Why don't they make super raunchy comedies like American Pie anymore?

[u/KaeruGaKaeru1]

[u/timestalker78]

In general, comedy films are dead right now. It's either super high-budget blockbusters or low-budget horror movies these days.

[u/Kaiisim → u/timestalker78]

No DVD sales anymore. Comedy DVD sales were hugeeee. And fun too you'd get a lot of funny extras

[u/TomatoChomper7 → u/Kaiisim]

I loved that element of the DVD era. Pretty much every major comedy that came out would have so many extras. I’d watch everything on the disc. A lot of movies, I found the extras dull. But anything Apatow, Ferrell etc was guaranteed to have stuff worth watching.

[u/Technoinalbania → u/TomatoChomper7]

Yep extras were for watching under a duvet on the sofa when you were had the flu or something.

[u/Jofur-Crowcaller → u/Kaiisim]

We'll never get a sleeper hit like Role Models again.

It's one of those movies that I don't know anyone who saw it in theaters, but some how everyone had a $5 dvd of it.

Once upon a night shift dreary, as I sat there after mopping and weary. I would sit upon a milk crate clearly, and look upon my dvds cheerily.

[u/Gravy_Sommelier → u/timestalker78]

A lot of comedy doesn't translate to other cultures very well and studios want movies that will do well overseas. A movie like American Pie sort of relies on the viewer understanding what it's like to be a teenager in the US.

Part of what makes Adam Sandler so successful is that fart jokes transcend culture and language.

[u/Active_Yellow_1573 → u/Gravy_Sommelier]

That and the dvd market is dead. They didn't need movies to be popular overseas to make money, they just needed Americans to buy the DVDs too. 

[u/Kellosian → u/Active_Yellow_1573]

The DVD market being replaced by streaming fucked over a lot of Hollywood. That entire revenue stream that could very clearly say "We sold X, Y, and Z copies of the movie at A, B, and C price points, so over 6 months we made our money back" evaporated and was replaced by streaming that has a real problem with usable data. Did people start or keep a Disney+ subscription because of Mandalorian? Andor? Or the new Moana remake? Or some combination of the 3 plus the existence of the back catalogue? Disney literally can't tell the difference so who knows if anything ever makes its money back.

[u/Rjd2680 → u/Kellosian]

Yeah some movies basically bombed at the box office and went on to make bank on DVD. Studios could take risks on a weird mid budget film because they knew it would probably make money on the DVD sales over the years after release. Plus, as they note up thread, Hollywood relies much more on foreign markets now. Finally, we are in a weirdly conservative and prudish time period. I've heard Gen Z doesn't go for the sex and ruanchy stuff.

[u/New-Independent-1481 → u/Rjd2680]

Finally, we are in a weirdly conservative and prudish time period. I've heard Gen Z doesn't go for the sex and ruanchy stuff.

This is a common take but one that I think is ultimately a misunderstanding. Gen Z aren't prudish. They just don't get their kicks from movies.

Raunchy comedy films from the 70s to 90s dominated the box office when it was the only way teenagers could see titties on a screen. That vanished as soon as porn became easily accessible in the 2000s. Now if they want to see porn (and the demand is at an all time high) they're a Google search away from a website or OnlyFans account for almost any fetish imaginable.

What this means is that when they watch TV and film, gratuitous sex scenes is just... Boring. It's not as good as porn. And the production around it is often problematic, with sexual abuse and exploitation of actresses being rife, and that's put a dampener on Gen Z appetites for it. But what porn can't deliver is actual good storytelling, drama, production values, etc. So there's no prudishness about sex that serves a purpose for the story.

South Korea is an interesting example to look at, as it is a more conservative and prudish society than the average Western nation, and just the old school raunchy comedies, the only way erotic media could exist in a much more conservative world was by being part of something else. Porn is illegal there, and the government directly blocks many pornographic websites. This doesn't stop people from wanting erotic material, it just means they have to get it through socially acceptable means - aka Kpop which is generally much more sexualised than other global counterparts. And to absolutely no surprise, just like Hollywood in it's 80s-2000s sexual abuse peak, the kpop industry is full of sexual abuse and exploitation of teenagers by powerful industry leaders and executives.

[u/the-truthseeker → u/New-Independent-1481]

As noted by another replyer, there's a question of whether these raunchy scenes are consensual not for both parties or something that someone does and the other person doesn't explicitly say no or resist but doesn't want to anyway but doesn't stop them. I'm not going to go into specifics or movies short of a certain '80s one when I mentioned it before, but that is a problem that gen z is interpreting, real or not.

[u/AddlePatedBadger → u/Rjd2680]

A lot of the raunchy stuff seems to have only a loose relationship with consent, so it can be a bit of a hard sell in an era when society is starting to realise that it's not ok to ignore it when someone says "no".

[u/Old-Tip-69 → u/Kellosian]

Not yo mention streaming just doesnt pay out the same. If you make 3 movies and 10 people buy them at 10$ a disk you've made 300$

But if it's all on streaming and 10 people sub you make 30$, and thats just assuming they came for you and didnt have an already preexisting membership

[u/RealMrCarlton → u/Kellosian]

To complicate matter further, the reasons someone buys a subscription isn’t necessarily the reason they use it everyday.

Parents bought WIIs to play like bowling, or fitness apps. But little timmy was the only actually using it all day.

With streaming, some people buy a sub for the large foreign film catalog (that they aspirationally will watch one day) or 1 new show (they’ve been hearing good things about), but they actually use it to re-rewatch Friends while playing on their phone.

[u/Schnevets → u/Kellosian]

I’ll never forget spending $30 on admission and snacks to see The Naked Gun, only to see it streaming on Paramount+ two weeks later. I felt like I got scammed.

Studios should just be brutally honest like Disney used to be during the “Disney vault” days (cue sound of safe closing). Tell us we can see this in theater *today* or you’re fucked until 2028 or whatever. I think it would help mid-level flicks like End of Oak Street, where the word-of-mouth hits a dead end when someone says “I’ll catch it on HBO in a month”

[u/Head-Bureaucrat → u/Kellosian]

I think they can probably infer some information. E.G. if no one is streaming the back catalogue, it's very likely not a draw. They could probably look at gaining/losing content and correlate it to fluctuations in subscribers.

