Jerry Seinfeld voiced Barry the bee in Dreamwork's 2007 animated feature Bee Movie. Photo / Dreamworks
Jerry Seinfeld voiced Barry the bee in Dreamwork's 2007 animated feature Bee Movie. Photo / Dreamworks
Jerry Seinfeld has apologised for the "sexual aspect" of 2007 animated feature Bee Movie.
The 67-year-old reflected on his career so far on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and used the opportunity to address arguably one of his most uncomfortable roles: voicing Barry the bee in the Bee Movie.He co-wrote the film which also featured Renée Zellweger who voiced a human woman who befriends the talking bee.
While the movie's plot focuses on a legal battle when Barry sues humanity for exploiting bees for honey, many remember the movie for a different reason entirely. It sparked countless memes as many pointed out the odd romance between Barry the bee and Zellweger's character Vanessa.
"I apologise for what seems to be a certain uncomfortable subtle sexual aspect of the Bee Movie," he told Fallon's talk show.
"[It] really was not intentional, but after it came out, I realised this is really not appropriate for children. Because the bee seemed to have a thing for the girl, and we don't really want to pursue that as an idea in children's entertainment."
Jerry Seinfeld addressed the Bee Movie controversy on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Photo / Getty Images
The director Steve Hickner and co-writer Spike Feresten have addressed the apparent sexual undertones of the movie before - declaring there's no "interspecies love affair" in an interview with The New Statesman. However, Feresten did admit the characters were written without thinking about their respective species.
"They would just be Barry and Vanessa, and we would write this dialogue for Barry and Vanessa, and read it over and have to remind ourselves, well, this is a tiny bee saying this, and the tiny bee is fighting with her boyfriend, so let's dial it back to friend, and make it less romantic, because it's getting weird," the writer explained.
