We don't need another Inbetweeners film. Comedy has moved on and so has lad culture
William Mata argues that standards have changed since the late 2000s
News that The Inbetweeners is coming back for a third film has been greeted with glee by millennials, who have fond memories of watching the awkward school antics of the gang.
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And why not get excited? Do we not deserve nostalgia in these dark times? What problem can there be with the cast getting some acting work again?
The Inbetweeners 3 is understandably being welcomed, but as someone who was an awkward sixth former the same time that Will, Simon, Jay and Neil were, I have some misgivings - and not just the chief concern in the YouTube comments, that Netflix will “f*** it up”.
If there are two truths about comedy, especially the British sitcom variety, it’s that it is subjective and that it does not age well. If you enjoyed Fawlty Towers / Only Fools / The IT Crowd at the time, chances are you will still enjoy it. But if it’s your first viewing, it’s more likely that you will find the humour dated, cringeworthy, or problematic.
And, as ever, the problem with nostalgia is that nothing is ever as good as anybody remembers. Even if Netflix pulls this off, fans might complain, rightly or wrongly, that it’s not as funny as the 2008-2010 TV series. It certainly won’t be as exciting or original.
It’s not that a reboot can never work. The recent Malcolm in the Middle revisit got good reviews.
But The Inbetweeners is not a timeless concept and the chief problem with bringing the gang through a Tardis (to reference another over-done TV series) and dumping them into 2026 is that the nature of lad culture has irreversibly changed since the late 2000s.
Would a group of male friends refer to themselves as the “p**** patrol” on holiday, with t-shirts saying as much? Or would it be funny for a 16-year-old boy to accidentally end up on a date with a 12-year-old girl (and her parents)? Would a teen boy lie to his friend about repeatedly having sex with a girl, in an attempt to make her sound available?
While The Inbetweeners were, at the time, deemed unacceptable to copy, they might now be, too, be unacceptable to laugh at. I don’t know, but I am going to be optimistic for the younger generation and say that standards have changed. Young guys do not have to be performative males to say this isn’t good enough.
Society has changed too. Getting a first car is no longer the rite of passage it once was, friends meet in person less often now, summer jobs are harder to come by. Drinking doesn’t have the allure it once did and storylines of fake IDs, and Will getting everyone chucked out of a pub, might not resonate.
The Inbetweeners should be left in the past, even if nothing really is left alone when there is a chance for money to be made. There might be more value in finding humour in the society of 2026, and we can all agree that it is needed.
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William Mata is a writer and SEO editor for LBC.
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