« Debate Impressions | Main | The Immigration Bill Advances »
June 04, 2007
Knocked Up
That right there's a good movie. Possibly not as funny as The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but close, and almost certainly the better film. Where the-40-Year-Old Virgin took, in reality, male relationships as its subject, Knocked Up focuses on male maturation. The pregnancy, the friends, the shrewish sister and her oddly detached husband -- they're all vehicles to explore that odd transition from a life wherein your strongest attachments are with close friends, to one where your primary companions are your wife and family. Oh yeah, and it's really funny. A mushroom trip involving five different types of chairs and a dressdown from a surprisingly sensitive bouncer are particularly classic moments.
I also agree with much of Amanda's review. The early efforts of folks on both the Right and the Left to brand the movie pro-life were discomfiting. Some in my group seemed genuinely distressed that the main character didn't choose an abortion, and were ready to write off the film for that initial bit of betrayal. I found that baffling.
The flick is pro-choice in the most literal sense of the term. Katherine Heigl's character receives advice in both directions, and then makes a decision -- a decision the audience may very well conclude is the wrong one. But she has a choice; nothing is forced on her, and the most explicit scene on abortion features an eloquent speech by her mother advising her to end the pregnancy because, at this point, she's not ready, and these are not the right circumstances. Heigl, it turns out, disagrees, but that's a perfectly allowable, and indeed respectable, decision within the choice framework. I was, like Brian, disappointed in the movie for making things work out so perfectly (her pregnancy actually ends up aiding her job), but that was a minor sin, and one more attributable to the conventions of romantic comedies than any rightwing agenda. In any case, a good movie, and one that I'd happily see a second time. It's far more fun than the substantive commentary here would suggest.
June 4, 2007 in Film | Permalink
Comments
Knocked Up focuses on male maturation
Ok, just guess how I misread this at first.
Posted by: DonBoy | Jun 4, 2007 11:43:20 AM
I agree with you about choice meaning the woman should be free to keep her child, if she desires, Ezra. And I fully intend to see this movie, and will almost certainly enjoy it.
But stories exist in a larger social and political context. Any story whose outcome enhances or supports traditional notions of what choice is the right one is appropriate can't help but add its weight to the balance (how sweet! the woman decides to keep the baby and everything works out just fine! see, you have nothing to worry about -- when in fact, many women do have something to worry about). Not to mention that movies in which the woman decides to keep the baby and everything works out are less politically risky and therefore more likely to be made.
Because there is already tremendous social pressure on women *not* to have abortions -- regardless of whether they have the support of the baby's father, their families, or any way to support themselves and raise a child -- a story that supports that message can't help but reinforce the idea that it's better to keep the baby, even if it means you are screwed. Is this really what we mean by choice?
It'd be nice to have strong, entertaining stories in which a sympathetic woman, one whom audiences can identify with, makes the choice to end a pregnancy, and see! everything works out just fine! She gets true love, and the great job, etc etc etc.
So it's not necessarily a problem with this movie per se; it's that the choice the woman makes doesn't break any new ground, and doesn't provide elbow room for women to confidently claim the choice to abort.
But I don't want to hit this point too hard. This gets into a whole discussion about what the writer's obligation is to society versus the story he or she wants to tell, and I am an absolutist in that regard; as long as the writer tells the story with personal honesty, I'm OK with it. Even if, I might have preferred that the writer push the limits or gone in a different direction.
Posted by: LauraJMixon | Jun 4, 2007 11:58:08 AM
(sorry for typos. posting quickly because I Should Be Writing...)
Posted by: LauraJMixon | Jun 4, 2007 12:00:22 PM
I'm excited because it's Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, and Martin Starr--in other words, a mini-Freaks & Geeks reunion. I don't know how the movie is (it does sound pretty good), but I can guarantee the commentary track will be awesome.
Posted by: Tom Hilton | Jun 4, 2007 12:41:26 PM
Ok, just guess how I misread this at first. - DonBoy
Glad to know I'm not the only one.
Posted by: DAS | Jun 4, 2007 12:48:49 PM
But stories exist in a larger social and political context.
