How Neighbors Brought the College Comedy Into the 21st Century

Thank Neighbors for Saving the "Frat House" Comedy

The Frat house has been the setting of countless "college comedies" ever since National Lampoon's Animal House became a hit back in 1978. It's easy to see why as this is the perfect breeding ground for immaturity and irresponsibility, two of the key components of any slapstick comedy. Unfortunately for many of these movies, despite how well regarded they are and how well much of the comedy still lands, they are a product of their time. What I mean by this is that many of the films made before the turn of the century tend to be misogynistic in nature and feature some ideas that aren't up to our current societal standards.

Take Animal House for example, hailed by many as one of the greatest comedies of all-time, features a scene of a college freshman debating whether or not to have sex with a passed out party girl who we later find out is only thirteen (!) and The Mayor's daughter. Now, as we all know in the film he makes the respectable choice and sends her home (albeit in a shopping cart) but the movie makes the scenario feel like it's no big deal and the devil on his shoulder declares him a "Homo" when he makes that decision. 

Maybe that joke would be able to slide between the cracks today, as he doesn't actually make the wrong choice but let's examine another "classic college comedy" by the name of Revenge of the Nerds. Though the movie centers itself on the basic story of a group of college nerds trying to get back at the "jocks" and frat boys it basically ends up as a story about these guys trying to get laid. Spoiler alert: The main character ends up doing just that and in one of the most disgusting ways you could think of. Our would be "Hero" literally date rapes a girl at the end of the film by tricking her into thinking he is someone else while they are fooling around in the dark. Oh and this is our character's major triumph at the end of the film, he is to be applauded for this action.

I don't mention these in attempt discredit those films, they are very much a product of their time and should be viewed through that lens. Animal House still stands as one of the best comedies of all-time for me and rightly so, but if it were made today maybe that particular scene gets cut. The problem is when these old fashioned ways of thinking make it into our modern attempts at these movies. Films that are universally loved like Old School and Van Wilder find themselves at times falling prey to the misogyny and sexism of those that came before them.


A film can succeed in spite of its mistakes and many of these do but with our rapidly changing social landscape I think it is important to look back on these films and analyze these issues. It's fascinating that a movie like Old School, which is paying homage to classics like Animal House, fails to update the material and instead makes the same missteps but in modern day. It's still a hilarious comedy but why does a film released in 2003 think the same controversial jokes made back in the 70's and 80's would still play as innocent humor today?

Will Ferrell's character "Frank the Tank" plays as a fantastic callback to Jim Belushi's Bluto proving within this exact film that you can pay homage to these old movies without bringing back the cringe worthy stuff. Unfortunately this, and many other movies, fail to realize that and end up further glorifying many of the disgusting aspects of campus life. Was it really necessary for Luke Wilson's character to hook up with a high school girl who ends up being his bosses daughter? Not at all and it comes off as a cheap callback to the scene we discussed earlier from Animal House. Once again our main character has been flawed in a way that makes it hard for an audience to be on his side.

Perhaps this is why these are two of the last successful movies of this nature we have seen. With outdated story lines and a rapidly changing social landscape much of what used to be seen as appealing for these stories is now seen as a detriment and just when it looked like the college comedy was best left in the past, modern comedy stars Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg decided to try their hand at it. Their 2014 flick Neighbors, directed by Nicholas Stoller, successful updated the frat house comedy and served as a nice reminder to what their true appeal is.

They brought us back to a familiar place in movies by showing it to us from a completely new perspective. While in the past were pulled into this world by characters attending the college and pledging the fraternity, thus making the film in itself feel like a plea to join Greek life, Neighbors brings us into the world from outside eyes. We watch as new homeowners cope with the fact that a college frat has moved into the house next door, for the first time we are experiencing what a fraternity looks like to the outside eye.

Aside from bringing in a welcomed change in perspective the film also finds ways to bring back what we love about those older films while avoiding making those same mistakes as all its predecessors. Yes there are beautiful women in promiscuous clothes at the frat parties but unlike in most other movies of this nature, we aren't forced to watch our main characters treat them horribly while being expected to maintain our respect for them. That's because this film is about brotherhood and what true friendship really means, and to be able to achieve that we as an audience must be able to connect with and enjoy those characters.

By the end of the first film the prank war between the two sides has escalated to such a high point that it forces those fighting the battle to evaluate what is really going on with their lives. This is where the movie truly takes a turn into the modern times. We get to see what is really going on the head of a college frat guy as we watch the crumbling friendship of Zac Efron and Dave Franco's characters. We also see how growing older allows us to be ignorant to what it was like to be younger and attack those who are only doing what we did before.

