"Spawtlight” is the Worst Boston Parody Video Yet
The comedy group Above Average uploaded “Spawtlight” to YouTube in late February. It’s a parody of the film Spotlight, and the punchline is that Boston is a terrible city full of terrible people. James Joiner at the Daily Beast called it “the funniest damn thing on the Internet today.”
Videos of puppies being totured and killed must have dominated the Internet on February 25th, 2016, because this video is really not that funny.
There are a lot of funny Internet videos mocking Boston. Some of them feel like loving tributes from natives, others are well-observed critiques from outsiders. Often they’re less interested in poking fun at the actual city of Boston and its residents than in lampooning the “Boston” people have seen in movies over the past ten years or so: a gritty city full of Irish blue-collar criminal masterminds, played by actors doing their best to nail the accent.
I normally enjoy these videos as they flood my social media. It’s true! People in Boston talk differently from people in other regions of the United States! And boy, do they love their Red Sox and their Tom Brady! Don’t even get me started on Dunkin’ Donuts! It’s flattering to be made fun of: most American cities aren’t worth the thought necessary to mock them.
So I was surprised when “Spawtlight” really kind of bothered me. Stuck in my craw. Enough so that I’m spending time writing about it and potentially drawing a few more views to Above Average’s below average Boston video.
The premise of the video is that the Spotlight team at the Boston Globe, fresh off of revealing the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse of children and subsequent cover-up, sets out to blow the roof off the next big scandal: that Boston is a terrible city, but no one is willing to admit it. It’s up to the Spawtlight team to tell the truth about Boston: that it’s a “pathetic, shit town,” “a cultureless suburb, full of 20-story office buildings, Irish pubs, and self-righteous white people.” Also, we have terrible fashion sense, talk funny, and drink disgusting coffee.
We’ve heard all this before. The video has no new, sharp observations that really make me question my city, or who I am as a Bostonian.
And it’s the lack of novelty and insight that really bothers me. The video feels derivative. It feels like they were less interested in making fun of Boston than in making a “let’s make fun of Boston” video.
I freely admit that Bostonians, on the whole, think very highly of our city. To paraphrase my father, the only American city that can look down on us is New York, and fuck them. One of our nicknames is the Hub of the Universe, and (it goes without saying) we came up with that one on our own.
At one time, Boston’s hubris may have seemed deserved; maybe Boston wasn’t the economic or political capital of the country, but we were the Cradle of Liberty. We were the Athens of America, the seat of learning and culture (or so we told ourselves). Boston had some rough times in the 20th century (like almost every American city), but things are looking good in the 21st. The city is growing in population, we’re a hotbed of biotech and other new industries, we flirted with the Olympics, and we’re going to be the new global headquarters of GE. Also the Red Sox won a bunch of World Serieses, the Patriots won a bunch of Super Bowlses, and the Celtics and Bruins did ok, too, as well.
If Boston can come across as a little big for its britches, I think it’s because the city generally punches above its weight. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be taken down a peg or two every now and then. We can take it, because we’re awesome.
There’s a good way to critique Boston for its inflated self-worth. The Onion nailed it a few years back with their article “Pretty Cute Watching Boston Residents Play Daily Game of ‘Big City.’”
Part of what makes this article work is its absurdity. Boston is a real city populated by real people living real lives, not a giant “live-action role-playing adventure.” And Boston is actually a big city. We are not the biggest city in the country (we only ranked 24th in 2014), but more than 650,000 people live here, and we’re all crammed into less than 50 square miles. Compare that with a city like Houston, which has a population of 2.2 million sprawled out over 500 square miles. Boston is more densely populated than any top-ten American city except New York. So we feel bigger than we are (again, punching above our weight).
I’m getting defensive. I don’t mean to be. I just want to point out that Boston is, in fact, a big city populated by real people doing real things. So it’s funny for the Onion to claim otherwise.
The Onion piece also works because it is a subtle critique of a New York-centric idea of urbanity; that New York is the only true city in the country, perhaps the world, and so it is authentic in a way no other American city can hope for. A man quoted in the article admits that even Chicago only plays at Big City, although not as well as Boston. New York is never directly mentioned in the article, but it has the tone of a New Yorker looking down his nose at the rest of America and its quaint, provincial cities. You probably know someone like this. They went to NYU, or moved to New York after college, and they seem a little bored and condescending when they spend time outside of “the City.”
These people are the worst. Several years ago, I was working at an independent bookstore in Cambridge, and man buying some books said he used to be a regular customer before he moved to “a real city.”
“Oh, really?” I said. “Where’s that?” I knew what he meant, but I wanted to hear him say it.
“New York,” the man said, a bit taken aback, but still smug.
Anyway, the Onion piece (I think) pokes fun at this idea of “the one true city” while also skewering Boston.
Above Average don’t seem interested in any such nuance in their video. They mostly just want to lambaste the worst stereotypes of Bostonians, that we are parochial, full of ourselves, backwards, homophobic, racist, ignorant, and (weirdly) poor (I mean, what was that stuff about the Honda CRV?).
The video betrays an ignorance about Boston that is shared by most satirical takedowns of the city. Because in truth, Boston is a multicultural city (although still majority white) full of people doing interesting and innovative things. We are not all racist white people (although there’s no denying the persistence of racial bias here as in everywhere in America). We are not all ignorant homophobes who would be alarmed by seeing “a quee-ah on the T” (not to do too much horn tooting, but Massachusetts was the first state to legalize same-sex marriage). The city has many restaurants serving very good, interesting food (granted, Wahlburgers is a name that almost insists on being mocked). The T, for all of its problems, is not “just a silly little trolley” (although it would be easy to think so if you only ever rode the Green Line to your BU friend’s place in Allston [or if you somehow only rode the adorable Mattapan trolley line]).
All of this ignorance could lead to something genuinely funny if the tone weren’t so off. Instead of the Onion’s good-natured teasing, “Spawtlight” comes across as misguidedly antagonistic. (Also, poorly timed: “People in Boston think they’re contributing to society,” says a character in the video parodying the Academy Award-winning film about how a team of Boston journalists contributed to society by uncovering the corrupt system that allowed Catholic priests to sexually abuse children for generations with complete immunity).
Why do you hate Boston so much? What did we ever do to you?
Again, I really don’t mind people making fun of Boston. I love it. I will watch as many Boston videos and read as many humorous Boston takes as the Internet will offer.
But if you’re going to make fun of Boston, please, do a better job.
Because we’re the greatest city in the whole goddamn world, and we deserve no less.
Also, Dunkin’ Dounuts is delicious.