The onus of a creator is not to write a story that justifies a political or social agenda for the satisfaction of its proponents. Those stories are called 'crap'.
Posted by: twig | Jun 4, 2007 12:51:32 PM
Where the-40-Year-Old Virgin took, in reality, male relationships as its subject, Knocked Up focuses on male maturation.
It was about male maturation in the same way that Gigli was about the vicissitudes of the human heart. Or maybe I just saw a different movie. There was no maturation. The main character learned the same lesson that men in all of these half-baked dude flicks learn: that if you can simply show up and do the bare minimum (I think he read half a baby book), and find it within your heart to forgive women for acting all hysterical now and again--you know how they can get, wink wink--then they'll love you just because you're an affable loser.
On the other hand, it did have some good jokes--writing a decent 'shroom scene seems difficult, so points for that.
Posted by: brad plumer | Jun 4, 2007 12:51:37 PM
... and I do realize that is what you wrote at the end of your comment as well. So I'm not arguing, just that if certain people want certain stories told, it's their obligation to tell them. Especially as an outside perspective is almost certainly not as good as an inside one.
Posted by: twig | Jun 4, 2007 1:00:46 PM
I don't know who to agree with but I've pretty much decided never to discuss art among the people I usually discuss politics with because the aesthetic stalinism is just inescapable, for everyone.
Posted by: DRR | Jun 4, 2007 1:19:56 PM
I agree anyone who uses terms like "aesthetic stalinism" isn't someone I want to discuss movies with. By the way, can someone else tell me what "aesthetic stalinism" is? And I imagine every other white straight guy in America will love this movie- its made for you. I will probably like it too. I like 40 year old virgin.
Posted by: akaison | Jun 4, 2007 1:49:43 PM
I would assume 'aesthetic stalinism' is requiring a movie to fill a certain poltiical or ideological niche before enjoying it.
It's a way to ensure said movies are probably boring as all get out, but I'm art > politics so that's my bias.
Posted by: twig | Jun 4, 2007 2:17:46 PM
Let's be clear here. The problem isn't that "Knocked Up" doesn't present the "choice" well. It's that there's no movies out there-- at all-- in which a lead character has an abortion and that choice turns out to be absolutely right. And that's despite the fact that in real life, most abortions DO turn out to be the right choice, whereas many choices to have a child-- especially when said child is the product of a one-night stand with an iffy male-- turn out to be very tragic ones.
Really, Hollywood is filled with people who know that when its their own careers and lives on the line, abortion is the right choice. Yet on the screen, you have to keep the baby, and things always turn out right when you do.
Posted by: Dilan Esper | Jun 4, 2007 2:48:40 PM
We can discuss whether movies have political and social messages or not, without saying it was badly made. "Triumph of the Will" as a breakthrough in filmmaking and is studied to this day... despite being Nazi propoganda.
I think the issue with pro-choice message is that every single movie like this does in fact decide to pass up the abortion, so it's really not very balanced. I felt the same way with a recent Scrubs episode about this issue. Now, if they did get an abortion there wouldn't be much of a movie, so they best they can do is discuss abortion like it's a serious option. But since there are so few actively pro-abortion stories, there really isn't anything in the way of balance with the many many pro-life movies to call the result pro-choice.
Posted by: Tony V | Jun 4, 2007 2:55:35 PM
I think the issue is, plot wise, that once the abortion is done it really doesn't allow for much conflict to move things along. You could make a movie about a women who gets an abortion and is pilloried for it but then the focus of the movie is about the treatment of the women by the group and not really about the abortion.
Posted by: Parmenides | Jun 4, 2007 3:05:48 PM
Yet on the screen, you have to keep the baby, and things always turn out right when you do.
I guess I don't find this surprising, because entertainment simply doesn't reflect real life; it's more often a heightened, compressed depiction of potential real-life conflicts. A sensible abortion just doesn't have as many dramatic (character development, conflict, danger) possibilities as continuing a pregnancy, so there's not much incentive to write scripts depicting abortion in a positive way. I mean, the whole point of abortion IRL is that it allows individuals to control their lives by minimizing current and future risks, preserving the status quo, and so on, which is pretty boring and would make for an impossibly short narrative arc.
