Like a lot of people, I found Knocked Up to be both funny, and somewhat disquieting in its apparent message. These issues got discussed a bit and then the whole thing was forgotten in our fast-paced internet-age culture. But Jessica Valenti points out a really good new Meghan O'Rourke essay on the film inspired by Katherine Heigl's recent remark that the movie was "a little sexist."
« Neighborhood Fix-Up | Main | Cities? Never Mind »
Knocked Up Revisited
14 Dec 2007 01:48 pm
Comments (48)
That's digging awfully deep to come up with a criticism of a pretty good comedy.
Does anyone really disagree with the serious theme of the mostly lighthearted movie, that women often have to help, or push, men to live up to the responsibilities of civilization and family life? Don't you see that all around you? How does the film display bias against women by depicting that honestly?
The women certainly were not depicted as one-dimensional, and their frustrations with their men rang true. The whole criticism seems to be that the two sisters probably would have quirky interests and spontaneous, silly moments just like the men in their lives, but those weren't depicted.
So what? Plenty of things are going to have to be left off screen. For example, Pete seems to be very successful, but we get few clues as to the ambition (or the family inheritance) that got him where he is.
When a writer finds fault with a movie for not being about something else, while admitting that what it does is pretty good--well, it looks like desperation to find an angle for an article.
So the movie is criticized for not being about something other than what it was.
besides...
i seem to remember a mildly amusing moment when debbie recounts seeing pete masturbating, and katherine heigl gets to make some jokes out of it...nor do i recall any men's groups getting upset that the guys were portrayed as losers.
Knocked Up was jokey fun, yeah; it also shared a discomfiting similarity with another movie fondly beloved of the same ilk of moviegoer, Sideways: In both flicks, a fairly clueless schlub lands a chick who's caught between a rock and a hard place--a chick who is so improbably more hot than the guy that the whole thing comes off about as realistic as a Three Stooges skit.
Has there ever been a comedy where a studly guy ends up, for whatever reason, with a homely woman? Didn't think so. Something's happening here, but what it is I'm too bored to see clear....
Besides which, Matt, what critics like this seem to forget is that the movie was principally about the guys. I think that the women were never meant to be as archetypal and representative and identifiable as the men because they were simply mirrors, so far as the plot goes, to hold up against the men.
Besides which, Matt, what critics like this seem to forget is that the movie was principally about the guys. I think that the women were never meant to be as archetypal and representative and identifiable as the men because they were simply mirrors, so far as the plot goes, to hold up against the men.
Which is to say, the movie is kind of sexist.
It's sexist because it's about one thing and not another? So movies that are about, say, a white family are de facto racist, by that logic?
Am I the only one who didn't find the women in knocked up to be at all "shrewish"? I thought the scene when Leslie Mann explained to Paul Rudd's character that just because he didn't yell and scream all the time didn't make his character any less mean to be one of the best lines of the movie. Rudd's character especially was unnecessarily contemptuous dismissive of his own wife, who came off much more sympathetically than him
The impression that I had after watching Knocked Up is that it was an uneven film.
The good stuff was better than anything I've seen in an Apatow film (and I love the 40 year old Virgin), but the bad stuff (all the silly sophomoric roomates stuff) was lame.
I actually disagree with a lot of Ms. O'Rourke's conclusions: As a married man, with two children (one of them a mild Aspie), I can tell you that I am not obsessed about leading the life I lead 10 to 15 years ago and blowing away all responsibility. What I want (and I think that was what "Pete's" character was about, obviously exaggerated for comic effect) is the chance to ONCE IN A WHILE, not define myself through my kids, my wife or my job.
In essence, have a chance, once in a while (say once a month or even once every two months), to go and play pool with a pal or do the type of thing I used to do with friends (go watch a ball game, play Axis & Allies, whatever).
The "Debbie" character was designed to be a shrew from the word go (or at least a woman very uncomfortable with the way her life has turned out, but who's not sure how to deal with it, and is lashing out because of it). Not every character can be written exactly the same way, so I don't fault Apatow for writing his wife's character how he did (and in fact, the fact that Leslie Mann, who played Debbie, is Apatow's wife should surely be commened - not every wife would dare play a shrew in a story written by her husband, a character which could be interprted as midly biographical).
