Big Mouth

I’ve watched another animation on Netflix.  It’s not big, but… it is clever.  In fact, it’s actually called Big Mouth, so parts of it are, in fact, big as well.  So, to conclude, it is both big and clever.  And I watched it.  And here you are, reading about it.  Right, that’s the awkward opening passages out of the way, so let’s plough on with making sarcastic remarks about it, all while feeling a little guilty that there’s a remote chance its creators might one day read this and think me a prick for commenting on it.  I’ve frankly no right.  I’ve just counted up how many shows of my own I have created, and the answer is: none.  Also, there’s no chance of them ever reading this self-indulgent nonsense, so let’s agree that I’ve got nothing to lose.

The good news is that Big Mouth is a good time.  You might have seen it in your various Netflix menus: crudely drawn children and hairy, horned monsters.  What a combination.  But it’s not quite the pervy mess it sounds like (or is it?).  Big Mouth is all about puberty and adolescence.  Set in an American middle school, our focus is a bunch of young teens at various stages along the hormonal journey, some on the lookout for that first hallowed pubes, others coping with bumfluff taches and uncontrollable, confusing sexual urges.  Chaperoning them on this voyage of development is an array of adults who should know better, but don’t.

Cast your mind back to your schooldays.  Male classmates were divided into the early adopters, sporting their adult bodies at the age of 12 and buying everyone alcohol as a result, and the Peter Pans, trapped in an eternal babylike state of knee-highness and squeaking to communicate.  I remember after PE in year 7 when the whole class, rather than getting changed back into our uniform, got distracted by comparing who had the most impressive armpit hair development – we might as well have ranked ourselves in order of undergrowth.  The advanced puberteers derided the non-starters, while the hormonally under-resourced eyed their hirsute brethren with suspicion.  It’s in this pickling predicament that our two Big Mouth heroes find themselves, with Andrew Glouberman’s precocious development exceeded only by Nick Birch’s desperate desire to harvest his own crop of precious pubes.

I’ll stop myself here as I’m painfully aware that this is a fairly graphic way to talk about underage bodies.  Rest assured, this pales in comparison to how this process is handled in the show: what images my words can’t bring to life are rendered in colourful animation across your screens.  If you’re prudish or easily offended, don’t watch (don’t read this, either).  And if you think my intentions are sinister (which they’re not) just wait till you come across the main conceit of Big Mouth: the hormone monsters.  To represent the bad influences these biological changes have on behaviour, a hairy, horned accomplice appears in the lives of these children to guide them through their new urges.  And by guide, I mean persuade them to give in so that we as the viewer can enjoy the most extreme and entertaining circumstances.  It’s like an imaginary friend, only they’re not telling you to burn things, just to hump them.

If you think it’s just the boys getting the pubescent scrutiny, I can assure you that girls come in for the same treatment.  Whether that’s Missy pleasuring herself with her plush toy during a school camp out, or Jessi’s first period coming on a day she chose to wear white shorts, everyone can enjoy getting offended here.  There’s a certain shared experience with the characters’ disastrous attempts to make sense of their changing bodies, especially when you factor in the cluenessness of the parents to deal with any of it.  Nick’s dad’s wholly inappropriate responses are beyond slimey (pretending to be a pussy), while Jay’s mum (or mom, rather) couldn’t be less interested in any of her boys, let alone the youngest – especially when there is wine to focus on – leaving him to forge relationships with household cushioning.  The teachers are even worse, with a special mention going to Coach Steve.  At first, this individual annoys with his constant appearances, but he becomes a well-placed foil to so many of the storylines that he inevitably endears himself.

Let’s therefore laugh at our obsession with sex by revisiting our first encounters with its mysteries through the eyes of middle schoolers and their hormone monsters.  Big Mouth is as comfortable being intelligent with thought provocation as it is making vagina jokes (with the voice of Kristen Wiig as a really friendly vagina).  There’s a song in every episode and the voice talent is stellar, with Maya Rudolph unrecognisable as Connie the hormone monster, but Andrew Rannells (often the best thing in Girls, apart from the girls) entirely recognisable as the quick-witted Matthew.  With its imaginative and subversive approach (and strokes of genius, such as illustrating minds blown by having characters’ heads literally explode), Big Mouth throws open our societal inconsistencies in the treatment of so many issues, as well as recognising hilariously that we are all just about managing to keep on top of our hormones, even as adults.  How big and clever is that?