Beauty Is Embarrassing

Beauty Is Embarrassing chronicles the life and work of pop artist Wayne White, from his early years growing up in the mountains of Tennessee, his move to NYC, his huge success as designer and puppeteer on the groundbreaking TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse, and finally to his acclaim by the art world of Los Angles. Along the way he discovers that being an artist is not just a job or a hobby but a lifestyle.  We meet his wife and family, watch him create a few new works of art, listen to him talk about his career to small audiences, and hear from his admirers and fellow collaborators, like Paul Reubens, Matt Groening and Mark Mothersbaugh. White’s work is innovative, playfully striking, and worthy of study, and there’s no denying his influence on a generation of artists who grew up watching Pee-wee's Playhouse.  But director Neil Berkeley fails to make anything more that a jumbled mess of images, attitudes and anecdotes. This documentary is to Crumb (Terry Zwigoff ‘s 1994 portrait of underground comic artist R. Crumb) what Barney and Friends is to Pee-wee's Playhouse.

It may be an unfair comparison, since Crumb is one of the greatest documentaries ever made on any subject.  I make it because Crumb is a perfect example of what a great biographical documentary can do; it draws an audience in, holds them and challenges them even if they have zero interest in the film’s subject. Beauty Is Embarrassing does the exact opposite. The picture is so repetitive, haphazardly structured, and visually unpleasant that it wears out its welcome long before the halfway point; we are left with the impression that White is not worthy of a feature length documentary.