u2019t. Nor does it excuse the vanity, shallowness, and outright cruelty of the main characters. Although they engage in sociopathic behavior, it\u2019s somehow OK because of their sex, race, and socioeconomic status.<\/p>\n<p>For that reason, there\u2019s nothing a young person \u2014 that is, the target audience \u2014 will learn from this movie, nor are there any role models to look up to. They\u2019re just bad people doing bad things, but looking unrealistically good while doing it. Of course, if anyone points this out, they risk looking like a curmudgeonly bigot.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, \u201cDo Revenge\u201d is a lousy film with nothing to say about teenagers and the culture they inhabit. It\u2019s derivative and unoriginal, hoping against hope that wokeness and teen movie nostalgia will save it. But it doesn\u2019t. Instead, it should\u2019ve followed the winning formula of \u201cMean Girls\u201d and every good comedy: Just be funny, and the rest will follow.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  Auguste Meyrat is an English teacher in the Dallas area. He holds an MA in humanities and an MEd in educational leadership. He is the senior editor of The Everyman and has written essays for The Federalist, The American Conservative, and The Imaginative Conservative, as well as the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. Follow him on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MeyratAuguste\">Twitter<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite what one might think, it is actually possible (though difficult) to make a teen comedy movie that\u2019s funny, deep, and palatable for all age groups. The best example of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":551,"featured_media":1684601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1684594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/551"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1684594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1684601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1684594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1684594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1684594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}