About

Licorice Pizza refers to a 2021 film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. It can be described as an American coming-of-age story centered on a romance between a high-schooler and an older woman. Additionally, the film stars Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Bradley Cooper and Benny Safdie, among others.

History

News about the upcoming, 2021 film started with a Variety^[1] article published on December 30th, 2020. It stated that the movie takes place in the 1970s and is set in California’s San Fernando Valley. The lead actors of the film are Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim who plays a high-schooler and a photographer’s assistant that develop an affection for each other despite a significant age gap. Cooper Hoffman is also the son of the deceased actor Philip Seymor Hoffman.

The online buzz surrounding the film picked up more significantly in September 2021 when MGM Studios released the official trailer on September 27th. This can be seen via a tweet^[2] from the production company (shown below) that included the trailer within it. The tweet received roughly 7,000 likes over the course of three months. The trailer was also posted to the /r/Movies^[3] subreddit on September 27th, where it received roughly 15,300 upvotes over three months.

Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Watch the official trailer for #LicoricePizza now. Coming soon only to theaters. pic.twitter.com/MHrCV5rCbM

— MGM Studios (@mgmstudios) September 27, 2021

The movie was released in select theaters on November 26th, 2021, a month after the trailer's release. This release date was announced as early as April 2021 via Collider.^[4] It was also announced in the aforementioned article that the movie's release date to all theaters was December 25th, 2021 (Christmas Day).

Online Presence

When the movie was released to select theaters in late November, it received overtly positive reviews from publications like The New York Post^[5] who called it "2021’s best movie." On Rotten Tomatoes,^[6] the film received a 91 percent "Fresh" score. Twitter users like @thedalediggler^[7] started posting memes after the November release (shown below, left). Their tweet received 60 likes. Buzz also surrounded the different billboards and advertisements for the movie posted around Los Angeles. Twitter user @calebAwallace,^[8] for instance, made a joke about a "Licorice pizza bench" (shown below, right) and received 30 likes over one month.

Reactions

Asian Racism and Age Gap Controversy

A reaction online that happened after the November release was related to scenes in the movie that depicted an allegedly insensitive Asian accent. NBC News' Wilson Wong was one of the first online to start a discussion about this tension via an article^[9] published by him on November 25th, 2021. According to Wong, two scenes in the movie featured a white male restaurateur who spoke in a fake Asian accent to his Japanese wife and other Japanese characters.

People on Twitter, like @karen__maine,^[10] voiced similar concerns with the movie on November 22nd. Her tweet (shown below) criticized the "seemingly pointless" gag within the film.

The attention surrounding this controversy picked up in discourse on TikTok, specifically in a TikTok^[11] posted by @somewhere_in_june on December 10th, 2021. In the video (shown below, left), she urged her followers, "Do NOT watch Licorice Pizza," and told of how she and her friends left the theater because the movie was, "deeply upsetting." Towards the end of the video, she talked about the offensive Asian accent scenes. The TikTok received roughly 280,500 plays and 37,400 likes over five days. It was also screenshotted and talked about on Twitter via a tweet^[12] posted by @thesolarcoffee on December 10th. The tweet (shown below, right) received roughly 6,600 likes over five days.

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7039860185707367686

Also within the TikTok above, @somewhere_in_june started off the video talking about her uncomfortably with the characters' romance that feels predatory, mostly because Hoffman's character is 15-years-old being flirted with and romantically involved with a woman in her late 20s.

After the above TikTok sparked PC outrage, people on Twitter started posting memes about the PC reaction. For instance, Twitter^[13] user @most_opppressed posted a tweet on December 14th, 2021, talking about these, "deranged takes on licorice pizza." The tweet (shown below) received roughly 4,800 likes in one day.

Other Twitter^[14] users like @oldfriend99 took a more subtle and ironic approach to the controversial discourse, tweeting on December 14th, 2021, "Will be skipping licorice pizza as I am hearing it contains mature subject matter." The tweet (shown below) received roughly 2,900 likes in one day.

Other internet users, like notable musician Madonna, posted about the movie on Instagram.^[15] Madonna's post (shown below) included a photo of her mopping outside of a movie theater, captioning the image, "Saw the movie Licorice Pizza, 🍕🍕🍕! Omgggggggggg!! Felt so inspired I had to clean the theater." Her post received roughly 142,300 likes in less than 24 hours.

Search Interest

External References