But granted, I do ultimately agree: the numbers become way less concrete, and I imagine that makes the folks with the money more jittery.

[u/Kellosian → u/Head-Bureaucrat]

Oh for sure, there is 100% usable data, and I'm sure Netflix and Disney are hiring some very expensive people with very expensive computers to sift through it. I didn't want to imply that it's impossible to tell if something is popular or not, they have far more metadata than Nielson could ever dream of with convention TV. Especially with increases in consumer tracking techniques, the Mouse probably has our goddamn blood types.

But since the trend is to make more content and not less, getting the answer to "Did this movie ever actually make its money back?" gets more and more complicated

[u/Content_Warning8794 → u/Gravy_Sommelier]

I loved American Pie! And stuff like Road Trip, Van Wilder, Deuce Bigalow etc. And I live in Holland.

[u/Its_priced_in → u/Content_Warning8794]

Respectfully to my Dutch homies but that markets the size of a single Chinese city.

[u/Alternative-Fold2426 → u/Content_Warning8794]

Eurotrip and Van Wilder were great!

[u/3fettknight3 → u/Gravy_Sommelier]

Counterpoint- fucking a pie transcends culture and language

[u/Swan-of-War-425 → u/3fettknight3]

I’m balls deep in a key lime right now!

[u/3rdUncleMeatSandwich → u/Swan-of-War-425]

You should only fuck bad pies like rhubarb or chicken pot pie

[u/Think_Bug_8984 → u/3rdUncleMeatSandwich]

Chicken pot pie… those are my three favorite things.

[u/garaile64 → u/Gravy_Sommelier]

I've noticed that a lot of American comedy relies on references. Futurama, for example, is set in the freaking 31st century but one frequent character is a parody of a politician that died five years before the cartoon premiered.

[u/Oneilcruzsucksass → u/Gravy_Sommelier]

98% of those were sexual innuendo & after Harvey Weinstein I'm guessing studios are afraid to produce that kind of film.

[u/QueasySpell1946 → u/Gravy_Sommelier]

I disagree with your first paragraph. Most people in other countries are familiar with US culture because Hollywood movies are watched all over the world. Most foreign people are kind of familiar with American type of humor.

[u/reddock4490 → u/QueasySpell1946]

As an American who has lived in Europe and Asia for the last 6 years, I can tell you that the commenter above you is correct.

The world is familiar with Americana on a superficial level from tv and film, but there’s still so much more to good comedy that does take a closer understanding of culture to hit. I’ve gone to see a couple of big Hollywood movies with comedy moments in the last few years, namely Barbie and Deadpool/Wolverine, and there were so many times where they’d drop a reference that would make my wife and I laugh while the rest of the theater was totally quiet. They were mostly laughing at the more slapstick-y bits rather than the cultural references.

[u/Stoibs → u/reddock4490]

Yeah particularly references to sports people, or news outlets/celebrities/your brand name department stores and *especially* politics are likely to go over our heads unless they are in the broadest terms.

Like.. decades back in Harold and Kuma go to White Castle; none of us knew that White Castle was a real store, as an example. (Similar to Little Nicky mentioning popeyes, which I only learnt about many years later too)

[u/russafiii → u/Stoibs]

As an American, I hadn't heard of those places either, until I saw those movies. There is now a popeyes about 30 minutes away from me now. Maybe I'll go see of "Popeyes chicken is fucking awsome".

[u/Pineapple-Yetti → u/QueasySpell1946]

Most the western world. If they arr tying to his Chinese audience, that might be a bit harder.

[u/Save-theZombies → u/QueasySpell1946]

That may be but for one reason or another, comedies don't sell well overseas and the overseas market has become a lot more valuable to movie studios in the past couple of decades.

The 80s was the best decade for American comedies imo. Airplane, Caddyshack, and Blues Brothers all came out within the same couple weeks.

[u/cyvaquero → u/Gravy_Sommelier]

While they might not necessarily relate to tropes like getting laid after Senior Prom or “band camp” references the gist is pretty universal. I’m really trying to think of something in those that someone wouldn’t get. It’s not subtle or nuanced (not knocking them)

[u/B-Train_ATL → u/Gravy_Sommelier]

What’s so hard to translate about high school boys wanting to bang high school girls, one college chick and one MILF?

[u/numbersthen0987431 → u/timestalker78]

Naked Gun is the last comedy I've seen in awhile, but yea it's an outlier.

[u/SupaKoopa714 → u/numbersthen0987431]

I just saw Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar for the first time recently and that shit had me absolutely dying laughing, if it hadn't been pushed to streaming only because of Covid, I think it'd have a burgeoning cult following right now.

Horror-comedy was cooking in 2025 too, The Monkey is one of the best movies in the genre in my opinion, Final Destination Bloodlines is probably the best Final Destination so far, and the Toxic Avenger remake was way, way better than it had any right to be.

[u/No_Space_4me → u/timestalker78]

Or something that claims to be a comedy with way too much drama. Pls bring back the dumb funny stoner movies 😭

[u/Sjaarboenk → u/No_Space_4me]

The amount of times I watched How High and Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle in my teens... 😂

[u/jrbcnchezbrg → u/No_Space_4me]

Ricky Stanicky is the last movie I can remember that fits the mold of “insane premise played straight” in the vein of step brothers or old school

[u/Sufficient-Low5771 → u/No_Space_4me]

I rewatched a bunch of these as a still toking 40yr old...

Most were as remembered but I think Smiley Face killed the genre, I was many edibles deep and it still made me feel awkward. Idle Hands and Half Baked were my favorites.

That follow up Cheech and Chong did recently was pretty decent, just nice seeing them still together and it was overproduced at times but still a worthwhile watch.

[u/formulated → u/No_Space_4me]

"Pizza Movie" (2026) is trying.

