I find Mr. Bean so incredibly stupid

In my time as a child, a sleepover was the epic highlight of the year. All the mattresses in one room, finding popcorn the next morning between the elastic band of your pajama pants, and above all: going to bed very late and watching your favorite movies. But one person always managed to ruin these kinds of parties for me… Mr. Bean.

I can't explain how stupid I find Mr. Bean, but I will try anyway.

Mr. Bean borders on so much stupidity for me that I get annoyed from head to toe just seeing him. The strange thing is that I actually appreciate silly humor and can even chuckle at the slightly silly. Think of the genre: it stands in the meadow and has a chain around its neck.* But Mr. Bean just doesn't work for me. The difficult thing about this issue is that people I hold in high regard, like my friend, do find him funny. At moments like this, I question his sense of humor, and that borders on the danger zone.

Actually, I don't know where to start, but let's begin with that annoying expression that can't be wiped off his face. It’s a mix between a frog and a bunny that didn’t get front row seats when the distribution was happening. Combine this with the fact that making stupid choices seems to be his forte, and I'm already done. This usually happens within the first ten seconds of every scene, so you know how my Bean tolerance is. Furthermore, his vocabulary is lamentable, just lamentable; I get the urge to pick every word out of his throat, but no: not a word. There are people who label this as genius; I do not belong to those people.

And also annoying: what is actually his first name? I would like to call the whole creature by name when I assign him the title of most annoying man on earth, but he has never introduced himself in his entirety, which I find downright rude. It seems that in a movie from 2007, it says Rowan on the passport, but that has never been officially confirmed. The man without a first name, then.

Watching a Mr. Bean movie feels to me like watching an endless Even-Apeldoorn-Bellen commercial: you know it’s going to go wrong, you know it’s inevitable, you switch to the aiaiai-no-no-no mode, you want to explain it, you want to save people, you want to stop the misery, and yet it happens. The level of clumsiness is of such magnitude that it can no longer be hidden under an accident.

Maybe I am a hater of cultural heritage; that could be true, because I also Home Alone can’t handle it. Just like Flodder. Whatever it is, it’s on me, and that’s okay.

*Shetland Sjonnie.