‘May December’s “Hot Dogs” Scene Is More Than A Viral Meme — It’s A Statement Of Intent

Approximately five minutes into Netflix’s new movie May December, the film announces exactly what it is. We’ve been watching a family (and friends) get ready for a cookout, expertly coordinated by Gracie (Julianne Moore) with help from her much younger husband, Joe Yoo (Charles Melton). We know someone is arriving, and it seems to be an actress based on dialogue. But unless you’ve read the plot description it’s not inherently clear what this movie is about, or even its tone.

That is, until Gracie loudly declares, “I don’t think we have enough hot dogs.”

This is the first laugh-out-loud moment in the darkly comedic and often tragic film, written by Samy Burch and directed by Todd Haynes. And it’s specifically structured to be a shot across the bow; a statement of intent for the movie. Haynes films the beginning (and most of the two-hour running time) with gauzy vignetting on the scenes, slow pans, and push-ins to various locations and characters. And this is all emphasized by Marcelo Zarvos’s score, which is, as even admitted by the Netflix closed captioning, extremely dramatic.

Haynes’s point is to frame the whole story as you would in a made-for-TV movie ripped from the headlines, an episode of Dateline, or any gaudy, lascivious, car-crash-in-action reenactment of a real-life story. Here, it’s barely masking the tale of Mary Kay Letourneau, in the form of Moore’s Gracie, and the 12-year-old she molested and had a child with.

If you’ve randomly tuned into the movie on Netflix, you may not know that yet. But you do know the tropes and rhythms of the genre. Haynes pairs this dramatic piano music with a slow push-in on the stricken face of Gracie. What does she see in the refrigerator? What horrors await us throughout this movie? Is she about to go into a flashback and show us, the audience, the sickening, sexually charged story we’re waiting for?

Nope. She thinks we need more hot dogs.

It’s that contrast between dramatic filming and framing, and the banality of the line that causes the audience to laugh out loud. They now know it’s okay to laugh at these characters throughout this movie, up until the moments so horrifically uncomfortable you might find yourself getting choked up — particularly where Melton’s character’s late-in-the-movie breakdown is concerned. He’s been getting awards recognition for that for good reason, and will most likely nab an Oscar nomination for the role.

But at the same time, it’s funny. Darkly funny. But from the delicate race to the bottom between Moore and Natalie Portman’s actress Elizabeth Berry, to the complicated (and still somewhat hilarious) scene at the end of the film, to nearly everything Cory Michael Smith’s pathetically damaged Georgie does, this aims to be a comedy that reveals something more about how we as humans interact with each other long after a tragedy has supposedly passed. What do we take from each other? What do we steal? How do our lives intertwine with our family, friends, and strangers?

All of these moments are what make our lives what they are; the choices and directions we head in. And all of this is important to understanding the core of the movie. But between all those choices, all those pivot points that lead to the dramatic moments that stick with us long after they’re over… Sometimes we just need more hot dogs.