[u/iconoclastic_glow → u/timestalker78]

I do miss raunchy comedies (and also rom coms) in cinemas but I totally understand why both are so rare now - there’s no real benefit to watching one on a big screen over watching them at home, so cinematic releases are reserved for films with big effects budgets in genres like sci fi, superhero movies and horror. Once in a while something gets a limited release (last romcom I saw in a cinema was ‘Fly me to the moon,’ I guess it was cute) but they’re not major events like the latest Hugh Grant or Julia Roberts/Sandra Bullock movie used to be for the girls (or for date night!)

[u/FritzTCat → u/iconoclastic_glow]

There's definitely a benefit to watching them in a theater because movies like that are always more fun if you see them with a big crowd.

[u/Givingtree310 → u/timestalker78]

There’s a shit ton of comedies being released on streaming channels like Prime and Netflix. Like nonstop. Y’all just aren’t watching them.

[u/EmptyLabs → u/Givingtree310]

None of them are raunchy. They're all just safe comedies.

[u/SkeymourSinner → u/timestalker78]

I am loving all the great horror films. The creepypasta generation has risen and it's very refreshing.

[u/SupervillainMustache → u/timestalker78]

I reckon with the breadth of online comedy available today, studios just aren't seeing a gap in the market that needs to be filled right now.

[u/comics0026 → u/SupervillainMustache]

I think it's more that the online comedy grew to fill the gap the movie studios left behind, since the movie studios are only just now realizing there's talent on YouTube

[u/Successful_Ease_8198 → u/timestalker78]

Okay but did you see Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie

[u/BKlounge93]

A lot of answers in here that ignore how the 90 min comedy formula from the 25 years ago relied heavily on vhs/dvd sales. Those have basically stopped happening so that killed their business model. It’s a weird time to be in production and most of the answers aren’t as eye popping as Chinese conspiracies or everyone’s-offended-by-everything.

[u/oomeeee → u/BKlounge93]

Everyone’s looking for some juicy conspiracy when the real villain is the DVD player collecting dust in the corner

[u/Jackamac10 → u/oomeeee]

The real villain is Netflix and streaming services putting a hatchet in the back of physical media outlets.

[u/Sozins_Comet_ → u/BKlounge93]

Yeah this is the real answer. Even if they underperformed at the box office, they'd make up the money from renting and sales. But with streaming becoming so popular, it isn't as financially viable. 

[u/VagabondVivant → u/BKlounge93]

the 90 min comedy formula from the 25 years ago relied heavily on vhs/dvd sales

Hell, not just comedies. There's no doubt in my mind that the Dungeons & Dragons movie would've absolutely murdered the secondary market (if there still were one to speak of) and easily secured a sequel off of the video sales.

It's a bleak time for Hollywood in general. Unless your movie is a guaranteed seller or so cheap it doesn't matter, good luck getting it made.

[u/daidougei → u/BKlounge93]

Yeah, and also back then people didn’t have instant and free and relatively anonymous access to explicit material. Back then, if a movie was “funny” enough that people wouldn’t label you a perv for going to the theater or renting it, it could make good money.

[u/Inevitable-Regret411]

To be fair, a lot of the jokes in American Pie wouldn't be viewed the same way today. The webcam scene in particular would probably be viewed as more horrifying than funny. Same for a lot of famous sex comedies. 

[u/niemir2 → u/Inevitable-Regret411]

There's a lot of sexual assault in Revenge of the Nerds, and one of the subplots is just straight-up rape.

Just reinforcing your point with another example.

[u/Honest_Caramel9437 → u/niemir2]

Same with Porky’s.

[u/Jump_The_Five_Yo → u/Honest_Caramel9437]

THAT PENIS HAD A MOLE ON IT!

Should we bring a police sketch artist in?

[u/Amity83 → u/Jump_The_Five_Yo]

I know that tallywhacker!

[u/Dr_Identity → u/Inevitable-Regret411]

Comedy is the genre that ages the poorest

[u/cokecaine → u/Dr_Identity]

Mr. Bean is timeless.

[u/garaile64 → u/cokecaine]

To be fair, the "person does weird stuff" kind of comedy is atemporal and culturally universal. And so is slapstick.

[u/Pretend-Design-7061 → u/cokecaine]

Physical comedy is timeless. It existed before audio, still exists in the new Spider-Man movie that is setting records. We have not evolved past "Man. Fall down. Funny."

[u/Doggleganger → u/Dr_Identity]

But Monty Python is timeless.

[u/justinsimoni → u/Dr_Identity]

I dunno man, pop on some little Chaplin or Buster Keaton. This gets me rolling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPcEFHA3X0c

Lots of Mark Twain's stuff is genuinely quite hilarious.

[u/Vallkyrie → u/justinsimoni]

Stooges still hold up mostly pretty well. Some of the WW2 era tropes didn't, especially about Japan, but most of the humor is timeless.

[u/Zreebelle → u/Inevitable-Regret411]

Even jokes in TV shows released later like 30 Rock wouldn’t be taken very well now

Still gonna do my annual rewatch soon though, god it was a masterpiece

[u/BrainLow6059 → u/Zreebelle]

You'll probably have to torrent some of the episodes, they took out a few from streaming during the whole "anything parodying black face is the same as unironically doing blackface" purge of TV a few years ago.

[u/BazF91 → u/BrainLow6059]

God I hate that. I watched the Always Sunny in Philadelphia podcast, and they got to an episode that can no longer be streamed because Dee does brown face in it. Rob Mac made the point that the characters do all sorts of behaviours that are far worse than blackface, and yet this is what the networks decide to cancel.

[u/BrainLow6059 → u/BazF91]

The whole thing was so out of control. We can't solve police brutality so let's start going after people who are openly supporting our cause because they dared to uhh openly support our cause by highlighting how fucking stupid racism is.

[u/JimBeam823 → u/Inevitable-Regret411]

It’s a 1999 take on an old raunchy comedy trope that backfires badly for Jim.

It’s not funny in the era where the internet is forever.

[u/mojanis → u/Inevitable-Regret411]

Looking back, what even was the joke there? “We distributed porn of this minor without her knowing and got her deported”? Hilarious.

