The super horny marketing of ‘Superbad’ in Spain: “People were hissing at us”
To many, Superbad is the ultimate high school comedy and encapsulation of the chaos that perturbed many teenagers during the early 2000s.
The plight of Seth and Evan in their struggles to buy booze and impress their respective crushes is one that many can sadly relate to, with our adolescent years becoming the most tragic and embarrassing of our entire lives as a result of our failed attempts at romantic connection and desperate bid to be perceived as cool.
However, while it might be an inherently tragic plight, the writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg managed to make it hilarious and weirdly endearing (given the number of jokes there are about male genitalia). However, the film was made even more entertaining through the chaotic press run that followed its release, with newcomers Michael Cera and Jonah Hill being suddenly exposed to dizzying heights of fame and being met with differing reactions to the movie as a result of the strange global marketing schemes.
Superbad was generally loved by everyone who watched it, with high school sleepovers often centring around illicit watches of the film and references quickly seeping their way into pop culture. From the genius mishap of McLovin’s driver’s license to the gold leaf tequila that smashes on the bus, there are too many moments to point out and love, but there was one scene that seemed to divide audiences in Italy and Spain, with Cera and Hill reminiscing over its poor reception on the European leg of their press tour.
On the A24 podcast, Cera recalled the strange marketing tactics for the film in Spain, saying, “They didn’t like us in Spain. The way they marketed it was the funniest thing of all time. There’s like bras hanging off the poster, and it was called Super Horny. And Emma Stone’s character, they were like really trying to make American comedies break in Spain, which I guess doesn’t happen or didn’t happen at that time.”
Adding, “So they hired a very famous Spanish actress to be Emma’s voice, so she’s doing the voice dubbing for Emma Stone’s character in Superbad. And then the poster was her, not Emma, photoshopped in. And between her legs were me, Michael and Chris, like looking out and drooling. And it was called Super Horny.”
As if this wasn’t strange enough, Cera also recalled how the scene towards the end of the film, as both boys go to sleep, was not met well by Italian audiences, saying, “And in Italy, in the scene where we’re like cuddling and in sleeping bags, they started like hissing. They were like. ‘Ew, no!’” Perhaps Italian audiences in 2007 were not comfortable with intimate friendships between men, with a massive hint of homophobia at the implication that hugging is inherently sexual and something to be hissed at.
The buzz around Superbad is one of the strangest cultural phenomena of the 2000s, with the Spanish marketing tactics and Italian leg of the press tour sticking out as one of the strangest things to come from the film’s release.