There's probably a good argument to be made that entertainment narratives in general, and film in particular (due to the limitations of minimal exposition, time constraints, & the usual lack of a third-person narrator) are fundamentally conservative... I don't know that it's entirely true, but it's almost always the case that effective drama relies on fairly conservative assumptions in order to work. It's awfully hard to engage an audience if there's no shared understanding of a dramatic conflict, after all, and starting with a fairly simple establishing premise is better dramaturgy.
Posted by: latts | Jun 4, 2007 3:08:57 PM
Dilan, what about the movie High Fidelity? It's not really integral to the plot, but it does get mentioned, and there isn't a kind of "it ruined my life" sort of treatment of the issue.
Posted by: Tyro | Jun 4, 2007 3:09:34 PM
There isn't that much of a market for explicitly pro-abortion fare, so people generally don't make movies about that. That's the commercial reality; movies practice consensus politics. They affirm that abortion are bad but should be legal, which is the mainstream position. It's the same way with other contentious issues, too. Gay people are generally portrayed positively but not that many movies celebrate gay marriages either.
Posted by: Korha | Jun 4, 2007 3:19:40 PM
Oh I liked Knocked Up.
Posted by: Korha | Jun 4, 2007 3:20:44 PM
It's that there's no movies out there-- at all-- in which a lead character has an abortion and that choice turns out to be absolutely right
Literally the only popular culture example I can think of is Claire's abortion in Six Feet Under. I actually had exactly this thought after seeing the movie, which I liked a lot in general: every movie or TV show that ever considers abortion basically sends the message that it's a shameful choice.
Posted by: Antid Oto | Jun 4, 2007 3:26:58 PM
Jennifer Jason Leigh's character gets an abortion in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. As a sophomore in high school! As far as I can remember, it's presented as the entirely correct decision and her character arc has a happy ending.
Posted by: mark | Jun 4, 2007 3:34:34 PM
the only popular culture example I can think of is Claire's abortion in Six Feet Under
And even that one had the presumed-dead Lisa promising to look after what seemed to be a three-month-old baby boy, in Claire's mind. Not a huge deal, insofar as the talking-with-the-dead sequences on SFU were always meant to be purely internal, but Claire's decision really only turns out to be right in the context of a much longer narrative (heck, you only learn about her later successes in the obituaries HBO provided for the main characters). But her conversation with the Republican lawyer about it was kinda funny.
Posted by: latts | Jun 4, 2007 3:37:46 PM
What would the plot be for this fabled woman chooses an abortion and the choice is right movie?
Woman gets pregant
Woman gets abortion
Nothing happens
End Credits
Somehow, I don't see a big audience for that sort of thing.
Posted by: Dave Justus | Jun 4, 2007 3:47:51 PM
"Jennifer Jason Leigh's character gets an abortion in Fast Times at Ridgemont High."
jeez, this is a young crowd. Not sure how anyone could overlook one of the seminal movies for Gen X. Fast Times, Say Anything, 16 candles, Fast Time at Ridgemont High. All staples of the Exers and Stacy's abortion was a huge plotpt in FTRH.
Posted by: hederman | Jun 4, 2007 3:56:27 PM
That's true. It was also almost 25 years ago. Not part of the popular culture of the moment, in other words. If anything, it suggests we're moving backwards.
Posted by: Antid Oto | Jun 4, 2007 4:11:03 PM
I actually thought of another example, though: there was an episode of House this year where House talks a rape victim into getting an abortion. Her deciding to abort is presented as the indication that she is ready to start dealing with what happened to her. I was totally shocked that a TV show would dare present that choice so positively. Of course, they later felt the need to balance that out by having a pregnant woman refuse to abort even though not doing so would almost certainly kill both her and the fetus ... and letting her miraculously live.
Posted by: Antid Oto | Jun 4, 2007 4:14:42 PM
"Not sure how anyone could overlook.."
The Last American Virgin, 1982.
Christ, I'm getting old.