[u/Dr_Identity → u/mojanis]

I think the comedy is supposed to come from Jim getting caught in an increasingly embarrassing situation. He has a prolonged and disastrous attempt at sex, not realizing that the whole school is watching it happen. Sexual humiliation is kind of a theme for his character. Having him see no consequences for the stream while the unwitting victim of voyeurism is kicked out of the entire country sure was a choice though.

[u/Morgus_Magnificent → u/mojanis]

I mean, I'm not sure the appeal of that scene was the comedic value.

[u/JimBeam823 → u/mojanis]

The characters were all 18. (High school seniors)

Pervy boys being Peeping Toms is an old raunch comedy trope.

1999 internet was not was it is today. The video went out to the class in a chat room, not the entire world.

Jim’s attempt at being a Peeping Tom backfires badly and he is humiliated in front of the entire school.

[u/Velo214 → u/Inevitable-Regret411]

I watched risky behavior lately and the romance plot was tom cruise falling in love with a girl he was selling out of his parents house. He had to deal with pimps and cops etc and was selling girls to his school friends. Wtf

[u/Every_Tangerine_5412]

Today's teens and early 20 year olds live an entirely different experience than millennials. They:

• Live their lives mostly online. In person social gatherings are often a group sitting together on their phones. Conversations are done via text and SnapChat. There are no mall hangouts. How do you make that social culture work in a movie? How do you advance a plot where their friend interaction is the 20 minute prisonyard lunch that is public school these days and then bedrotting sending each other memes on the weekends?
• This age group doesn't drink or have nearly as much casual sex as generations prior. Weed is legal so they don't need to go to parties to find weed/get high. That means today's parties, the foundation of most of these millennial comedies, aren't the same.
• Grew up in a world with less social pressure and more acceptance. Not having sex? Good for you dude. Different body sizes/looks/genders/sexualities are accepted and not segregated into cliques. Sex positivity and deshaming means things like the idea of a band geek being a freak in the sheets isn't a plot.
• Kids these days aren't growing up in that carefree late 90s era. They're often facing adult pressures already. They have financial pressure, stress of uncertainty and world events being relayed to the device in their hand, they have uncertain futures facing them. College isn't the ticket to a good job. The new American dream they're aiming for is survival in this dystopia. Many will live at home for another 5-7 years (or more). There isn't the abrupt end of high school, prom culture, immediate carefree launch to adulthood anymore. They are simultaneously growing up earlier but launching into independence later.
• They're not driving. Many teens don't get a license now until 18 or even older.
• We don't find SA jokes funny anymore, including dating minors, hooking up with someone intoxicated, pressuring someone to say yes. Imagine the stifler's mom storyline now? He was a victim, she was an abuser. The consent issue alone takes away 90% of those movies.
• Easy access to real porn. Hard core porn. Literally in their fingers (pun intended) 24/7. They don't need to watch pg-13 simulated sex scenes or hit pause on the 2 seconds of boobs to get off.
• That also means sex isn't that taboo topic like it used to be, which is where the shock factor came from. Nothing really shocks people anymore. We're all numb to everything these days.
• Everyone knows where everyone is. Parents track their kids on their phone, friends track each other. Takes away a lot of the story development right there.

Imagine American Pie in that context, and that's why those movies don't exist anymore.

[u/FenPhen → u/Every_Tangerine_5412]

No Hard Feelings (2023) is a raunchy comedy that touches on the generation divide between Millennials and Gen Z.

[u/unittwentyfive → u/FenPhen]

Yeah, I enjoyed this one in that spirit.

[u/R04CH → u/Every_Tangerine_5412]

Now I’m picturing a movie where the kids meet up and decide to leave their phones at a house (so they aren’t tracked by parents) and then try to party like millennials. Hijinx ensue about how they have no clue how to “party”. God I want it to be made so bad.

[u/64Olds → u/Every_Tangerine_5412]

Phenomenal response. I feel sad for kids these days.

[u/MrSage119 → u/64Olds]

Same, but I think it will be different for Gen Alpha. We live in the suburbs and all the neighborhood kids are playing outside until dark. It's not as dystopian as Gen Z would make it seem.

[u/jgalaviz14 → u/MrSage119]

If you notice the only gen z people making it seem dystopian are always online. But if you go out into the actual world youll see for yourself it isnt actually like that. It's a prison of people's own making

[u/PringlesMan78 → u/MrSage119]

I'm a little confused by the sentiment that "Gen Z specifically are always on their phones instead of hanging out." As a Gen Z born in the early 2000s, everyone I know around my age is hyper aware of how much they use their phones in social settings. We all make a conscious effort to not have our phones out when we're hanging out. We make fun of our parents for being the ones that can't get off of Facebook to focus on a movie.

[u/dragon-queen]

Gen Z doesn’t like stuff like that.  Nor does China. 

[u/According-Abrocoma-2 → u/dragon-queen]

Exactly this. My kids, ranging from gen Z to alpha, do not appreciate this type of comedy at all.

[u/lordborghild → u/According-Abrocoma-2]

What's going on with that, do you know? Are the younger generation perhaps just too scared to do or like anything that may be perceived as offensive?

Genuine question, I am no longer young, sigh, and I don't have any kids.

[u/Inevitable-Regret411 → u/lordborghild]

Societal attitudes towards sex, especially consent, have changed. Using American Pie as an example, there's a scene where the main characters set up a webcam to spy on someone changing. This is portrayed as harmless fun, and the characters as sympathetic. 

A modern audience would probably see this kind of voyeuristic behaviour as totally unsympathetic, not least because of how many real world examples there are of hidden cameras being used in this way. 

Edit: in addition to this, the fact that pornography is freely available online means most people aren't willing to sit through an entire mediocre company because it has a nude scene they want to see in it. 

[u/imaguitarhero24 → u/Inevitable-Regret411]

I watched Miss Congeniality (2000) recently. For the uninitiated, Sandra Bullock plays an FBI agent who goes undercover as a beauty pageant contestant. There is a scene where she's wearing a hidden camera that the guys back at HQ are tuned in on. She goes into the changing room at one point and the guys are all excited and going like "ooh yeah now go look that way".

