...as regards Alison being so willing to have this kid...

>Here comes the bit that will divide Apatow’s audience and (he hopes) get them arguing over the movie: Alison decides to inform the father and, little by little, to enfold him and his oafish, froggy grin in the gentle business of parenting. Call it the taming of the Shrek. Most women, I imagine, will scoff with incredulity: this is neither a last hurrah (Alison is still in her twenties) nor the ideal time (she has a good job), and Ben is the last slob on earth she would have chosen. Most men, meanwhile, will be too busy watching through their fingers. To them, this is “The Omen.”<

To most women, this is ROSEMARY'S BABY, actually--g! Though Aptow noted in a 'view that it's a good bet Alison and Ben won't stay together three months after the movie ends, he's still pulling his punches with Alison's character. Bad enough she is upending her whole life; even worse that she's trying to help a guy "change" in order to become a good father. Guess it was too threatening to have a woman who wouldn't want her life derailed, much less want to take time out to mother the guy that she got pregnant with.

>Holiday, The Lady Eve, the Palm Beach Story: are these supposed to be movies? That we've heard of?<

Er...yes--if you know that movies did actually exist before THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN. :) HOLIDAY (1936; starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant)in particular will forever ruin you for the kind of crap Nora Ephron and Nancy Meyers pass off as romantic comedy. It's realistic and unsentimental in the best way, and you really root for the hero and herione to get together because the obstacles between them are real problems, not cobbled-up trivial mess.

>Well, many women feel that their immature, somewhat irresponsible lovers and potential mates will do a sudden 180 when faced with the prospect of childbirth and rearing a family.<

Women with sense (those for whom wedding fantasies were a childhood stage and not an overriding goal, for example) don't, thank you.

>"If we were to drag this girl through the judicial process and fail, I am not sure what that does for her."<

Oh, joy. Nice to know the SCOTUS' attitude that women are fragile waifs who don't know their own minds and must be protected from themselves has trickled down.

1) What is this woman's job? I've read this letter twice and don't see any mention of her being a stripper...

2) LW, I suspect you fell in love with her partly because she's very much like you--or the way you used to be.

3) Gotta agree with other posters--it sounds like she's using already and is testing you for your reaction.

...to regard women as "Those who pretend to want independence/careers, but down deep really only want to settle down with man/baby and trap poor schlubs into marriage." He doesn't really seem to completely get it that women have their own existence and aren't just touchstones for men.

...that no matter what women do, some men can only see them as reflections of themselves. If you want to marry and have kids, you are a golddigger or a parasite. If you want to be single and have a career, you're doomed to be alone and a cat-spinster. That is why the more mysogynistic trolls 'round here get _so_ peeved off at articles that seem to imply women don't need them. If women don't need them, they down deep don't feel they really exist--or are real men. And they hate women for that.

This reminds me of sociologist Bella DiPaulo's observation in SINGLED OUT. The more marriage/family loses its grip as _the_ only way to live, the louder and more virulent the screaming gets about how being single/childfree is eeevvvilll. And a lot of that screaming is done by people who themselves realize they've been sold a bill of goods, but can't face it. In the interview the NYT did with Apatow last week, it was very clear Apatow regards marriage as a ball-and-chain--and gets far more fulfillment hanging out with his buddies and working. (Sheesh, my six-year-old cousin talks about beets--which she hates--with more enthusiasm than JA showed about having wife and kids. :)) Sounds to me like Apatow is screaming to drown out his realization that marriage isn't all its cracked up to be--and that it doesn't automatically make you a man or mature.

"This whole thing stinks like yesterday's diaper." :)

>The reviewers seem to have the pathetic gratitude of the starved, ecstatic over the tiniest crumb. How much dumber can movies get and still be hailed as "classic"?<

This movie is getting a pass on its fairly realistic depiction of marriage, the fact it reflects a certain lifestyle fairly accurately--and the fact it is better-characterized and -written than most of your basic gross-out comedies. To critics who review a lot worse stuff week after week, that's like a long drink of fresh water right there. :)(Hell, if I had to constantly review Nora Ephron and Nancy Meyers' fake-ass ideas of what romantic comedy is, I'd be desperate for a dose of reality, too--g!) However, there's a lot of pro-famblee agenda-mongering here that the critics either are deliberately overlooking or want to promote. As someone on here noted, you don't rack up huge box-office by not pandering to the suburban crew and the 20-something guy crew. And as SINGLED OUT would add, there is a lot of panic out there that marriage-children aren't the answer to everything--and a lot of media guilt that maybe it's at fault for promoting anti-family values. (I would imagine folks like Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, and the Caitlin Flanagan-types would just _love_ this movie.) In any case, time will tell if this is a classic. I'm betting not--it lacks imagination and is fundamentally restrictive and conformist at heart.