Pee-wee himself: the eternal cancellation of the man who inspired Tim Burton

When Paul Reubens steps in front of Matt Wolf 's camera, director of Pee-wee's Own , he already knows he's dying. The documentary will end without him. It will also, in a way, begin without him, as the comedian constantly seems reluctant to open up about himself for a series that, paradoxically, wouldn't exist if he hadn't wanted it to.

Pee-wee himself , in Max, is a quasi-authorized biography, but above all it's a grand reflection on control and dignity. Both of these things got out of hand for Paul Reubens . Wanting to control everything led to the failure of his second film, the megalomaniacal The Great Pee-wee ; taking his dignity to the ultimate consequences condemned him to eternal cancellation before the word cancellation even existed.

What did exist were double standards and morals . Paul Reubens suffered them, but refuses to remember himself as a victim. You'd think he had more resentment toward Tim Burton , whom he practically accuses of having appropriated his peculiar universe, than toward the sanctimonious prosecutor who, after finding huge quantities of pornography in Reubens's house, got him to plead guilty to a highly questionable crime: obscenity .

By throwing the word "pedophilia" around here and there, Paul Reubens' reputation was ruined, which irreversibly contaminated Pee-Wee Herman , the eccentric character behind which the comedian had hidden for most of his life.

Pee-Wee wasn't such a perfect work of art that its creator was arrested in a porn theater in 1991 and, shortly after, found guilty of, ahem, obscenity. Reubens, fearlessly uttering the cursed word, asserted his right to collect whatever he wanted: coins, stamps, or photos of naked men. Legally, he was absolutely right; media-wise, his was a losing battle .

It's indisputable that Paul Reubens was unfairly pushed out of the system. We don't need a documentary series to understand that. Pee-Wee himself isn't that series. Did he try to at first? Probably. But the door Reubens opens in his interviews is much more seductive: he had kept his personal life out of the spotlight at the time, and if now, 30 years later, he was willing to share it, it would be on his terms. Control to the end .

Don't expect Pee-Wee's version of the story of those who have something bad to say about Paul Reubens in Pee-Wee's Own. But do expect to discover that this man's biggest problem wasn't being homosexual or a porn fan (of course), but a perverse combination of ego and complexes. His antipathy, already in his seventies, is sometimes ironic and other times genuinely unpleasant.

Pee-Wee himself displays the two personalities of a man who is as aware of his own worth (Reubens knows exactly which lines will make headlines) as he is incapable of recognizing that there were factors in Pee-Wee's success that everyone, including him, misses.

It's sad that Pee-Wee Herman's influence on so many later works and authors goes unrecognized, though it's not his creator who points out this lack of recognition. Arrogance to the very end. In Pee-Wee Himself, Paul Reubens seems to be constantly telling his enemies, real or imagined: "You know exactly who you are, and you should be ashamed of what you did." He would die very soon after, in 2023.

Dignity to the end. Or pathological stubbornness. Or both.