Ben and Allison, to me, where not that interesting (yes, they were the leads, and they were nice enough, but I thought the heavy lifting was done by the secondary characters).
I thought Ben was pretty dumb (Seth Rogan's character in the 40 year old Virgin would have been a much more interesting character in this movie), and Allison was playing straight woman, so that a lot of things could happen around her.
(Since Ben couldn't get pregnant, he couldn't be the straight man).
It's sexist because it's about one thing and not another? So movies that are about, say, a white family are de facto racist, by that logic?
Well, OK. Let's take that analogy seriously. Imagine a movie about a white family that does nothing but obsessively talk about black people and sleep with black people, and look at pictures of black people on porn sites, but the only black characters are poorly developed and serve no real purpose except to hold up a mirror to white society...
As the one person in America who hasn't seen Knocked Up, I don't know whether that's a fair comparison. But that's the comparison implied by O'Rourke's article.
Some Kind of Wonderful and Circle of Friends: the homely girls were Mary Stuart Masterson and Minnie Driver. Admittedly Minnie put on a few pounds, but please. And MSM was and is absolutely lovely. My Big Fat Greek Wedding comes closest. But in none of these is the woman a loser on a par with the guy in this movie. They are diamonds in the rough.
IMO guys and especially dads have a much bigger gripe about stereotypical portrayals than this movie. Heigl gets to play a responsible adult.
The problem with Knocked Up is that it was a guy movie sold as a couples movie.
If we're evaluating it as a guy movie, it's just fine. If we're evaluating it as a couples movie, it's kinda creepy.
LaFollette, I realized the error of my analogy as soon as I wrote it. Thanks for pointing it out.
I agree wholeheartedly with Petey, and that's what I was trying to say in the first place.
I thought it was rather depressing in a way and a really bad movie to see with your spouse if you've ever had an argument about housework before.
For young people, it seems to say, hey, here's what you have to look forward to in the future! Inane arguments with your spouse. Goodbye fun, hello ceaseless responsibility.
I think at least part of the problem was that the scenes with the roommates were pretty hilarious, while a lot of the more dramatic type scenes were pretty brutally honest, making for a somewhat uncomfortable juxtaposition between the two.
I kind of agree with Petey, but I also think it could have gone further in the guy movie direction and been great, instead of being sort of half and half.
Has there ever been a comedy where a studly guy ends up, for whatever reason, with a homely woman?
Every movie involving Drew Barrymore.
Hilarious feminist dilemma: How to be a killjoy without generating hostility
Knocked up wasn't a little bit sexist; it was a lot sexist.
There are lots of things a young, attractive, professional woman might do after ending up pregnant following a one night stand with an idiot. She might get an abortion. She might give the child up for adoption. She might raise the child on her own, or find someone who isn't an idiot with whom to raise the child. But the idea that there's humor to be found in her making the completely moronic decision to try dating the idiot to see if it works out is a lot more than just a bit sexist. It's a notion that's antithetical to the concept of feminism.
Women have worked long and hard to reach the point where they don't need to involve themselves with idiots just because of a pregnancy, and there's nothing funny about the notion that there's any virtue to be found in the concept of a woman trying to saddle herself with a loser just because she got knocked up. Things worked like that 50 years ago and more, and it was a completely unfunny disaster for women. The premise of the movie was too sad and sexist to find anything funny hidden underneath.
O'Rourke's essay lost me at the first sentence, where she wrote "this viewer laughed until she cried at Judd Apatow's goofy comedy Knocked Up". I mean, it just wasn't that funny.
"Well, OK. Let's take that analogy seriously. Imagine a movie about a white family that does nothing but obsessively talk about black people and sleep with black people, and look at pictures of black people on porn sites, but the only black characters are poorly developed and serve no real purpose except to hold up a mirror to white society..."
Now this isn't fair. The suggestion was that the main female characters in KU were there to be the "straight man" (no pun intended). By definition, a "straight man" serves as a blank slate to highlight the humor/absurdity in the non-straight characters and the general situation. In the secenario that you suggest, the black people wouldn't be the "straight man" -- they would be more of a McGuffin, to mix genres.