Posted by: grape_crush | Jun 4, 2007 4:22:38 PM
Oh yeah...Knocked Up was great. Just don't assign any larger meaning to the events, focus on what the movie says about relationships, and enjoy.
And the idea of seeing Cirque du Soliel while tripping? Brilliant.
Posted by: grape_crush | Jun 4, 2007 4:26:09 PM
I can't really blame the screenwriter for not going the abortion route in a slapstick comedy.
Posted by: Steve | Jun 4, 2007 4:40:25 PM
Antid Oto,
Come on, even Bush has publicly endorsed a rape victim's right to an abortion, so its hardly a controversial stand. I would add, the third option, putting the child up for an adoption is often discounted and yet often turns out well for everyone. It technology advances so that a woman could have the embryo removed for transplant to an adoptive or surrogate mother, it would be far less burdensome (both physically and socially) than a full term pregnancy and would make the world a happier place (there are millions of childless couples, straight and gay, that would love to adopt).
I'm thinking this as I just got back from wedding this weekend where both the bride and the groom were adopted by wonderful families. The same lawyer had arranged both adoptions and was a guest at the wedding.
Posted by: beowulf | Jun 4, 2007 4:45:05 PM
"What would the plot be for this fabled woman chooses an abortion and the choice is right movie?
Woman gets pregant
Woman gets abortion
Nothing happens
End Credits
Somehow, I don't see a big audience for that sort of thing."
That is a classic strawman argument, Dave Justus, and it's very silly. Plenty of good stories can be told about a woman affirmatively choosing abortion, and it being the right choice for her life. A couple of people have already listed examples of such, upstream of this comment.
To repeat, it's not that the woman's choice in Knocked Up, and the consequences of her choice, are a bad choice in and of themselves. I'm a writer, myself, and I believe every writer has to have complete freedom to tell the story he or she feels needs to be told.
That does *not* mean that those of us who experience those stories can't say, "Hey, wouldn't it be great if somebody did X instead?"
Society builds these boxes that people are supposed to fit into. Different groups have different boxes, of different sizes and shapes, and they come with various knobs and controls -- access to influence and ability to effect change in that society. Storytellers help build those boxes, or tear them down, by writing stories about the people who live in them, or try to break out of them, and what it's like for them.
From everything I've heard about it, I'm sure I will enjoy KU when I see it. I may even love it.
But that doesn't change the fact that on the women and choice issue, the writer chose what was underneath Box No. 1, and not Box No. 2. And my wanting to see a big movie, a well-done romance-comedy-drama, about someone choosing Box No. 2 is no more a desire for propaganda than, say, somebody else wanting to see an adventure in which the geek outwits the bad guy in the end, instead of being rescued by the beefy hero.
Posted by: LauraJMixon | Jun 4, 2007 4:47:19 PM
But in this movie, an abortion would have made it a not-movie. The tension was really about them trying to work it out, and they were so different that if she had an abortion, they wouldn't have gone there. You could totally make a movie about a couple that tries to work it out after an abortion; High Fidelity was one such movie.
Posted by: Amanda Marcotte | Jun 4, 2007 5:59:46 PM
I thought about responding to Amanda's review, but it seemed unnecessary, and I had already put up my own review at my blog. I think Knocked Up is terrific, easily the best comedy so far this year, and possibly one of the greats of all time. It's charming, it's fresh, and it feels very real... But the point is, it's not real: it's your basic formulaic romantic comedy where "unintended pregnancy" takes the place of, say "dinner reservation mixup" as the "meet cute" element of a standard plot. All of this trying to fit it into our abortion discussion is nice, but beside the point. In real life, one night stands don't go on (that's um, why they're one night stands), guys rarely stick around for the accidents and women, often, get abortions when faced with the personal and professional pressures this character has. But in spite of all that, I don't begrudge the movie a whit of its fantasies; when it's this well done, why quibble? That's why we have movies, and why they're not real life. Let's just not mistake one for the other too much.