As Efron's character lets it all out in his apology to Franco's character we see many of the true motivations behind Greek life. To a lot of these kids it's not just about the party but it's about the brotherhood and the good times they will have together before they move on. The end of college marks the end of an entire era of their lives and the thought of leaving it all behind to go into something unknown is absolutely terrifying. This movie surprisingly understands that and in the midst of some seriously funny comedy they fit in a true college experience... and then they made a sequel.

After leaving the first movie I never thought there was a sequel to be made somewhere in there. It seemed like a pretty straightforward story that allowed for one film, so I was a bit skeptical of another one. I should never doubt the minds of Rogen and Goldberg though, they found a way to not only make another movie but to improve quite a bit on the original. How did they do that you ask? by flipping the tables and having a new sorority move into the now vacant house next door to Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne's characters.

It may seem like the obvious choice but in the end it was the right, and only choice. Having a group of misunderstood college girls move in next door proved to be the perfect setting for a comedy to attack modern society and all the major issues plaguing us right now. Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising calls us out on all the bullshit we have been perpetuating lately while also making us piss our pants with laughter. If the first movie brought the college comedy into the 21st century then this sequel blasted it fifty years into the future.

If you have yet to see the second flick I would bow out of this post here as I am gojng to go into a bit of spoiler territory as it is necessary to make my point. The film focuses on three misfit freshman girls who wanted to join a sorority to try and make some new friends and enjoy the college experience. Upon learning of the wildly archaic "rules" governing the female Greek life they decide they would be best to start their own sorority that is free from the "law". Rather than be in a sisterhood that doesn't allow them to throw their own parties they decide to grab their own house and throw all the ragers they want.

We understand this sentiment entirely when we watch as the three girls go to a frat party the first night of school and are shown into one of the creepiest places you'd ever seen. They are in the party for only about a minute of screen time but in those frames we see countless young women being sexualized and abused by the fraternity and when they leave the party and one of the girls exclaims it to have been "rapey" we all completely agree.

This is basically a set up for what the rest of the film is to the college comedy, they meant to tear down walls with this film and show what the college experience should be for kids of ALL genders and sexualities. The girls are constantly being called on their behavior for being "unladylike" even though it is on the same level as anything the guys in the first film had done. This is shown perfectly when the girls attack the neighbors with a bag of used tampons and Zac Efron' character tries to tell them they went too far. Chloe Grace Moretz character quickly turns that backwards thinking on its head with a great joke about a bag of dicks, reminding us how unfair we often are to funny ladies.

These are just small examples of how this second film really embraced the times and used itself as a way to call us out as a society for many of the stupid things we do. Why in the world is it not okay for a sorority to throw its own parties? because frats can't roofie and assault women at their own homes? It's stupid, simple crap like this that kept these kinds of movies rooted in the past and I cannot applaud these films enough for taking that old school train of thought and throwing it right out the door.

Though the main focus in the film tends to be on gender inequality it didn't stop Rogen and Goldberg from making some statements about race and marriage equality as well. For starters they reveal that the Dave Franco character from the first movie is actually gay and has come-out since they graduated. This isn't seen in the film as an issue but instead as a ray of light. His character is about to get married and the only reason it kills Efron's character is because he thinks he is losing his best friend. It's not made out to be a "thing" in the movie but instead serves as a dose of true reality for the film. 

What I find most amusing about this sequel is that all of the dudes that loved the first movie for all of the wrong reasons will probably hate this film for calling them out for a lot of the disgusting behavior they have displayed over the years. Maybe when they see how awful some of this stuff is from outside eyes they will start to understand why their behavior has been wrong, probably not, but we can always hope.

I'm not writing this post in hopes that you will go and denounce all of your favorite college comedies. I, in fact went back and revisited most of the movies talked about here to get a refresher on the quality of them. Animal House still stands as a masterpiece of comedy and flicks like Old School and Van Wilder are still fun, but after seeing both Neighbors movies all but Animal House seem to pale in comparison. They have now made two films that reach higher than most any of these other films could dream of. They are raucously hilarious comedies that manage to be good films as well and that's because they ditch the misogyny and sexism that hold so many of those other films back and replace it with open minded comedy.

These guys have single handedly ensured the survival of this sub-genre, without these movies it was dead in the water and didn't look to be pulled out anytime soon. In a world where the actual collegiate experience is rapidly changing Neighbors found a way to catch up and make a series of films that will play as well thirty years down the line as they do today. Maybe by then the rest of the world will have caught up and we won't have to worry about these idiotic issues anymore. 

As always, thanks for reading and I am Zach Who Watches Movies. You can find me anytime on twitter @ZachWWMovies, smell ya later!