That said, you could actually use African-Americans. Imagine a stereotypically silly rich, white family that is contrasted with a down-to-earth, normal-seeming black family. (Maybe in a Look Who's Coming to Dinner scenario.) You very easily could use this "everyman" family to highlight the utter ridiculousness of upper class America.
You done with that soapbox, Mr. Johnston? Good, thanks, put it right over there.
Are you saying it's an unbelievable premise that a woman might choose to have the child and at least prefer (all else being equal) that the guy who shares the kid's DNA be involved? I thought feminism supported women having the freedom and power to make their own choices.
I, along with LaFollette, have not seen it. But now I want to, oddly. The proper metaphor is, of course, movies like Steel Magnolias or Fried Greed Tomatoes, or anything on the Lifetime channel that doesn't give a damn about realistic male portrayals. I guess they're sexist, in that they come from the perspective of one of the sexes, but I'm not inclined to criticize them for it.
I'll watch it with my wife, Petey, and let you know if it's creepy.
Has there ever been a comedy where a studly guy ends up, for whatever reason, with a homely woman?
Isn't a "Sex and the City" movie being made right now?
I loved "Knocked Up," and I also like those ridiculous Lifetime movies where all men are evil! Both types of movies are intended for superficial amusement and work quite well at what they do. I watched "Knocked Up" with my wife, who thought it was just a silly move that wasn't intended to provide a realistic portrayal of men or women. Why should any movie - especially comedies - be under an obligation to provide realistic portrayals? Why can't they exaggerate certain aspects of humanity for purposes of comedy?
I thought it was rather depressing in a way and a really bad movie to see with your spouse if you've ever had an argument about housework before.
FWIW, my wife (with whom I have argued about housework) and I saw Knocked Up when she was forty-one weeks pregnant and we both liked it lot, despite the fact that I (at least) was grumpy about the premise. I think that seeing the movie at the end of the pregnancy (our son was born six days after we saw it) helped because we could empathize with a lot of the scenes in a way that no other movie had shown.
Arguing that it's sexist because men are portrayed as fun-loving and the women are portrayed as humorless (I'm not sure I'd interpret it that way) seems off-base to me; if the women and men were portrayed as the opposites, I could imagine the movie being just as easily characterized as sexist for portraying women as flighty and men as the responsible ones.
If you can tolerate and appreciate 134 minutes of straight women shrilly berating straight dudes, this movie is a laugh riot. It's comedy is in the hyperrealistic verbal kickboxing by insane white women driving their hapless victims (husbands and boyfriends) bat-shxt happily insane with feverish and irrational demands.
Movie Quote: "Marriage is like a tense, unfunny version of Everybody Loves Raymond...." which is funny because I've always thought Everybody Loves Raymond was already tense and unfunny.
Best Comedic Performance goes to Leslie Mann, playing Debbie: Here's an example of the mellifluous verbal screeds addressed to the men in her life. In this scene, she's berating a bouncer who won't let her into a celebrity dance club and instead insists that she go to the back of the line (because she's old and her friend is pregnant {knocked up}):
"I'm not gonna go to the end of the fxcking line, who the fxck are you? I have just as much of a right to be here as any of these little skanky girls. What, am I not skanky enough for you, you want me to hike up my fxcking skirt? What the fxck is your problem? I'm not going anywhere, you're just some roided out freak with a fxcking clipboard. And your stupid little fxcking rope! You know what, you may have power now but you are not god. You're a doorman, okay. You're a doorman, doorman, doorman, doorman, doorman, so... Fxck You! You fxcking fxg with your fxcking little fxggy gloves."
By the way, shorter Meghan O'Rourke:
It's sexist for Judd Apatow to write a movie about men from a male point of view; it's not sexist for Jane Austen to write books about women from a female point of view because -- hey look! It's Halley's comet!
What Robert Johnston said. I haven't seen the movie, and it's because the premise that a modern, sane woman would compound getting pregnant from a one-night stand after a night of drinking by trying to have a relationship with the father even though they are completely unsuited for one another, is ridiculous and sexist.