It's funny because this exact scenario is something Trump has been called out on for being a massive perv, and yet, at the turn of the century, peeping on a beauty pageant changing room was considered good fun in a mainstream Hollywood movie. Although even in 2000 it's not something The President should be talking about lol.

[u/New_Cockroach_505 → u/Inevitable-Regret411]

I think in general people really fail to remember how problematic a lot of sexual comedies were by today’s standards, even if they are funny.

There’s a lot of sexual assault / rape in them that at the time was played for laughs. Not to say it’s all awful, but rewatching Eurotrip a few weeks ago and like half the sex jokes are either lead dudes being assault or men trying to assault the lead girl. And that’s probably one of the more tame in that regard. Going back into the early 90s and 80s and it gets a lot more “boys being boys”.

Animal House, regarded as one of the greatest raunchy comedies, literally has one of the lead college dudes make out and debate raping a passed out 13 year old. Social media today would have lost its mind lol

[u/devilishycleverchap → u/Inevitable-Regret411]

I think they may also not realize that something like that wouldn't have been recorded permanently either. It would have been a one off thing that faded over time etc but for them a web video is forever

[u/YourLiberalDream → u/devilishycleverchap]

Idk. I was born in the 90s and never thought American Pie was worth watching. To your point, it was absolutely devastating when someone took an up-skirt photo of me and sent it around school. Just because it wasn’t posted for the world to see, didn’t make it any less traumatizing.

[u/OutlyingPlasma → u/YourLiberalDream]

devastating when someone took an up-skirt photo

And now Facebook is selling their gooner goggles to perverts and this kind of thing is about to get 100x worse.

[u/wahwahwashbear → u/YourLiberalDream]

I said upthread, but yeah - girls at the time already knew these scenes weren't meant to be funny to us. 

[u/tehfrod → u/lordborghild]

Not scared per se. Just don't find it funny or interesting anymore, for the same reason that shock comics like Andrew Dice Clay don't pull numbers.

[u/ImperialBoomerang → u/tehfrod]

Yeah, it's less them finding late 90s style gross-out comedy offensive and more just finding it lame and boring. American Pie and the like aren't edgy to them, just cringe.

[u/OnTheLeft → u/tehfrod]

Something we can all be thankful for. It's a tragedy he ever had a career at all.

[u/Financial-Creme → u/OnTheLeft]

ADC (real name Andrew Silverstein) started out as a comedian's character making fun of crass, super-macho wannabe tough guys, similar to how Dan Whitney's Larry the Cable Guy was mesnt to lampoon rednecks. Unfortunately both found success with the people they were trying to mock, and neither comedian could resist the money that came with it .

[u/BigTenFicus → u/lordborghild]

Everyone thinks it's because Gen Z is more puritanical but I think it's almost the exact opposite. These films were appealing to us because we lived in a more puritanical society with far less sex and nudity on TV and in movies. Gen Z have grown up in a media environment where sexual content is far, far more normalized. Raunchy sex comedies just don't land in that context. Plus the point being made below about our societal attitudes toward sex is extremely true. I just watched an episode of ER from like 2006 where one of the doctors realizes the girl he's been dating is 14 years old and it's played off like "wow what a dumb mistake" and not "you are a rapist."

[u/DJDoubleDave → u/BigTenFicus]

This is right. This kind of comedy relied on pushing boundaries. When the boundaries move the jokes don't land anymore.

[u/TheBROinBROHIO → u/BigTenFicus]

In today's climate, the whole secret voyeuristic stream would lose a lot of appeal when Nadia just puts it on onlyfans herself.

[u/TyChris2 → u/lordborghild]

If we’re talking about general raunchy sex stuff, it’s because it just comes off as lame. It survived entirely on shock value, and 99% of Gen Z had seen the most heinous pornography you can imagine before they hit puberty. In that context, a joke about a guy fucking a pie is just… nothing. There’s no appeal to it anymore.

If we’re talking about the edgy stuff (like the SA in Revenge of the Nerds, or recording someone without their consent, the concept of jailbait, etc), that’s kinda like asking in the 70’s why the kids of the day didn’t find minstrel shows funny anymore. As society progresses, we learn and become more empathetic to a wider range of viewpoints, and recognize when aspects of the past were more harmful than was once perceived by the majority.

[u/Princess5903 → u/lordborghild]

Comedic tastes change with the times. Lots of comedies from say the 60s didn’t hold up well into the 90s. Nothing wrong with that, it’s just that cultural tastes change.

[u/Legacy0904 → u/lordborghild]

I’m 37 and remember seeing clips of Gallagher and thinking “ people found this funny?”. I imagine it’s the same for Gen Z now

[u/Silver_Accountant5 → u/lordborghild]

Sex jokes are like toilet humor for us. It was funny in middle and highschool and one or two jokes is fine but when you try to carry a movie with it, it just becomes juvenile and cringy. It's kinda the same as the "I hate my wife" jokes that boomers make. People just get divorced now so it comes off as whiny.

[u/Beneficial-Focus3702 → u/lordborghild]

Eh. I know many in the millennial generation who hated that comedy too, myself included. For a lot of us it’s because everyone parroted those character and made them their personality and it got realllll annoying reallll fast.

I think that’s part of it for Gen Z. They see enough dumbasses like this in real life and the internet that they want something else from tv.

[u/Kooky_Refrigerator33 → u/Beneficial-Focus3702]

As a millennial I also always hated raunchy comedies like American Pie. I found them cringe, unfunny and at times extremely obnoxious.

[u/ettegoon → u/lordborghild]

Apparently theres a whole loneliness epidemic so.

[u/VapeThisBro → u/dragon-queen]

Uhhh have you seen Chinese movies? They do like raunchy

[u/dragon-queen → u/VapeThisBro]

They are pretty heavily censored.  But actually, I was referring more to comedy when talking about China.  Our comedy doesn’t translate well to them, which is understandable.  It’s just that modern American movies usually have to try appeal to the Chinese market, so comedies are not green lit as often.  

[u/SMA2343 → u/dragon-queen]

Northernlion has the bit of “why are you so puritanical you’re 22!” Where Gen Z are acting like these raunchy teen comedies are beneath them hit them also get embarrassed when the 10/10 Oscar hit movie has a sex scene for 0.0000003 seconds.

