Unpacking That Controversial 'Licorice Pizza' Scene

Who gets to make certain jokes and can they be certain of their target?

When I took Intro to Improv at Dad’s Garage back in 2014, our group’s terrific instructor Jon Carr stressed a fundamental rule of comedy: not everyone gets to make certain jokes. Carr noted that as a Black man, he was allowed to make certain jokes that his white colleagues could not, and that a fellow improviser who was in a wheelchair could make jokes that Carr, who was not in a wheelchair, could not. In short, when you’re in a minority group, you have permission to poke fun at that group because it’s part of your lived and shared experience that an outsider is not privy to and shouldn’t make jokes about because those jokes can be misconstrued as giving permission to those who see jokes as an acceptable form as bigotry.

Now there are those who will wring their hands about how this is killing comedy and that all jokes must be acceptable and that those who would express any discomfort are simply humorless scolds who want to take a moral high ground in a neverending culture war. But it’s not that simple. I think about a now lost Funny or Die video called “Backlash” where Craig Robinson chases after Judd Apatow and Paul Rudd remarks, “I don’t think I’ve seen Judd run that fast since he saw a quarter on the street.” The joke obviously plays to the anti-Semitic trope that Jews love money (as opposed to everyone else in the world), but it’s Rudd, a Jewish man, making the joke about Apatow, another Jewish man. But if that joke had been made by a non-Jew, I would not be as comfortable with it.

This brings me to a controversial scene in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza. For those who aren’t familiar with the film (which was my second favorite movie of 2021), the film is a coming-of-age romance between teenager Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) and the emotionally stunted 25-year-old Alana Kane (Alana Haim) set in California’s San Fernando Valley of 1973. Gary’s mother Anita (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) works for a small PR firm, and one of their clients is Jerry Frick (John Michael Higgins), who wants to promote his Japanese restaurant with his Japanese wife, Mioko (Yumi Mizui). Here’s the scene (YouTube upload not mine):

When I first saw the scene, I’ll admit I thought it was pretty hilarious. For me, it’s clear that Jerry is the buffoon. It’s also not difficult for me to believe that in 1973 a guy would act this way in public—that his “speaking Japanese” is to do a Japanese caricature to his Japanese wife. The structure of the scene is that we’re meant to laugh at Jerry for his offensive behavior, not agree that this is a proper way to act.

But I’m a white guy and so is Paul Thomas Anderson. I fully respect where my friend Dave Chen, who is Asian-American, is coming from when he says the following:

David Chen @davechensky

Picture this: You’re watching LICORICE PIZZA. It’s brilliant. Then, early on, a buffoonish character drops an Asian caricature. The (mostly white) audience laughs. And now, you gotta think about that laughter the rest of the film. Did you picture it? Because it fucking sucks.

Because look at it from his perspective. For me and my white friends, we’re laughing in discomfort similar to how one would watch The Office. The cringe of the scene is so unbearable that all you can do is laugh at the buffoonish character and be glad that you’re not personally in that situation. But from the perspective of an Asian audience, that laughter can read very differently. It can be read as approval and that it’s good that some guy would behave that way. The laughter is congratulatory for every white person that has an Asian caricature in their back pocket and would love to trot it out but can’t because of “political correctness” or whatever.

In an interview with IndieWire, Anderson was asked directly about the scene, and his answer was, to be kind, less-than-thoughtful:

Now that “Licorice Pizza” has been out a while, how do you feel about the complaints that have been made about the anti-Asian character played by John Michael Higgins, who speaks in an offensive fake Asian accent?

It’s kind of like, “Huh?” I don’t know if it’s a “Huh” with a dot dot dot. It’s funny because it’s hard for me to relate to. I don’t know. I’m lost when it comes to that. To me, I’m not sure what they — you know, what is the problem? The problem is that he was an idiot saying stupid shit? What do you think?

The problem is that his racism could give people permission to laugh at the stereotype, rather than his stupidity.

Right. Well, I don’t know, maybe that’s a possibility. I’m certainly capable of missing the mark, but on the other hand, I guess I’m not sure how to separate what my intentions were from how they landed.

To unpack what Anderson is saying, it seems like he’s confused that anyone would miss his intention. For him, he feels like the intent of the scene is clear: Jerry is an idiot, and his intention is that we laugh at Jerry. If people are laughing with Jerry, Anderson isn’t sure what to do about that, but he seems here to wash his hands of that responsibility.

When artists release their work into the world, they can’t control the reaction of every single person who interacts with that art. For example, I don’t think David Fincher is responsible for people who see Fight Club and then start a fight club. But that being said, Anderson isn’t someone who is ignorant of the world and that there’s a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes right now. For Anderson to get to this scene with Jerry (as well as a later scene where he reappears with a different Japanese wife), I’m not sure what needed to be done. Perhaps he should have cut it altogether, or perhaps he should have handled it with more finesse. I’m not sure what the right answer is here.

But I do know we can’t simply disregard when people feel genuinely hurt. Dave and people like him aren’t feigning offense or have thin skins. They’re not woke scolds trying to gain likes on social media. The scene made them feel belittled regardless of Anderson’s intent because there are going to be white people in the audience that think Jerry’s behavior is good because it makes people of Asian descent feel small. Those white people may have missed the point of the scene, but they still derive enjoyment from cruelty that wasn’t intended yet remained present all the same.

I feel like ultimately you have to look at outcomes. When politicians minimize the votes of minorities by gerrymandering a district, you can say, “Oh, their intent is simply to remain in power.” But the outcome is racist by diminishing the political power of minorities. I think Anderson’s intent is to make fun of Jerry, but the outcome provided a permission structure where Jerry’s behavior is seen as acceptable to those who already harbor racist intent.

Some would argue that you need this scene because Jerry is one of many “bad men” that Gary could turn into:

Super Black Market Asch @MarkAschParody

Licorice Pizza’s a movie about a fatherless boy and every adult man in it is a warning, if he’ll listen, about who he might become. That’s not the only thing the movie’s doing—a lot of what PTA likes is texture for its own sake—but that’s a big part of it.

I’m not sure I agree with this read. I don’t think these men are so much lessons about “who Gary might become” especially when he doesn’t interact with men like Jack Holden (Sean Penn) or Joel Wachs (Benny Safdie). I think the warning, if there is one, is that all of these older men are still performing just like Gary. Gary is a kid playacting as an adult who sometimes playacts as a kid (as seen from his acting career in the film’s first act). Gary keeps trying to make out like he’s older than he is and the other men in this film are also acting. Jerry acts like a racist white guy’s idea of a Japanese person. Jack Holden acts like he’s still a viable movie star and retreats into reliving his glory days. Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper) is all pretense. Joel Wachs pretends to be heterosexual to maintain his political career. Gary is at his best when he stops acting, drops all pretension, and shows vulnerability to Alana.

I think that’s a worthwhile theme and it’s one of the reasons I love Licorice Pizza. But when you have to grind your way through a scene of uncomfortable comedy (and it should be noted that this kind of cringe comedy only factors in the Jerry scene; it’s not a tone that Anderson keeps returning to), then you have missed your mark despite your intentions. I don’t know if there was ever a way for Anderson to “fix” the Jerry scene, but he should have at least been aware that he was crossing into territory where he didn’t fully appreciate how different audiences would see different targets of the joke.