Jerry Seinfeld Apologizes For ‘Subtle Sexual Aspect’ Of Dreamworks’ ‘Bee Movie’

Bee Movie is one movie audiences won’t let be. In recent years, the 2007 Dreamworks feature has been subjected to countless memes, mockery, and fervent cult fandom.

Much of that has to do with the script’s strange and off-color elements, not least an unusual relationship between its bee and human protagonists. In the film, Barry B. Benson, a bee who can talk to humans, strikes up a friendship with florist Vanessa Bloome that blossoms into something almost amorous.

This has puzzled and amused viewers, who ask why romance between species is implied in what appears to be a family film. And now they have an apology from Jerry Seinfeld, who voiced Barry, co-wrote the script, and came up with the idea for the movie in the first place.

Speaking on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Seinfeld said, “I apologize for what seems to be a certain uncomfortable subtle sexual aspect of the Bee Movie. [It] really was not intentional, but after it came out, I realized this is really not appropriate for children. Because the bee seems to have a thing for the girl, and we don’t really want to pursue that as an idea in children’s entertainment.”

There’s precedent here: Barry Marder and Spike Feresten, two of Seinfeld’s co-writers on the film, acknowledged the oddness of the storyline in a 2017 interview with the New Statesman, as did director Steve Hickner. Said Marder, “Well, let’s be honest, a bee and a woman carrying on is kind of weird to begin with.” Feresten added that the team hadn’t really intended to suggest romance: “Often we would lose sight of those characters in the [writing] room,” he confessed.

Back in 2016, as Bee Movie memedom hit fever pitch, Seinfeld told Reddit users that “a lot of people” wanted him to do a sequel. “I actually did consider it, but then I realized it would make Bee Movie 1 less iconic,” he concluded.