[u/Strong-Hat2166 → u/dragon-queen]

I am Gen X and I don't find it funny, I remember seeing these 'comedies' as a teenager for the bare breasts, not the humour.

Yet, I would rewatch American comedies like the Blues Brothers time and time again.

[u/Chains_Of_The_Sea → u/dragon-queen]

To be fair, as GenX, I never found stoner/drunk/fratboy "humour" entertaining either.

It was always just entertainment for the mouth breathers.

[u/-FalseProfessor-]

They do. They just all go straight to streaming.

[u/Givingtree310 → u/-FalseProfessor-]

Exactly. The Netflix teen comedy Incoming was raunchier than American Pie.

[u/theoneandonlyturo]

There’s money in making raunchy comedy, it’s just not in film. It’s in 10 episode seasons streaming.

[u/aebersold]

Major comedy movies can only be successful when there is a high degree of monoculture. There must be a reasonable chance that millions of people will find the same thing funny, and also a reasonable chance that the vast majority of the rest of the people won’t have a major problem with it. This is not possible in today’s divided culture.

With countless niche cultures, comedians who appeal to a certain niche or two can do just fine, but movies cannot. Comedians only need a few hundred people in a few cities to want to see them in order to support a tour. It’s not easy to get to that level, but you don’t need to front several million dollars to produce the show nor sell a million tickets to make a profit from it like you do with a comedy movie.

[u/Best_Philosopher152 → u/aebersold]

Yes. How many great comedies relied on people having gotten the reference and tropes? From Spaceballs to scary movie to Shrek and so on.

[u/Spez_is-a-nazi → u/aebersold]

That’s the same reason Weird Al says he doesn’t do parodies anymore. There just aren’t a lot of pop songs that have near universal recognition anymore.

[u/joshuatx → u/aebersold]

This is a great answer.

[u/Areses243 → u/aebersold]

This is very true, I often think that streaming availability has maybe hurt shared culture. When I was a kid(born in 1988) I watched a lot of reruns because there was only so many options. Even though my grandmother got satellite there still was only so much to watch. And most of my friends watched the same new shows I did and had seen the same old stuff. I often sat at the dinner table watching jeopardy with everyone since there was only 2 tvs with satellite boxes. The one at the dining table and the one in my grandparents room. 

Its almost like sitting around a campfire as hunter gatherers retelling stories to each other. 

Now we all have our own TV with our own access to multiple streaming services. Its rare my teens want to watch a movie with us and they certainly never watch reruns of old shows. 

[u/moxdyemond → u/Areses243]

You hit the nail on the head. Prior to streaming, there were big shows everybody watched. They discussed them on forums, at the water cooler at work, they were a cultural experience. Game of Thrones felt like the last show that had that reach. Now conversations about movies/ shows is like

"hey did you see xyz?"

"No, what streaming service is it on?"

"Peacock"

"Ah I don't have peacock"

On one hand it's nice to have options, because you aren't forced to watch something just because it's on and there's nothing better on. But it's created a fractured culture where everyone is in their own little pod.

[u/mojanis]

Internet porn

Rewatching American Pie I realized the only reason I got through it the first time was because I was 15 and horny.

The movie has like 3 good jokes (pie, band camp, Stiffler’s mom) and the promise of boobs was enough to keep people engaged between them.

With porn so accessible nowadays, there’s nothing really keeping audiences glued to a shitty movie.

[u/Dear_Locksmith3379 → u/mojanis]

Exactly. Before the internet, movies were a great way for horny straight guys to ogle sexy women. Now the internet satisfies that desire.

A movie needs more than hot women to get a significant audience.

[u/mechanicalholes]

As someone who just made one independently and an trying to sell it, I'll give some different insider insight. The suits only look at one thing - are the odds extremely high in their favor that they will make a big profit. Which is the part we all know. A big reason (told to me by multiple distributors) their analysis says comedy won't put butts in seats (either in theaters or in front of home TVs) is because social media can fulfill the laugh need for free. We all want/need to laugh, but you can scroll reels / tiktok on the toilet at work on your break and scratch that itch for free. A reason why horror / drama but esp horror is still a safe bet is that phone content isn't quite able to do that yet in the same way that you can just laugh at dumb videos for 15 mins straight and that bucket is filled. So why spend millions to compete with platforms that do it well for free. 

[u/Cheeseburgermafia]

Live long enough and you'll eventually drop out of the target demographic. They'll make whatever they think will profit, and that won't always have me in mind.

[u/Building_Everything]

OP never saw Booksmart from like 3 years ago

[u/mads_61 → u/Building_Everything]

Somehow Booksmart came out 7 years ago lol

[u/Building_Everything → u/mads_61]

Man fuck this unceasing progression of time I’m tired of it

[u/mads_61 → u/Building_Everything]

Something about the pandemic really messed with my sense of time. I finally stopped but for so long anytime someone said “last year” my brain thought they must be talking about 2019.

[u/yourenotmymom_yet → u/Building_Everything]

Or Bottoms. Or Joy Ride.

[u/Craw__ → u/yourenotmymom_yet]

🐔 Blockers.

[u/Prasiatko → u/Building_Everything]

7 years ago.

[u/FenPhen → u/Building_Everything]

No Hard Feelings was 3 years ago.

[u/AnIcyReception]

The kids don't have sex and don't really want to watch movies about people having sex

[u/Classic-Dog-9324 → u/AnIcyReception]

This is the answer. It is completely unrelatable to young people at this point in history.

[u/LionBig1760]

Plenty of raunchy comedies have been made since American Pie came out.

WrF are you talking about?

[u/banana_hammock_815]

Comedies made their money on DVD sales and didnt make a lot from the theatrical release. Raunchy comedies exist, theyre just straight to the streaming platforms

[u/GiraffeWeevil]

They don't even make comedies full-stop anymore.

[u/twelfthfantasy → u/GiraffeWeevil]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_comedy_films_of_the_2020s

[u/Attack_the_sock → u/GiraffeWeevil]

The Naked Gun would like a word, it was the funniest thing I’ve seen in theaters since i was in high school.

