Letters to the Editor
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KNOCKED UP: Pro-Lifers Find Their Place in Comedy? Just A Thought.
This was one of the most enjoyable comedies I've seen in a long time. Judd Apatow knows comedy and that I will not deny.
But at the moment the one-night stand occurred, subtle messages about right-to-life trickled into my awareness. During the one-night stand, Ben decides to discard his condom right when he's putting it on because he interprets what Alison's saying - "Just do it already"- as her meaning "Forget the condom, let's go for it." This shouts support for an idea that I had hoped was dying out: It's the woman's responsibility to bring contraception into sex, because a man will bone anything in sight and not consider the consequences. This scene also touts the widely supported urban myth that condoms ruin the moment. In the era of Abstinence Ed versus Free Condoms in Public Schools, in the era when sex education is a plausible aspect of a child's upbringing -- I do not appreciate the undertones here: "All those myths you've heard about condoms are true! Just do it already."
Fast forward to Alison grappling with her options. Wait. What? Surely we will see Alison grappling with her options (abortion, keep the baby, give baby up for adoption, etc). No! We don’t! We do see her decision, after it is made -- a tearful Phone Call to Ben letting him know she's decided to keep the baby. We do not see any of the thoughts she may have had that led to that decision. Suspension of disbelief much? Indeed.
Shortly before this Phone Call, Harold Ramis' character (Ben's Dad) gives Ben a speech. In sum: "You never know where life will take you, you just have to go with it," which, for all its hippy-dippy feel-good vibes smacks of "She doesn't need to get an abortion, man. She just needs to go with the flow, man." Mistakes are cool, man, because Ben – a mistake - is the best thing that ever happened to his dad.
Hooray!! Let's all throw our condoms out and make lots of life-changing mistakes!!
Prior to The Phone Call, we also meet Alison's mother (played by Joanna Kerns) -- the Pro-Choice Hellbitch. The one voice in the film supporting the option to have an abortion sounds like the wicked stepmother from Cinderella. Over lunch, Alison's mother dictates that Alison has to "take care of it." Alison's mother then tells of a friend who had an abortion earlier in life and was able to get past that time and now "has a real baby." Way to fairly portray the mind of the pro-choicer, Apatow. "Kill the fake babies!!! Raaaaaa!!!"
Oy.
The film does a decent job of exposing the real crap that can occur in marriages (between Paul Rudd's Pete and Leslie Mann's Debbie). They are not happy. So we get an in-the-dog-housed Pete-and-Ben weekend trip to Vegas and a heartfelt male-bonding mushrooming experience that leads Pete to realize he doesn't need alone time or his own activities, nah, he just needs to accept the smothering love of Debbie. Simultaneously, Debbie and Alison realize that they, as women, are too old and/or pregnant to be single, so they might as well face facts and deal with their mess-up male partners. It's a harsh and displeasing view of relationships. I hate to say it looks like a Pro-Life agenda, but it's not a stretch to connect that "you're stuck with each other, so deal with it" attitude to a more Catholic notion that true love is a myth and family is all about duty.
There’s some real anti-man sentiment locked up in this. In the film, it's the MEN who are mess-ups, it's only the MEN who have to change. BEN has to change to become a decent boyfriend and dad. And PETE has to be more willing to be fawned over by Debbie so that their marriage to work. Debbie gains no insight into her own personality or what she brings to the marriage. Alison's character undergoes literally ZERO development (besides in her uterus). While her emotional outbursts and rejections towards Ben force him to look deeply at his life, there is no counterpart in the film that forces Alison to change from being a career-driven, selfish, living-with-her-sister control freak into an insightful, nurturing, compassionate, good listener. Did SHE read the baby books? We ASSUME so, but as an audience we don't know so. And are we to assume that even though we do not see her mature, as soon as her baby is born, she'll suddenly become a better human being, girlfriend and informed mother? Why are we to assume that?
Because women are biologically manufactured to be good mothers. They don't need training, nor do they need to grow up. As infantile as they may behave – and Debbie and Alison both behave like bitchy schoolgirls for most of the film -- women just "know" how to be good moms. Harumph.
Fast forward through the birth to Ben, holding his newborn baby. Ben is cutely describing to the baby how she was conceived and says something like, "I'm really glad I didn't put that condom on." Oy! Did the National Pro-Life Group act as the final editor on the script and penciled that line in at the last minute while holding a machete to Judd Apatow's throat?
In sum: Don't we all wish our juvenile 20-somethings would get their acts together and grow up already? Well, this film has the answer: accidental pregnancy! Boys will become men. Girls will become...mothers, at the very least. Boys will get JOBS and stop SMOKING POT. Girls will...become mommies. Boys will get their own apartments finally and stop hanging out with all their loser pot head friends! Girls will...become mamas. Boys will stop talking about BJs and big titties all the time and bond with “cool” 30-something dudes who have real jobs and families! Girls will...get knocked up.
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Heh, katzwick
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.