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Wednesday 8 July 2020

Low Stakes, High Reward: The Appeal of a Seth Rogen Comedy

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Like his mentor Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen has mastered the art of smuggling humanity into his films under the guise of stupidity. Not that there’s anything wrong with stupidity. We certainly enjoy a good dick joke around these parts. But Rogen’s films are more than just mindless low blows. Amidst, through, and alongside the jovial junk jests is a guiding principle of bromance and compassion. Rogen’s films are warm, familiar, and uniquely adept at capturing joyfully human moments in low stakes situations, a fact that often gets overshadowed by the crude cracks and occasional outbursts of excess (speaking of which, This Is The End feels like a truly inspired watch during quarantine/the current heat death of Celebrity Culture).

In the video essay below, Karsten Runquist argues that Rogen’s goofy charm is worth taking seriously. The essay unpacks the magnetic immaturity of Rogen’s earlier work, how his approach to writing flips the script on more traditional approaches to comedy, and how the actor’s work strives to capture a high.

You can watch “How Seth Rogen Turns Your Brain Off” here:


Who made this?

Karsten Runquist is a Chicago-based video essayist. You can check out Runquist’s back catalog and subscribe to his channel on YouTube here. You can follow Runquist on Twitter here.

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