Comparison Of Superbad And 21 Jump Street

Comparison

Superbad and 21 Jump Street fall in the same category when it comes to the frequency of how often the term is used. In both films, the term is used once every eight and a half minutes. Even though both movies feature two or more female main characters, the word dude is strictly used between men. The dude tokens most often occur in the setting of heterosexual male friendships, and the characters who make most use of the term conform to the stereotype of the laid-back male satirizing a stereotypical high school character. In the case of Superbad, the relationships between the three high schoolers Seth, Evan and Fogell and in the case of 21 Jump Street the relationship between Jenko and Schmidt, two police officers going undercover as students and living through a genuine high school experience for a couple of weeks.

However, the results of the use of the term dude in these movies stand in contrast to the use of the term in Funny People. Where the movie has a lot in common with

Superbad and 21 Jump Street, a comic story about young men bonding and satirizing the stereotype of a young male comedy film stereotype, the term dude was only used twice and the movie did not add anything noteworthy to the patterns I found in the other two movies. However, all three characters that use the term conform to the idea of the young male with a laid-back stance to the world and here again the word is strictly used in all-male exchanges.

Results
All three movies focused on normative male relationships between main characters who played stereotypes of the laid-back young man and included subplots of heterosexual romance.

The huge discrepancy between Funny People and the movie duo of Superbad and 21 Jump Street can be explained by the difference in tone. The more serious comedy makes less use of the word yet still proves that it is accepted in the lexicon of the young American male. The results also underline the idea that the use of the word dude correlates to counter-culture: all main characters who used the word had different values and norms of that of mainstream America as they all satirized common stereotypes in American comedy films. Superbad satirized that of the geeks who lack social skills, 21 Jump Street played into the role of the stupid officers who are trying to fit in in high school and Funny People made light of the successful stand-up comedian who is not all that successful and the struggling

graduate.
Additionally, these results show that the use of the word dude is related to counter-culture in high school films. Both Superbad and 21 Jump Street have many scenes set in high school or involving high school students whereas Funny People focuses more on male interaction between graduates at home. The high school setting and lack thereof is one explanation of the dissimilarity between the dude tokens between these three movies.

Discussion
It seems that not much has changed in comedy between the movies Kiesling spoke of that were released between 1982 and 2000 and those I looked at released between 2007 and 2012. Overwhelmingly young male characters can still be heard using the term in the majority of Hollywood comedies today and the stereotype of the usual laid-back dude user is still alive and represented in these movies. However, in opposition of my hypothesis, the setting of the word did not undergo a gender shift as the word dude is strictly used in male-centered exchanges only.
Where Superbad is considered to be an American sex comedy film, 21 Jump Street an American comedy action film and Funny People an American comedy drama film, the movies’ seriousness of tone correlates to the use of the word dude. Superbad and 21 Jump Street scored a significantly higher indexicality on the use of the word dude than Funny People for comic effect.