I'm sorry, but I saw Licorice Pizza a few days ago and I've been ranting about it to an imaginary audience in the shower ever since. Hopefully, soapboxing about it here instead will allow me to get over it. I've seen a lot of discussion about these controversial aspects of the film, and I think many people completely misunderstand them and the movie as a whole. I'll start with the Japanese accent scenes.
I'm an Asian American and I didn't have any problems with those scenes, and here's why. Those scenes are not supposed to be funny. You're supposed to cringe at it. I saw one Reddit user say, "[the scene] was super racist since it was a cheap joke and not challenged by any characters". Another person said, "So why then, in 2021, does a filmmaker leave in such an abruptly out of place and shockingly offensive joke? Because apparently casual racism towards Asians is a part of the 70s worth remembering?"
HOW THE FUCK DO YOU MISS THE POINT THAT BADLY? WHY THE FUCK WOULD IT BE CHALLENGED BY ANY OF THE CHARACTERS? THEY'RE WHITE PEOPLE IN THE 1970S, SO THEY'RE ALL CASUALLY RACIST TOO. Do you really need the film to tell you that racism is bad? NO SHIT SHERLOCK.
The whole point of that scene is to show an uglier aspect of the 1970s. Hell, that's literally one of the film's main messages. And the scene is not out of place at all. Throughout the movie, there are several scenes that serve that purpose. Apart from the racist restaurant manager, there's also the casual sexual harassment at the beginning (the photographer slaps Alana's ass), the children running around town without going to school and no one batting an eye, the effects of the 1973 oil crisis, Jon Peters (lol), the kids smoking, the councilman having to hide his homosexuality, and the relationship between 25-year-old (or 28) Alana and 15-year-old Gary.
That quote from earlier, "Because apparently casual racism towards Asians is a part of the 70s worth remembering?" is really crazy to me. It's such a blatant display of a lack of understanding that it would actually be impossible for someone to make it even clearer that the point flew so far over their head that scientists thought it was another Oumuamua. The purpose of all those things I mentioned is to showcase the uglier aspects of growing up in the 70s that people nowadays who look at the decade through rose-colored glasses forget about. It's a nostalgic film, sure, but at the same time it's showing all the shit that was not so great about the decade. So yes, the casual racism and the other things are absolutely worth remembering since people can often be blinded by their nostalgia and forget about them. That's the whole point. You're supposed to shudder and think, "huh, the 70s sure had some fucked up shit." It's a commentary on nostalgia and the time period.
As a side note, the writer and director Paul Thomas Anderson (PTA) has a Japanese stepmother and he's said that she would sometimes have to deal with white people speaking to her in a faux-Asian accent. It boggles my mind that people think those scenes were supposed to be anything other than cringy.
Now let's talk about the ending. Here's what I think: The film is a tragedy.
"How can it be tragic?" you may ask. And yes, I can see why people would be confused. I would be too if I didn't know about PTA's style. I'm going to compare the ending of Licorice Pizza to that of PTA's second film, Boogie Nights (minor spoilers incoming). Many people, including myself, thought the ending to Boogie Nights was unambiguously happy. However, if you really think about the implications of the ending, it's actually not. The characters all seem happy for the most part, but they're still in pretty bad situations by the end with only minor improvements for some of them. In fact, PTA has said that Boogie Nights does not have a happy ending and he was disappointed with how people misinterpreted it.
It's a very similar case with Licorice Pizza's ending. People say that it glamorizes the troublesome relationship by ending with the leads getting together. The tone was romantic, upbeat, and happy. However, you have to look beyond that. The movie is told from the perspectives of the heroes Gary and Alana. They're both happy at the end, so the film is also happy. It's like an unreliable narrator.
The gist of Alana's character is that she's an immature adult (as opposed to Gary who's a mature kid). That's why she hangs out with him and his friends. But that's weird and she knows it's weird. Throughout the film she tries to grow past that, to join the "adult world". However, the adult world kicks her down over and over again. After her first failed date, she yells at her parents and sisters, saying that they don't take her seriously as an adult. She goes on a date with that actor, but he just wants to show off to the restaurant patrons and doesn't even care when she falls off his motorcycle. Hell, he doesn't even remember her name. She meets the politician, thinking he genuinely wants to hang out with her, but he just wants to use her to help hide his homosexuality (understandable, but it's still gotta hurt).
But you know what? Life's not fair. You gotta grow up and confront the adult world, despite how ugly it may be. You can't just run and hide from it. You have to be mature and face it.
But that's not what Alana does. We think she's going to. After that truck scene, she's sitting on the sidewalk questioning her decisions. It seems that she'll realize the error of her ways. But she doesn't. By the end of the film, she succumbs to her tragic flaw, her inability to mature.
We should not be rooting for her relationship with Gary to work out. If the movie were to have a truly happy ending, they would amicably agree that they should not date each other. But sadly, Alana runs away from the adult world that she needs to face, in favor of the "kid world" that Gary inhabits. She chooses the safe, carefree, addictive kid world because she's no longer willing to face the unfair, ugly adult world. That's why the ending is a tragedy wearing a comedy's skin.
There are other things I could mention too, but I won't go into too much detail cause this post is already hella long and I'm getting tired of typing. Throughout much of the film, Alana only seems to be useful to the adults because of her sex. Because she's a woman. This is another commentary on the 1970s, when women were often valued mostly for their sex appeal. On top of that, many of the adult males she meets are pretty immature themselves, but unlike Alana they aren't pressured to be mature. Also, a lot could be said about Gary's "mature kid" thing. He clearly thinks of himself as part of the adult world. He runs businesses, smokes, gets martinis, etc. But he's still just a kid who should be going to school instead. By falling in love with him, Alana's choosing a "faux-adult world" as opposed to the real adult world. I saw one Redditor describe it as a "mirage of maturity", which I really like.
I love Licorice Pizza. I wouldn't call it a masterpiece, but it's a great film with lots of complexity below its deceptively simple surface. There's a lot you can analyze. Sorry for the long post, and thank you if you took the time to read it.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/wxnc92/rantanalysis_the_controversial_ending_of_licorice/
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