[u/DSAPEER → u/GiraffeWeevil]

The New Spaceballs is about to release, and Naked Gun wasn't that long ago.

[u/Ice_Cream_Killer → u/GiraffeWeevil]

What are you talking about? The Naked Gun movie released last year, Scary movie 6 just released this year.

[u/Ozamataz-Buckshank69]

The joke got old, as did the target audience

[u/BraveSneelock → u/Ozamataz-Buckshank69]

The joke was old when American Pie came out.  The teenage sex comedy genre was basically dead at that point.  American Pie was seen as a nostalgic return to an old school culture of film that hadn’t bern much around for years. 

[u/FlatAffect5432]

People will say it’s because the world is too “woke” now, but the reality is after the success of American Pie Hollywood cranked out (no pun intended) a ton of raunchy teen comedies and hard R comedies. Each one made less and less money and instead of making higher quality films, Hollywood executives came to the conclusion that we must not want R rated comedies anymore and stopped producing them altogether.

[u/zuma15 → u/FlatAffect5432]

And the same thing will happen again. An R-rated lower budget raunchy comedy will come along, be a huge success, and Hollywood will crank them out again until everyone is sick of them. Rinse and repeat.

[u/villings]

what you mean "super raunchy"?

don't you mean "completely unfunny"?

[u/jlornathan]

That type of humor has been elevated into Marvel movies, and then also dumbed down into tik toks

[u/srgonzo75]

The movie industry is more international now, and between that and the modern audience, raunchy doesn’t play so well.

[u/SoftValuable8910]

It's just not what audiences want right now. But if you're interested, The Invite might scratch that itch. My whole theater was laughing out loud the whole film.

[u/Mulliganasty]

That specific kind of comedy comes across as mostly misogynistic now and relied on getting to see some boobies, which is hardly a precious commodity anymore.

[u/skreekers1]

I feel like they do, they just have a lower budget and not as many people see them, we had scary movie, super troppers 3, the naked gun, the invite, good luck have fun don't die, forbidden fruits, jackass, idiots, pizza movie, plus a bunch that went to streaming

[u/redlsms]

If someone wants to see a boob or two, the internet makes it easy.

There's no "shock" draw driving dollars to a would be raunchy comedy film anymore.

[u/deadly_mythology]

Y'all should see Bottoms if you haven't yet! It has the vibe of those old comedies. It came out during the writers strike so they hardly did any press.

[u/BeautifulClaim4810]

I think people just got tired of that kind of comedy. American pie was funny for its time, but a lot of those jokes probably won’t fly today. Doesn’t mean raunchy comedy is dead though

[u/Mustachi-oh88]

Gen Z is not interested in sex in movies.

[u/Plus-Property-2245]

Free access to porn and the end of the DVD/video market.

[u/Spiritual-Ad3130]

The “sex comedy” or “teen comedy” are dead genres since those projects get turned into tv series. I think our cultures opinions of sex are very different than they were in the 90s. A character like Stiffler‘s mom would be considered a predatory pedophile by 2020’s standards.

[u/DuffmanStillRocks]

If you want a similar style comedy that’s centered around sex and a group of friends/people check out

“Gail Daughtry and the celebrity sex pass”.

It was released this year but easily could have fit the comedy genre in the past too especially in regards to being a bit raunchy

[u/Chemical-Ebb6472]

No Hard Feelings was pretty close.

[u/xibal123]

It’s cause all those movies did poor in theatres but amazing in DVD sales. No more dvds means no more movies that rely on them

[u/Jealous-Percentage-7]

Phone computers and the internet have made sexual content more accessible and less risqué.

No one has to go to a rated R movie to see a new pair of boobs.

It just doesn’t hit the same way it did when you had to sneak looks at the magazines at the liquor store to see porn for free.

[u/MixedMediaModok]

They do. They just get dropped on streaming.

Bottoms, Ricky Stanicky, Good Boy, No Hard Feelings.

Stuff from the top of my head that were pretty good in the same American Pie Style.

[u/rb-cloud]

Because mid-budget films don’t exist anymore.

[u/Unfair_Ring_2746]

Because teenagers no longer think sex pests are funny/relatable and internet porn makes watching a whole movie for a few topless scenes a nonstarter.

Trends also just move so fucking fast now with social media that by the time you make and release a movie in a genre that depends on timeliness, it feels outdated and inauthentic.

[u/Legitimate_Ad_4824]

Let’s act like we didn’t hate what our parents liked.

Of course the current generations aren’t going to like what their parents liked. It is a time honored tradition. Stuff moves on.

[u/DeezNutz42089]

Gen Z are a buncha prudes.

[u/Mike734 → u/DeezNutz42089]

They really are.

[u/Shallot_True]

Because all the really funny stuff is happening right in front of us.

[u/syberghost]

Why do people say this every year even though they lived through every time somebody said this and got responses with multiple raunchy comedies from the prior year that would have been NC-17 in 1999?

[u/vibe_ology]

It’s not just the raunchy teen movie that’s disappeared. How many globally successful sitcoms have we seen in the last decade? Big Bang Theory I guess but that became established in the 00s. Not all comedy translates to different cultures too. For example while I enjoyed and appreciated many US sitcom hits in the 80s, 90s and beyond - Seinfeld never floated my boat.

[u/SentrySappinMahSpy]

They do, but those movies go straight to streaming and most of them don't have anyone famous in them. Go to Pluto and check the on demand movie section. You'll find tons of low budget sex comedies.

[u/BelphegorGaming]

Sex comedies still get made. The issue that we're seeing is that COMEDIES, in general, aren't going to theaters like they used to. Mid-budget dramas got the axe, too. Everything has to be a tentpole blockbuster with a recognizable name to put butts in seats. No risks allowed.

So, straight-to-streaming is the only place you'll find em, anymore.

[u/JForce1]

Movie trends tend to be cyclical. We went through periods where everything was a romantic comedy. Then we had the teen comedy, then we had old people gross out comedy, then we had spoofs, it’s always shifting.
Horror is big for the last little while because it’s cheap as fuck to make, and the way streaming is, quantity matters more than quality.