I would add that in addition to weighing the options of abortion vs. carrying to term and maybe adoption, the woman in that situation would do well to examine, and get treatment for, her apparent alcoholism.
The issue isn't that the women are "responsible" while the men "are not." The issue is that the women in this movie ascribe to their standard of "responsibility" a whole list of inane and insane behaviors and criteria that have nothing to do with a rational life but everything to do with white female entitlement syndrome, consumerism, materialism, social rigidity, and paranoid estimations of social status. It wouldn't be funny if it didn't portray white suburban female neurosis so damn well. And it wouldn't generate so much critical reaction if it didn't.
Wow! Robert Johnston's comment, although over the top, was actually pretty accurate when describing this movie; a movie that was pretty funny. I guess, 'you have to see it to get it' doesn't really fly when the premise of the movie is sexist.
That being said, I think O'Rourke misinterprets male irresponsibility as being fulfilling. These guys in the movie are miserable. They don't have anyway to express themselves other then getting high and going to strip clubs, which allows them to feel secure enough to tell each other that they are being bad mates.
The "fun" these guys are having masks their desire for real intimacy but are unsure about why they want it or even if they're suppose to want it.
So, while the women in the movie are unhappy the guys aren't really sure what's going on which is why they slack off. Aptow portrays it with humor but it's actually pretty pathetic.
Wow, a movie portraying a man trying to do the right thing instead of just abandoning the woman he impregnated. That's not a positive message for our society at all.
"her apparent alcoholism."
Haha.
I agree with Robert Johnston. This was a female character that was educated and whose career was on the rise- she had just been promoted to an on-air TV job. She gets pregnant and they don't really show her thinking about anything other than "I better call that one night stand guy and start dating him." The lack of complexity in the female character was disappointing, and then throw in the total loser's reaction of "See, this proves I did too sleep with the hot chick!" and the lameness was just too much to take.
It is valid to criticize what is basically a slapstick comedy for not being funny, but criticizing it for being unrealistic is just ridiculous.
I finally saw this movie about a week ago. I didn't think it was as funny or, ultimately, as affecting (in the feel-good way)as 40 Year Old Virgin but I liked it, and thought some of the uncomfortable / painful moments were really strong. (My favorite scenes in the movie are probably when Leslie Mann told off Rudd - "You think just because you don't yell that you're not mean" and when Rogen and Heigl attempt to have sex when she's approx. 7 months pregnant and fail miserably.)
That said, having seen the movie after Heigl made her comments, I found it weird because like the poster above I totally didn't have the experience of thinking the women were un-fun, shrewish, etc. Paul Rudd was, for me, the least sympathetic character in the movie, and Heigl was probably the most sympathetic, w/Rogen and Mann tied in the middle. Maybe it's because I don't feel at ease/get along that well with guys like Rogen's character in the movie, or maybe it's because I wasn't coming at it from the paradigm of "women are supposed to change men into something respectable."
I think there *was* a disparity in how funny the characters were, and I think the author of the article pretty much nails it. Mann seems like she's a strong improvising actress, but if Heigl had been replaced by, say, Elizabeth Banks (the bookstore employee from 40YO) or if there were another actress who had the kind of wit/writing acumen of, say, Tina Fey, then I think the movie could've accomodated Apatow's improv process while bringing more balanced humor.
As to whether the very premise was sexist or not, without the premise there isn't a movie. Apatow says in the commentary that he actually explicitly made Heigl's mother so unsympathetic and horrible ("Just take care of it") to help explain why Heigl's character keeps the baby; the strongest voice pushing for an abortion was also wildly unsympathetic (you get the sense that Apatow himself doesn't feel that way about the issue). I thought it was plausible because we don't know anything about Heigl's character before the one-night stand anyway; there isn't a history I can tap into and say "that's so unlike her!" She kept the baby, she had her reasons, it's her choice. She tries to make a go of it with the dad because she feels like maybe it's the right thing to do, and the relationship fails. Whether they succeed in getting back together at the end is SPOILER ambiguous; no one says "marriage," and the only on-screen proposal is rejected. Plus, you know, the Rogen character *actually* did grow up. The movie itself clearly doesn't think his pre-pregnancy life was anything worth celebrating, and I'd agree. No one wants a house full of pinkeye.