Posted by: weboy | Jun 4, 2007 6:31:05 PM
Sure. Again, I'm not trying to rewrite this movie. I'm just trying to point out that for all the good things it apparently does do in support of healthy male-female interactions, it doesn't seem to do much to challenge the stereotype that it's a *better* choice for a woman who finds herself inconveniently pregnant to have the baby, rather than to choose an abortion. It doesn't break new ground in that way, and in fact, reinforces traditional roles.
To make an analogy, it's kind of like a really well done, moving and funny movie about a couple in which the man goes out and works and the woman stays home and tends house, and is really happy doing it. It can be a perfectly valid choice for a woman to make in real life, but it doesn't exactly challenge the stereotypes, and a story about it wouldn't get, say, the Tiptree Award for challenging gender roles.
We don't, and most of us can't, always challenge the stereotypes. I certainly don't, in many ways. I a het, white, middle-class married female with two kids. My feelings about this one aspect of the movie are rather similar to my feelings about Jane Austin; she wrote some incredibly witty stuff about class, culture, gender, and character, and did some really interesting examinations of the position of women in society, but ultimately chose a fairly conservative position, with regard to gender roles.
Well, I've gone on long enough; I cede the floor. Interesting topic.
Posted by: LauraJMixon | Jun 4, 2007 6:39:17 PM
Ditto what weboy sez. This is white boy wet dream material not reality. Once you get over it being 'political' it's pretty funny. And being not of the majority on several ways on this, I can just watch the movie, like weboy I suspect, as a movie.
Posted by: akaison | Jun 4, 2007 8:24:00 PM
PS- No way she would have ended up with a slub like the lead. No way. But thats why its fantasy.
Posted by: akaison | Jun 4, 2007 8:25:03 PM
Judd Apatow's wife (the older sister in the movie) is way hotter than he is. He sort of based that on reality.
Posted by: Antid Oto | Jun 4, 2007 10:01:19 PM
I was going to mention Fast Times at Ridgemont High and The Last American Virgin, but others beat me to it. I do wish to add that it blows me away that a quarter-century has passed since then...damn.
I agree that we've gone backwards, though. In the early 80's, women's health centers offered low-to-no-cost birth control, counseling, abortions, and adoption referrals; furthermore, clinics weren't surrounded by picketers screaming at all who entered, taking down license numbers, tossing firebombs, and even shooting the occasional OB/Gyn. Nowadays, most (if not virtually all) such women's centers have closed, and fewer doctors provide abortion services. And of course, there are states banning the procedure in almost all circumstances...
Posted by: litbrit | Jun 4, 2007 11:26:26 PM
We are trotting backward. Wait for the next election and the loss of Justice (87 year old 5th vote for Roe) Stevens. Then comes the full on backward sprint.
On your mark! Get Set!
Posted by: RW | Jun 5, 2007 12:27:47 AM
One of the reasons I stopped arguing my point above was that I began to feel uncomfortable. KU is obviously a really good movie and breaks some interesting new ground in interpersonal relationships. I basically agree with the folks who are saying that hey, criticizing the movie for not dealing with a particular angle on an issue, however important that issue is, diminishes what the movie does accomplish. And I don't want to do that.
But I do think these kinds of discussions are helpful in helping us identify new areas for fruitful exploration by other writers and directors.
Speaking as a writer of fiction, I think one of the things that motivates us to create our own works is when we are drawn into a work by the issues it examines, but then the story goes off in one direction, where we wanted to see it go in another.
Trouble is, only 7% of all movie directors are women, and most men consider issues of women's reproductive rights as a second-tier issue at best. Getting a movie that really breaks new ground in that direction may not happen any time soon.
Posted by: LauraJMixon | Jun 5, 2007 12:19:23 PM
It's that there's no movies out there-- at all-- in which a lead character has an abortion and that choice turns out to be absolutely right
Dunno if Diane Keaton's character in "Godfather II" is a lead, exactly, or if things go swimmingly for her, but at least she isn't struck by lightning.
Posted by: Ken C. | Jun 5, 2007 12:58:02 PM
I'm looking forward to seeing the movie.
Posted by: lnoym | Jun 16, 2007 2:32:27 PM
