Paul Reubens Fights to Management His Story in Pee-wee as Himself: Assessment

When the brand new HBO documentary Pee-wee as Himself premiered at Sundance earlier this 12 months, the fast headline was that for the primary time, Paul Reubens talked overtly about being homosexual. How vital is that to the total legacy of Reubens as a comedy icon, and the creation of Pee-wee Herman as a personality? That’s simply a part of what director Matt Wolf is wrestling with right here.

The motivation for making the challenge, it appears, got here from Reubens (as he says early in Half One) eager to “set the document straight on just a few issues.” These “issues,” it’s clear by the top, embody the 2 arrests that derailed his profession through the years, although these occasions are very tough for him to speak about. A minimum of compared to the remainder of his life story.

The 2-part movie (clocking in with a complete runtime of about 200 minutes) proves exhaustive in its chronological exploration of Reubens’ life, from rising up together with his loving household to discovering his full artistic potential first as a pupil at CalArts, then as a struggling performer within the Seventies Los Angeles comedy scene. On the identical time that he was discovering his comedy voice, although, he was ending a deep romantic relationship with one other man and making the choice to place apart relationships, particularly as a result of stigma he would have confronted at the moment.

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“I used to be as out as I might be, after which I used to be again within the closet,” he says, as a result of “my profession would have completely suffered” if he’d been overtly homosexual at the moment. As a substitute, he threw himself into creating new characters as a member of the Groundlings — together with what would find yourself being his most well-known persona.

Pee-wee Herman, the truth is, turns into the general public face Reubens presents to the world: The character he soft-launched with issues like an look on The Relationship Recreation. The identify introduced when he would make appearances on Late Night time with David Letterman. The identify used for his star on the Hollywood Stroll of Fame. (He muses at one level about wanting a second star, for “Paul Reubens” this time.)

The documentary contains a full recounting of the making of Pee-wee’s Massive Journey, with Tim Burton reflecting fondly on his pleasure over it being his first film. Then, we get into the story of how Pee-wee’s Playhouse got here to be — a captivating one, and well-told right here by Wolf, particularly due to supplemental interviews with key forged members like Lynne Marie Stewart, Natasha Lyonne, Laurence Fishburne, and S. Epatha Merkerson.

Pee-wee on tour, as featured in Pee-wee as Himself (HBO)

One highly effective part that comes up is Reubens’ push to “make the present very inclusive and never touch upon it in any manner” — one thing he did by that includes quite a few individuals of coloration within the forged, and together with components just like the El Hombre cartoon segments, which was solely in Spanish, with no subtitles.

Pee-wee’s Playhouse was an early instance of an underground comedy hit someway discovering mainstream success, largely by counting on the concept that youngsters and adults would possibly agree on an analogous idea of enjoyable. The phrase “play” will get used quite a bit in discussing the creation of the present, and for anybody who grew up watching Miss Yvonne, Jambi, Globi, and Cowboy Curtis, this part will draw out quite a lot of latent nostalgia.

The documentary additionally touches on his historical past with Saturday Night time Dwell — pre-Pee-wee, he auditioned on the identical time that Gilbert Gottfried did, and knew he wouldn’t get the gig as a result of somebody advised him that Gottfried was finest mates with one of many producers, they usually have been near the identical kind. Reubens would later seem on SNL within the guise of Pee-wee.

SNL additionally comes up when diving into Reubens’ friendship with Phil Hartman, who was an early collaborator on the Pee-wee idea in its nascent type whereas additionally taking part in the position of Captain Carl. Hartman and Reubens’ relationship fractured as Pee-wee took off and Hartman discovered success as certainly one of SNL’s all-time nice forged members: The documentary contains a painful interview between Howard Stern and Hartman, following Reubens’ 1991 arrest, through which Hartman lodges his disapproval of Reubens’ actions and expresses frustration with the shortage of appreciation for his Pee-wee contributions.

Whereas Wolf will get loads of perception from secondary sources about Reubens’ life, the middle of the documentary is the 40 hours of interview footage Wolf shot together with his star, following the announcement of the documentary in 2021. And proper from the start, Wolf highlights Reuben’s discomfort with the method — clearly parroting the voices of others when he says “You’re not alleged to direct your personal documentary, you don’t have perspective on your self.”

Current-day Paul Reubens, in Pee-wee as Himself (HBO)

It’s fairly obvious he needs he was the one behind the digicam, shaping the story, and all through the documentary, Wolf weaves in moments of Reubens making his job a tough one — dodging questions, intentionally happening tangents, difficult Wolf’s talents. “I don’t need this to go to your head,” he tells the director at one level. “You made one documentary I like out of what, six?”

It’s not a bit Reubens is doing, both; whereas 40 hours seems like quite a lot of footage, Reubens by no means accomplished the deliberate interview specializing in his two arrests earlier than passing away in 2023, leaving Wolf to depend on different interviews, archival materials, and some feedback from Reubens to delve into that a part of his story. It’s the hardest half to look at, too, as Wolf lays out the societal biases that led to Reubens’ ostracism from Hollywood, particularly the 2002 obscenity cost that got here simply as Reubens was reclaiming his profession below his actual identify.

Central to Pee-Wee as Himself is the query of id, on a degree past Reubens grappling with methods to steadiness his non-public life together with his public persona. He speaks about fame as being a “pact with the satan,” a contract he signed with out essentially studying the wonderful print. And whereas he by no means goes into element in regards to the arrests, in a few of his interviews, there’s a transparent anger over “how painful and tough it was to be labeled as one thing I wasn’t.”

The documentary consists of one thing of a ultimate assertion from Reubens, recorded the day earlier than he died, through which he says that “I wished someway for individuals to know that my complete profession, every part I did and wrote was primarily based in love, and my want to entertain and convey glee and creativity to younger individuals and to everybody.” It won’t have labored out precisely the way in which Reubens wished, however Pee-wee as Himself does carry that message to long-time followers in addition to future ones, who will hopefully have the ability to respect what Reubens gave us whereas he was nonetheless right here.

Each elements of Pee-wee as Himself premiere Friday, Could twenty third on HBO, streaming on Max.