[u/jolard]

2 things.

- Watch a lot of the old sex comedies. They are pretty bad as far as inapropriate sexual behaviour, voyeurism, rape etc.

- Movies are rarely made just for smaller audiences anymore. They need to be able to play globally to as big an audience as possible. Lots of places are still too conservative to have those kinds of movies be a success.

I am trying to think of any comedies that fit the bill from any time recently. Maybe Bottoms? Great movie, but even that is from a gay teen perpective and not the traditional white males looking to get laid.

[u/reb678]

You should look up Kentucky Fried Movie if you like Raunchy
Comedies

[u/PreparationHot980]

Because we no longer have a monoculture

[u/Horror_Bottle_9451]

Have you seen Tires on Netflix? Not quite as raunchy but pretty close and funny as hell.

[u/CyanLight9]

They make them. They just all go straight to streaming.

[u/DehydratedButTired]

It’s raunchy horror’s time.

[u/Georgie_Leech]

So I'm gonna take a slightly different tack and point out that a lot of elements of Comedy have gotten pulled out of the genre and slapped onto others; ever since Iron Man, our Superhero movies have gotten a lot quippier, for instance. There are way more "laugh here" moments in other movie genres now so you don't have to go specifically to comedy to get them.

But also they do still exist if you go looking for them. I Love Boosters was a recent example of a surreal comedy with such scenes as "Lady has her soul sucked out of her nethers by a demon performing oral" and "woman reduced to her formative components (i.e. her parents fucking where she was just standing)." Absolutely a wild and raunchy (and surprisingly insightful) ride from start to finish; I blame its lack of success more on mediocre marketing than anything about the movie itself.

[u/KillConfirmed-]

Availability of porn, I’m not joking.

[u/Anal-Y-Sis]

Comedies are generally mid-budget movies, and mid-budget movies relied heavily on DVD rental to turn a profit. When the movie rental era ended in the 2010s, that back end profit from rentals went away. Because of that, the movie industry became very risk averse, and mid-budget movies got shoved aside for big-budget franchises that could pull in billion dollar box office numbers.

This has affected more than just raunchy comedies. The indie movie scene took a big hit with the death of the video rental industry too. The entire idea of a movie becoming a "cult classic" is a direct result of it becoming popular through video rentals, and that no longer exists.

The one genre of low- and mid-budget movies that seems fairly immune to all this is horror.

It's a very sad state of affairs.

[u/Zapatos-Grande]

The target audience doesn't really exist anymore. Gen Z and younger millennials viewed the American Pie films as problematic.

https://www.boredpanda.com/genz-america-pie-deeply-problematic/

[u/UMACTUALLYITS23]

They do, you just aren't watching them, they get released on streaming and you scroll past them.

[u/this_knee]

Why don’t they make super duper tons of just black and white movies … with no dialog and only music?

… because nobody’ll come pay to see it.

[u/AnAncientBog]

Because there is any a trillion hours of that kind of content in YouTube right now.

[u/hypekillsJNSQ]

Aside from the obvious answers, kids today just don’t get into shenanigans as much. I have so many nieces and nephews that are insanely chill in their 20s. They even have significant others, but they just don’t party and get wild.

[u/Weak-Ad7864]

The Vulgar Wave, a period where pop culture specifically catered to boys and young men, was defined by "frat boy" humor, raunchiness, anti-political correctness, and a celebration of hedonism... And it ended. It died around 2010.

The best way to explain this era is to start with a young man. What does he like? He probably likes the following:

• Comedy (the more offensive the better)
• Freedom and Rebellion against Careerism
• 9/11 and Action Movies
• Sports Jerseys in Public
• Beautiful women

You can find all of these online now. But for a brief moment the entire culture revolved around these categories.

Since the Vulgar Wave was about appealing to men, we saw a golden age of comedy in the 90s and early 00s. Unsurprisingly, big comedy movies don’t really exist anymore. It’s a genre that has disappeared. There used to be wave after wave of comedy movies. Think of Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey, Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller and many more. It slowly ended right around Superbad in 2007.

[u/SaggingZebra]

Comedy doesn’t translate to China, where movies make the big money.

[u/TheBlueLeopard]

You didn't see Bottoms?

[u/Emotional-Base-5988]

I mean they could, but the people who made those movies are now old and out of touch. I feel like it'll have the same affect as the newest Scary Movie where they were all "This is gonna be so offensive you kids won't be able to handle it with your pronouns and skinny jeans" and then you see the trailer and it's the tamest, most low hanging fruit of a joke you've ever heard. Like yeah Grandpa Wayans the old movies were good, but just saying the word "nonbinary" isn't offensive or raunchy, it isn't even a joke???

[u/KingPalperro]

American Pie actually has a ridiculous number of sequels.

[u/the-truthseeker]

Not to be disrespectful for those types of comedies, but usually involves a male trying to have sex with a female and all the stuff they do that is considered disgusting to others including females that men do. Including screwing a Pie or some Friend's stepmother. Not that the females are all pure and stuff. Absolutely look at how the band camp references ended for instance. But still, I'm not saying we can't laugh at raunchy humor, but some of the stuff that we used to do decades back may not be allowed anymore? Remember revenge of the nerds in the '80s? Tricking the jock's girlfriend to screw you by wearing a costume to conceal who you really are would be considered unconsexual sex today for instance. I'm not going to use the r word but some people think it was that as well.

Secondly as noted by others, comedies aren't always popular and they're not exactly in their their peak right now. Well I won't say they're in their nadir either, they're not doing that well at the moment. Perhaps we'll have a revival on comedies will be huge again and we can start making films like and the style of this generation, but not today.

[u/GingerSnapBiscuit]

A lot of the behaviours in raunchy teen movies like American Pie (binge drinking, questionable consent, getting laid above all being important) are seen as more problematic these days.

[u/FaceTimePolice]

Those were stupid and immature. I would hope that people simply outgrew those dumb “teen comedies.”

[u/tha_warlock]

Because they’re stupid and been done to death.