TV animation has been going through a rough patch of late. HBO Max has been on a streak of removing animated content from its site, such as Olan Rogers’ “Final Space” and Owen Dennis’ “Infinity Train.” Netflix has consistently canceled plans for its animated content, such as an adaptation of Jeff Smith’s graphic novel series “Bone,” and Lisa Hanawalt’s “Tuca and Bertie” was just axed for the second time in its history, this time by Adult Swim. However, one show has stood strong against the creative hell that animators have had to endure, and that would be Netflix’s “Big Mouth.”
A coming-of-age adult comedy, the show tells the stories of a group of American middle-schoolers who begin to see “hormone monsters” that influence them to go through the changes of puberty. The show’s depiction of the more sexual aspect of puberty has proven divisive over just how graphic and edgy it gets with its cast of young teenage characters. With the recent release of the sixth season, I was optimistic to finally give it a watch and see what a show with this much long-running success could provide. Unfortunately, I was sorely disappointed, because “Big Mouth” is one of the worst TV shows that I’ve ever seen in my life.
While fans of the show are probably rolling their eyes at yet another writer giving this show a negative review, I really wish I could’ve considered myself one of those fans. It has a solid premise that opens itself up to a number of potentially interesting ideas, allowing itself to venture into taboo issues surrounding sex, sexual identity and gender. It almost delivers on that premise, providing us with characters that have a wide variety of identities who are voiced by a talented cast, and giving us episodes that present touchy themes such as how women can struggle with decisions about childbirth, or how asexual people can feel judged or pressured by those around them for not engaging in sexual activity. These ideas are not always found in media of its kind, and it was a nice gesture to see them attempted. I say “attempted” because the majority of the show is tainted by its most glaring issues — its writing and humor.
The humor in “Big Mouth” is absolutely atrocious. It’s a nonstop barrage of some of the filthiest jokes you’ve ever heard, the most common one usually involving a characters’ genitals, what comes out of their genitals, how they feel about others’ genitals, etc. Of course, jokes like that are to be expected and frankly welcomed with a show of this type, especially one focusing on hormonal middle-schoolers –– “South Park” is just as raunchy, if not more so. If written well enough, this kind of humor can be hilarious. Unlike something like “South Park,” the crude humor on display in “Big Mouth”is far less enjoyable because, more often than not, it serves to interrupt a lot of the potentially compelling messages on display.
In a good adult-oriented cartoon, the mature humor often ties into some sort of commentary. It adds on to what the show is trying to say and exemplifies the message through the shock factor of its comedy. In “Big Mouth,” the shock gets in the way of commentary. Take the aforementioned episode concerning childbirth. In this episode, the pregnant girlfriend of Jessi’s dad is diagnosed with CPD, and is told that she will more than likely need a C-section to safely deliver her baby, despite the fact that she had been wanting to deliver the baby naturally. This seriously distresses her, and Jessi’s dad only worsens things by showing a lack of understanding as to why she’d be upset. When she’s feeling her worst, Jessi sits with her and has a talk about how she was a C-section baby and turned out well, and that maybe it won’t be the worst outcome after all. The two characters really comfort one another and bond, and for a brief two minutes it was a genuinely nice scene. However, it lasts all of two minutes, and the buildup to it has characters discussing how they were hoping they could play harmonica shirtless as the baby is being born and mistaking the acronym CPD as standing for “California Pizza Ditchin.” The show seems unable to let a scene tackling a serious topic take the topic seriously, and keeps throwing joke after joke into these moments as if it’s afraid to let the audience go through a scene without one.
In other adult cartoons that deal with serious issues —like Netflix’s own “BoJack Horseman” —, they know when to slow down, stop the humor for a moment and give the show some room to show its more emotional or dramatic side. None of that is present in “Big Mouth” for any longer than a couple of minutes at best, and it always is ready to rush through its more engaging commentary for more jokes about characters having sex with their furniture or stealing their friend’s parent’s underwear. If it wanted to be nothing but these jokes, that would be a different story, but for a show that tries to tackle heavier topics, it lacks the dramatic weight it needed to make its commentary truly impactful.
Despite all of this, when people tell me they like “Big Mouth,” I see where they’re coming from. It could be that the show’s sense of humor just appeals to others more than it does to me, and I do appreciate the show’s focus on underrepresented groups in media just as much as anyone else would. In particular, the show deserves a bit of praise for including an asexual character and treating issues that come about concerning their asexuality with admirable care and respect. Maybe I shouldn’t be complaining about the show like this at all considering the relationship animation has with streaming services right now. But I can’t help but feel that the money, time and effort that went into creating this show could’ve gone to something better and that these themes and ideas deserved a better script that develops them as they should be. I love animation, and in a time where so little of it has a good chance of survival on streaming, I think the industry deserves better than “Big Mouth.”
