PCU was on Comedy Central approximately forty times a week when I was a kid, but I think I escaped the treacherous aspects of its influence. It taught me to appreciate George Clinton, hate David Spade, and to not wear the shirt of a band I’m going to see. Plus it has the great Jessica Walter.

I did know one kid, also raised by Comedy Central, who let it influence his perception of feminism, though. It’s definitely a bad movie, with bad ideology, but don’t be deceived by how ugly the plot reads, because it’s not smart enough to give its critiques any teeth. A very minor rewrite with a Find-and-Replace function - instead of PC caricatures, make the antagonists the football team or a wealthy donor trying to tear down the house to build a statue with his name on it or some shit - yields pretty much the same stupid Animal House wannabe. The PCU people merely read a propaganda article about “political correctness run amok at Oberlin,” or wherever, they didn’t write it.

All of that is just to say that we need a different candidate for Most Gen-X movie. My first suggestion is Clerks, but Richard Linklater probably directed the other nominees.

(Next week’s essay in the series of Vaguely Remembered Films Wertheimer Saw Too Many Times on Comedy Central in the ‘90s: Johnny Dangerously.)