A movie review!

This weekend, with a purse concealing a large can of Sapporo and a bag of sour gummi apples, I went to go see Knocked Up at the $3 dollar theater. I went with the boy (I mean, MAN) who knocked me up, expecting to see a fun entertaining movie, that would, underneath the cute vulgar humor and annoying poster and typical Hollywood comedy jokes, nicely and profoundly reveal some grain of deeply human social commentary on relationships and how cool they are. And it would do this in a casual way, that makes you feel warm inside without feeling cheesy, like the show Freaks and Geeks did. Like I read in the reviews! The main character's name was Alison, and I am not going to lie, I was kind of excited to see someone in the position I was kind of in last year: unexpectedly pregnant, and then experiencing a deeper relationship with the baby daddy as a result. But, oh, it disappointed me in many ways.

First of all, it's another movie that has a "perfect 10" type woman (beautiful AND smart AND successful!) paired up with a fat loser type. Not like this couldn't happen in real life, or that there's a problem with ugly people dating pretty people, but does every movie ever made just HAVE TO pander to male fantasty? If it ever is the other way around, they have to make the whole movie/show focus on the fact that this "ugly" (average) woman somehow lucks out and finds love. And then we have to deal with shows like Tyra Banks to "empower women" that make no sense, because how is a fat, or even chubby, or somewhat unattractive woman ever supposed to feel good about herself in a world of fat jokes and movies where the equivalent "average" men all exclusively date hot women, especially on a show hosted by a SUPERMODEL? wooo, I'm letting my angry feminist out again! So unattractive!! Back to the movie!

They keep referring to the Seth Rogan character as a "lovable slacker", though I find nothing lovable about him. He's the stupid lazy unemployed funny guy with all the red flags that you must stay away from, unless you want to pay for dinner every time, or spend Friday nights indoors. Eventually, it makes you feel stupid for putting up with it, and you can only feel pity for them when the waiter takes the bill with your credit card, their faces turn red and they awkwardly thank you afterwards. These situations cannot be saved without both parties hating themselves just a little bit, no matter how nice or witty the guy. Secondly, he wasn't even nice. He spends most of the movie getting high with his asshole friends and making misogynist jokes. Sorry, can't excuse that! His humor was ok, but not enough to like him.

The other horrible part was why didn't this character even seriously consider an abortion? There was no real pro-life message, but I suppose this is one of those things you may have to excuse, so the whole plot could happen. Still, we are on shaky ground here! She didn't even consider adoption.

Throughout the whole movie I found myself disgusted at the gender stereotypes they all portray. Both Alison and her sister are often made out to be hormone driven "crazy irrational females" in a ha, ha who-understands-women kind of way*. They explode at the notion of a guy needing some guy time with their friends (come on, we all understand that everyone needs away time). Her sister's self esteem is mostly based on looking younger than she is, and that guys still want to fuck her. Despite being a mother to two kids, she really cares about this that much, really? In one scene, Alison is having sex and refuses to get on top because she can feel him "staring at all her chins". She then goes on to refuse to do it doggy-style, as if that is degrading. Um, I thought it was about that position feels good? This movie reinforces the stereotype of girls as prissy prudes during sex , trying to look hot for the guy, and too insecure to enjoy herself and focus on her own pleasure. In this world, it's the complete opposite for guys: it's ok to be dumb and sex-driven and bond over lap dances in Vegas! Yeah, totally, every guy in the world is into objectifying women, duh! side note: in real life, I have never known a decent guy who sincerely enjoys going to strip clubs.

One scene I did enjoy and relate to, was when Alison is in the gynecologist's office and sees her 8 week old fetus on the ultrasound, and bursts into tears. My eyes got all watery and I almost burst into tears myself. Mark looked at me kind of laughing but like he understood a little too. This movie made me feel very thankful that I know guys that do not buy into this "all males do this" mindset. I also felt very proud and happy that Mark didn't laugh at any derogatory humor, and is sincerely not into that. So this appreciation I already have grew a bit stronger!

There were some funny jokes, but I can't remember any of them right now. Oh yeah, I enjoyed the mushrooms scenes a lot. I suppose I had my hopes too high. This movie is pushing me towards the breaking point of being very fed up with this dominant male point of view in just about every form of media that refuses to die. How can we let men know that being sensitive and a feminist actually makes them the most secure attractive manly man out there? Can we kill these gender stereotypes? HOW?


*note I understand feeling very hormonal, but the manner it was dealt with in this movie annoyed me