It struck my sensibility as odd that the film represented the Heigl character's decision to jump into a romantic relationship with Seth Rogen's character as an unremarkable thing. Imagining myself in her position, I can see her feeling the dude out to see if he was someone she to be with, someone she wanted involved in her's upbringing, but they were like, whooosh, let's act like we're in love and maybe everything will work out.
Here's a simple question.
What's wrong with having a "sexist" movie?
Are we saying the morons who watch it are going to be influenced to be sexist? Or that sexists shouldn't be allowed to make movies?
What does that say about you chimpanzees?
News flash: most of you chimps have stereotypes about sex, race, etc. This is SOP for chimp brains. Get used to it because you aren't going to change it without changing your chimp brains. You might be able to socially suppress one or more such attitudes in some societies for a while, but you'll merely replace them with something else.
Because your fundamental problem is that you're in competition with each other and you're afraid of each other.
Welcome to the Planet of the Apes.
I haven't seen the movie, but from Quarterican's description, it's clearly about how stupid and ridiculous people can behave. Any surprises there? How many movies like that are made annually? Sexist or otherwise? I can't be motivated to watch a movie like that because it's just more of, you know, LIFE among the chimps...
Ask Meghan O'Rourke if "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" was "sexist"?
As Wash said, "Do we care? Are we caring about that?"
It's not that hard to figure out what is going on, Aptow doesn't understand women. Or at least not enough to draw them beyond the level he does.
That's fine, better than fucking it up I say.
But I still hate all his movies!
A few scenes of Knocked Up had me feeling acutely embarassed on behalf of Katharine Heigl. When they had her splayed out for all those recurring gynocological gags, yikes. I felt bad for her. If the gags had been about her reaction shots, a la Steve Carell, that would have been fine.. but isntead it just felt like they were laughing at her body lying there.
It definitely felt like a comedy from a frathouse perspective. Still, on the whole it was a funny movie - and rather than censure Knocked Up, we should simply encourage more comedies from a female perspective.
Side-note: I loved, loved, loved Kristin Wigg as the passive-aggressive E-Network executive.
I think its hard to get past the fact that the girl was just too hot for the guy. If you saw them out together, you'd assume it was an internet date gone horribly wrong.
He didn't have looks, money, ambition or charm. He was such a complete loser that I spent the whole movie hoping he'd be deported back to Canada.
Now I understand it works as a male fantasy but yeah, if I was a woman I'd be bothered by a movie that perpetuates the view that every loser guy should ignore any woman who doesn't measure up his delusional standards and go for the hottest girl in the room. Because in real life, that leads to a lifetime of loneliness and restraining orders.
Now, I will tell you a guy movie disguised as a date movie, In The Land Of Women, which I saw as a in-flight movie last year. I thought I was in for a chick flick. But when it became apparent the dude (Adam Brody) was going to hook up with the hot mom (Meg Ryan) AND the hot teenage daughter (Kristen Stewart), I told the guy watching raptly next to me, "If he pulls this off, this is the greatest movie ever made!".
And yet somehow, I can't imagine many women being similarly enthused by the story.
Katherine Heigl's recent remark that the movie was "a little sexist."
More than a little: from the title (which portrays the dismissive male reaction to an unplanned pregnancy) thru the characters (the women are hysterical, irrational control freaks who only want a man to take care of them while the doods are happy go lucky mellow-fun types who simply want to have a good time but now feel trapped into living a life they never planned) and onto the plot line (in the end, the women's wildest, desperate dreams come true - a responsible, caring husband who they can trust - while the doods merely learn that life sometimes doesn't work out like you planned and it can be a huge achievement to simply begin to act like a responsible adult human being). The whole thing, in my view, bordered on mysogyny.
But the housemates were quite funny, and some of the dialogue was clever: "YOu were high all that time?"
"No, just in the evening and all day on the weekends."
Re: Has there ever been a comedy where a studly guy ends up, for whatever reason, with a homely woman? Didn't think so.
