Is It Woke? Bill Burr’s ‘Old Dads’

It’s hard to say whether or not Bill Burr‘s directorial debut, Old Dads, is 100% pure woke without quibbling about the definition of woke. “Woke” isn’t a word anymore; it’s a vibe.

But, a quick refresher: “woke” originated in African-American communities and meant “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination.” Later, it became popular slang for anyone who opposed social injustices. And from there, the word mutated. To conservatives, “woke” is shorthand for anyone who doesn’t vote Republican. To ordinary people who don’t inhale the internet 24/7, woke has become a punchline.

The word isn’t used in Burr’s movie, but the primary target of his new comedy are the young, finger-wagging, bleeding-heart liberals conservatives love to accuse of being “woke.” But Old Dads — now streaming on Netflix — doth protest too much: it tries to be “not woke” a little too hard for a movie with a feel-good moral. By the movie’s end, Burr hopes to unite people of all races, creeds, religions, sexualities, and genders by mocking self-righteous phones and moralizing narcissists.

The premise of Old Dads is cleverly hidden in the title. Burr plays Jack, a cranky bastard who became a pop later in life, and he teaches his son old school life lessons, like literally rubbing dirt on playground wounds. When a goody-goody neighbor overhears Jack’s advice to his son, Burr turns around and snaps at him, the first time of many when his character loses control of his emotions.

Jack, 46, is four years younger than Archie Bunker, 50, the unrepentant bigot from the legendary ’70s sitcom All In The Family. (In real life, Burr is 55 and the actor who played Archie, Carol O’Connor, was 46 years old when he filmed the show’s first episode.) Like Archie, Burr doesn’t like what America has become. But unlike Archie, Burr’s character grows emotionally. Should I have written “spoiler alert” before that?

Burr directs confidently, a quality he exudes in front of the camera and on stage. The veteran stand-up comic is one of the smartest and funniest thinkers and joke writers of his generation, comparable, IMHO, to Louis C.K., who is currently, and rightly, shunned by the mainstream.  In his specials and on podcasts, Burr can balance his working class, no-bullshit, tell-it-like-it-is swagger with genuine empathy and intelligence. He is something rare among his peers: a reasonable man.

But when we meet Jack, he is anything but reasonable. He’s a middle-aged bro with a toddler, a pregnant wife, and deep-seated anger issues. The world is changing around him and he doesn’t like it. Even worse, he doesn’t fit in anymore.

Jack is redeemed by this long-suffering wife, an underwritten role played warming by Katrina Bowden. His best friends are a pair of fortysomething fathers. As one of his buds, the great Bobby Cannavale is a neurotic, himbo old dad. Bokeem Woodbine is so authentic, intense, and unexpectedly hysterical as another old dad that he almost steals the movie from its star. These three form an unlikely but successful comedic threesome, each dealing with slowly becoming uncool and invisible to anyone under 35.

Old Dads may as well be renamed Old Man Yelling At Clouds: The Movie. Only in this case, the clouds are effete, overly-sensitive millennials, which is another word that has lost all meaning. To a cranky Gen Xer like Burr, a “millennial” is any a-hole younger than him. Burr has his most fun on screen when he’s shouting vulgarities — including the nuclear-tipped c-word — directly at the scolds.

Old Dads may as well be renamed Old Man Yelling At Clouds: The Movie. Only in this case, the clouds are effete, overly-sensitive millennials.

While watching it, I was reminded of the ancient saying, “Every generation gets the Wild Hogs it deserves,” a reference to the 2007 Baby Boomer buddy pic starring Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, and Willam H. Macy as Botoxed almost-seniors on a road trip of self-discovery. I look forward to the movie today’s Gen Zers will make once their knees give out and the youths start laughing at them behind their backs.

Burr wants to be able to tell offensive jokes without being “canceled,” for lack of a better term. Is that so wrong? The answer, for many, is yes. And there are offensive jokes in Old Dads; very few groups are spared, including balding, overweight, out-of-touch white men. The jokes aren’t mean-spirited, but they’re also transphobic, racist, and homophobic. Burr is betting that many dudes like him are terrified of all the new social rules, many of which seem written and rewritten randomly and in secret. The new generations are always recording themselves while being recorded secretly. It can feel like you’re living in a surveillance state (which we are).  

Jack and his friends don’t know what to say to anyone younger, and when they do say something, it comes out wrong. What’s demanded of these dudes isn’t much: show some respect, be polite, do unto others, etc. But the comedy that is mined is cliche snobs versus snobs stuff. Old Dads versus spoiled brats. Burr, who co-wrote the screenplay, wants to poke those he believes are thin-skinned right in the ribs. That’s his ideal target, and it’s a target he doesn’t always hit. The crude humor often falls flat, and about halfway through the second act, the boorishness becomes, well, boring.

But Old Dads means well, and it’s occasionally funny. Occasionally. It’s hard not to snicker when the movie parodies the superficial  28-year-old CEO of the company that Jack and his friends built and then sold. That guy is every weasely tech bro who thinks laying off workers is the same thing as leadership. But the movie is mostly Burr shouting at losers on scooters and condescending private school principals, all while whining about “the kids.” This is the new mid-life crisis: raging against the dying of the light, or to be more timely, raging against the rise of the prig.

The organizing principle of Burr’s comedic vision is the old schoolyard taunt “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hold me.” His character says all the wrong things but does the right thing in the end, which is to work on himself. Eventually, like an M&M, Old Dads reveals a soft chocolatey center underneath a hard candy shell of shock comedy. (It’s a very thick, hard candy shell of shock comedy.)

This is a movie that knows its demographic, though. You might find yourself the butt of Burr’s jokes if you aren’t a cis-het man older than the age most doctors recommend a first colonoscopy. This movie practically begs a dainty young TikTok star to lose their mind over Burr’s transgressive humor. I genuinely hope no one takes the bait. It’s not worth it.

At its worst, Old Dads is like a hacky ’90s “What’s the deal with political correctness?” stand-up routine. At its best, it’s a naughty premium cable TV movie, a movie dads can watch in their underwear while the wife and daughter are at the local AMC watching Taylor Swift on the big screen for a second time.

So, Is Old Dads Woke?

Evidence For: If Bill Burr wanted to make a movie that wasn’t woke, he would have done just that. There is an alternate reality version of Old Dads that is meaner, uglier, and produced by The Daily Wire instead of Netflix. That movie, though, would have no sense of humor about itself. Instead, Burr earnestly wants to prove what woke-hating right-wingers refuse to believe–that changing with the times and evolving is both easy and makes you a better person.

Evidence Against: Bill Barr says thoughtless things in this movie. He tells a Caitlyn Jenner joke, which is offensive and, weirdly, out-of-date. The three main characters all suffer from terminal cases of toxic masculinity. This movie openly and pointedly mocks young people who may or may not be woke. Fair enough.

Final Judgement: My woke Spidey-sense tells me that Burr would prefer I declare his film “not woke” for the pull quote alone. “Old Guys is NOT woke!” — John DeVore, Woke Expert, Decider. That’s marketing gold right there.

John DeVore is a sensitive and thoughtful writer living in New Woke City. His favorite movie is Fiddler On The Roof, followed by Hellraiser.