Ids and Fake IDs

by Alyssa Kapelka

The film that I watched for this week was Animal House. In relation to the question, I feel that the film is a combination of “steam valve” and a challenge on the norms of society. King describes the type of comedy in Animal House and other films like it as “Gross-out” comedy. He defines it as comedy based on “…crude and deliberate transgressions of the bounds of normal everyday taste” (King 63). This is very evident in Animal House. 

The film is about a rowdy fraternity on a college campus. They live in a broken down house, throw wild “toga parties” and are a disgrace to the campus. The film follows fraternity members and pledges to the Deltas as they go about their life on campus, playing pranks and in general being misfits in a place where there are high standards. But their way of life is being threatened by the Dean of the college, waning to shut down the Dealts as they bring a bad name to the college. This is a way that Animal House is a challenge to the norms of society. The 1962 era of Animal House’s setting was a time where fraternities were seen as very socially high standing groups. Back then, everybody who was anybody was involved in a fraternity or sorority or other type of group and were often seen as the cream of the crop at a college. Animal House and the Delta fraternity, I feel, really gave the party stereotype that frats continue to have to this day.

The film is also a “steam valve” of gross comedy, particularly on the part of John Belushi’s character Bluto. King describes those grosser acts of these types of comedies as acts that are often seen from a distance in the film: “The grosser acts are in some cases performed by secondary figures rather than the principles” (King 69). I watched this film before I took this class, and when I first saw it, I was surprised at how little Belushi’s part in the film really was. Posters with the character of Bluto in a sweater that says “college” are a classic to have in dorm rooms (I even have one). But the amount of lines that Bluto speaks in the film could only equal up to a page or two of dialog. The rest is just physical, often gross, acts; the grossest, in my opinion, in the lunchroom scene (“see if you can guess what I am now” **stuffs face with food and pops cheeks** “I’m a zit! Get it?”). 

In our class blog we look at the id, ego and super ego, the characteristics of human behavior thought of by Sigmund Freud. In Animal House, I feel that the Id is the character Bluto, performing the most grotesque acts of any of the other Deltas. The Superego would be Dean Wormer, trying to shut down the Delta fraternity. The Ego would be the character of Eric, often the one speaking up and trying to be the voice or reason. 

Animal House was different than other comedies at the time. The acts in the film were acts that many of us can relate to and have seen before, it was also a film that contained some gross elements that many may have felt were inappropriate in the 1970’s and the 1960’s when the films plot took place. Today the acts in Animal House are almost common place and not seen as gross anymore, but as King describes it, they are acts that twenty years on, or in this case almost 40 years, they are very innocent.