Letters to the Editor
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Ehehe...
>and perhaps views himself as the ever-needing-to-mature Ben/Pete hybrid whose personality and interests are constantly subsumed by marriage and his wife.<
It's one of those nifty little ironies that the people who holler the most about how their "sainted wives" made them better men and how singles lack worthwhile lives are the ones who act in RL as if their marriage is a frickin' life sentence without parole. :)
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it's not only ironic it's entirely inevitable
anyone who feels like they are a good person because they are forced to do and be something other than what they want to be can't help but feel trapped. How could they not.
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Nobody is really forced...
...to marry anybody. It's all in their heads. The power of the marriage myth is that no matter what you've accomplished and how happy you are, you are still not complete/mature/worthwhile/a good person unless you get hitched. Too many people take that at face value and don't stop to think if marriage is right for them. Once they find out it isn't, they can't face it--or they think there's something wrong with them that they can't do marriage "right." Result--the marriage myth gets more hypesters, all of whom would rather demonize non-marrieds than find their own happiness.
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one of the things that is confusing the issue is a difference in outlook between men and women
to a man an attractive woman is an attractive women (and vice versa) regardless of social status, accomplishements, the cultural significance of whatever attitudes she does or doesn't have, etc. This is why so many men aren't intuitively grasping the difference between seth rogan's stoner schlub character, and seth rogan move star, because for men there is no difference.
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it's much easier for women to exercise this kind of indpendent judgment
because they can have whatever sex and relationships they want in any case.
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Why Johnny Can't Watch a Movie
"Do you ever comment on articles, or do you just feel the need to debate every opinion posted?"
Golly! I woulda thunk that pointing out the presumptions, misconceptions, mistakes, inanities in reader's reactions to a movie most of them haven't even seen *was* commenting on the articles.
This thread may not go so far as to prove that the capacity to respond to art is doomed in America. But it does a pretty fair job of proving that too many people are too immature to watch a movie where characters make decisions they wouldn't. By the logic demonstrated here, any woman who makes a decision to bring a pregnancy to term is anti-abortion. So the movie just has to be prolife, antiwoman, blah, blah, fucking blah.
I mean, come on. This is enough to make me ashamed to be a liberal. For all that we fear the right imposing their morality on everyone, this thread demonstrates a stunning lack of tolerance for other people's choices if they don't coincide with your own politics. If what we believe in really *is* choice, then why is everyone so intolerant of the Heigl character's choice. It's not presented as a prescription for society to follow. It's one character's choice. This isn't a public service announcement. It's a film. Not a prescription for living. George Will thought "Born in the USA" was a rah-rah America song. The right seized on "March of the Penguins" as a profamily statement, for crissakes. If the right seizes on this, all you'll be showing is that you're stupid enough to agree with them.
No one -- I'm assuming because most of you haven't seen it -- deals with the fact that, in Apatow's movies, it's the women who are the more mature. And people seem inordinately bothered by the fact that the men are shown to be immature. And yes, it takes the radical view that -- gasp! -- people can change. That immature jerks can, despite that, show flashes of decency. I mean if you can't accept that, you've got a black and white world view to rival Bush's.
So, to the question that started -- Do I feel the need to debate posted opinion?
Someone has be to the voice of sanity.
Vay con dios, suckers.
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What's scary to me
I've actually seen this scenario played out in real life several times. It never ends well. If a person is not mature before the pregnancy, usually they don't straighten up after without a brick upside the head (for some women the pregnancy IS the knock upside the head.)
So none of this sounds funny to me. An immature man who needs someone to remind him to act right? WHo has good intentions and never follows through? Are Babydaddies funny if they are stoners instead of thugs? If the women are blonde and not brunette, upper class and not the usualy middle and working class? Since when were the Kevin Federlines of the world that funny? This guy is far to many people's reality of the father who screws up and "forgets" visits, child support, etc. A man who is a RESPONSIBLE man is more attractive. Why can't the movies exault these kinds of guys, instead of the irresponsible but charming loser? Irresponsible but charming losers reformed by women is a cliche.
I married a grown up man to avoid these problems. If this movie reinforces the idea any man can be "matured" by a woman, it's perpetuating a really nasty idea that causes a lot of pain.
My hubby will go. I'm ambivalent. Mr. Joshua hasn't said one thing that makes me want to see this movie, but neither have the others. This scenario is realistic, but it doesn't sound that funny here.
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in a way there's some justice in it....
women think men are idiots when men interfere with women always getting everything their way so it's kind of funny that they would "often" apparently be in a position where reality actually appears to confirm their inclination to believe that women are in fact smarter, etc. etc and men apparently are proven to be losers, idiots, etc.....and what do you know they STILL AREN'T completely happy!
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Hear hear!
<<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.
-- katzwick>>
Fabulous analysis, katzwick! I think we should be married, if you're a man, or BFF if not!
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Thanks, LillianJane
Thank you for your three cheers. I for some reason feel very invested in my critique of the movie and wish the Salon.com editors would check it out! In the meantime, it's nice to know a few people here appreciate what I observed.