Documentaries about our celebrities, stars, and perceived role models, even if they are trying to function as feature length promotional videos of their subjects—like the Katy Perry documentary Part of Me, for example—tap into our celebrity culture, what it says about who we are, and what that culture does to the real people behind the image. It’s a snapshot of our culture. It’s cultural exegesis, if you give it the chance to be. The window that these types of movies give us into our culture makes them not only ripe for theological dialogue, it also makes them ripe for comedy. Theology points out what is sacred, and satire points out what is ridiculous. (These are not mutually exclusive.)
That’s where Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping comes in. The Lonely Island—the comedy group featuring Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone—is most famous for their Digital Shorts on Saturday Night Live, whose titles are probably too risqué for this forum. Popstar continues a lot of the creative musical silliness from the SNL Digital Shorts, but sets it in a new context – a direct satire of our pop music culture – to hilarious and insightful effect.
The movie uses innumerable cameos to keep the laughs and the cultural relevance flowing, as well as hilarious comedy set pieces. One involving recording artist Seal and a pack of wolves is especially memorable. But the movie’s silliness and satire come together best in its musical numbers. “I’m So Humble” satirizes pop culture’s false humility; “Equal Rights” spoofs the half-hearted attempt by many pop-stars to involve themselves in social issues, only insofar as it helps their image and doesn’t hurt it; and the most explicit and memorable song, “Finest Girl (Bin Laden song),” goes after the hyper-sexualization of pop music that is, on one hand, so fascinated in sex while also seeming to know nothing about it. In an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air podcast, the trio commented: “There’s a lot of bad-sex-metaphor R&B songs out there. This one’s just one degree crazier than someone would probably do.”
This group’s previous film outing, Hot Rod, was pure silly, oddball comedy. It has a cult following (of which I am a proud member), but Popstar‘s satire is relevent and biting, while still being downright silly. It functions as a cohesive collection of everything The Lonely Island has done to this point, while also demonstrating a new maturation into smart cultural satire that may mean a bright future for this trio.
It would be a mistake to write this movie off as a disposable comedy, the same way it was a mistake for me to think that a musical documentary had no theological value back in 2012 when I was surprised by the theological resonance of Katy Perry: Part of Me. Many critics are comparing Popstar to This is Spinal Tap. It will require you to be able to stomach the film’s explicit content (watching their Digital Shorts and imagining them without TV censors is a good litmus test.) But if R-rated comedy is your thing, don’t miss Popstar. Between it’s non-stop laughs, it might just earn your respect too.