But there are movies where men have to deal with women who are certified bitches (think: Scarlett O'Hara and most of the roles played by Bette Davis), and in comedies, women who are utter ditzes (think: Lucy)
It seems funny that Heigl would make that comment about Knocked Up, given that her day job involves appearing on a TV show that is much more sexist than Apatow's movie. Most of the men on Grey's Anatomy are arrogant and inappropriately unprofessional, and the women routinely make fools of themselves trying to impress them. Which isn't to say the show is never entertaining, but as long as we're gonna throw that sexist tag out there...
I think the women's roles in Knocked Up were partly just a function of their personalities and their abilities as actresses. Leslie Mann played a similar role to what she's done in other movies, although funnier than usual. And Heigl really isn't a comedic actress. She basically played a less whiney version of her Grey's character. And they're sisters in the film, so their rigidity could be a family thing, and doesn't necessarily have to speak for all women.
There is so much genuinely misogynistic stuff out there, the debate over this movie seems misplaced. It doesn't help perpetuate sexist and superficial gender expectations in the way that say, the faux femist Sex and the City does. Or the way that most romantic comedies do, even.
That "faux femist" remark should prooobably read: faux feminist. Us slacker guys are too irresponsible to check for typos.
The movie was only 'sexist' if you assume that to be a happy go lucky stoner type is life's highest calling, while to be into the raising and rearing of children is a negative thing. Since I hold quite the opposite view, it seems to me that the movie portrayed its women characters in much more a favorable light than the men.
And more importantly, the movie made the inestimably important point that abortion is always the wrong choice. Those people who deplore the fact that Katherina Heigl chose to stick with the guy that knocked her up are missing the point. The world is full of women who knowingly condemned themselves to a life of privation and suffering because they would not have an abortion. In their suffering and in their sacrifice lies their glory. These include some of the most admirable women I know. Would that there were more people like that, both men and women, in modern society, who were willing to suffer and to endure the derailment of their life plans for the sake of their knowledge of right and wrong. Unfortunately, our society has lost the sense of redemption through suffering, and of imitating Christ's suffering on the Cross.
Yeah! The world would be a much better place if more people suffered!
Life is more than a little sexist.
Hector, are you a former Leninist or something because that's the most Leninist-like argument I've seen against abortion.
I'm not sure if sexist is an accurate description of the movie, but it bordered on something like it. In the end, Seth Rogan's character only kinda grew up. Katherine Heigl's character was a real catch: working at a major network on becoming an on-air talent, educated, attractive, etc. I don't blame her for her bitchiness because in her situation I would be a total bitch to Rogen's character as well. I found myself neither liking nor hating him while finding at least comic value in Rogen's performance. However, all Rogen did was read a couple of baby books after she already left, get a job once he was done to like $100 in the bank and get an apartment in East LA. These aren't the actions of someone growing up; they're the actions of someone who is still acting about 5 years younger than they should be. He put in the bare minimum effort and still got the girl. Also, any guy who interprets "hurry up and fuck me" when he's too retarded to be able to put on a condom as "hey, don't use the condom" is too stupid to breed. Then again, the bad one in the other couple did turn out to be Paul Rudd despite the fact that Mann's character actually was a bitchy nag (like her line about how you have to nag the man in your life to change him and he'll appreciate you for that).
The abortion issue was also handled kind of incompetently, but in a way that acknowledged this short-coming. First of all, if she had an abortion, there would be no movie. Second of all, if she did, the protests would have distracted from the marketing campaign and made the whole discussion about it not "is it funny?" but "are we ready to see a movie where the main character gets an abortion in the end?" I interpreted the "rhymes with shmashortion" line as a nod to these problems and an acknowledgment that this decision was a cop-out. In some ways, it was a bigger cop-out when Miranda didn't get one on "Sex and the City" because the series would have continued without the kid.
With that said, I still enjoyed the movie a great deal. I'm surprised no one has mentioned the character I found to be the most consistently funny, Rudd and Mann's daughter who announced things "I googled murder." That was probably my favorite line of the movie.
A lot of the men commenters in here really need to get over themselves.
Comments closed December 28, 2007.
| 
Heads in the Sand
I've never seen a group of people suck the fun out of a stupid dick and fart joke movie faster than Yglesias and his friends.
Posted by Steve Balboni | December 14, 2007 2:16 PM