Knocked
I feel I must take issue with Joe Queenan's piece about Knocked Up and why it signals the end of civilisation as we know it, or something, in yesterday's Guardian. I enjoy Joe Queenan's spiky prose, and I spoke to him once when I presented Back Row, but I feel that this piece is the epitome of the Word Count Piece often found in "features" pages of national newspapers, where the writer is either given a thesis, or cooks one up on the way to work, and is then given a thousand or so words to fill, while someone on the staff rustles up a sidebar to bump it up to a decent size. Et voila! Four pages of G2 filled, with a suitably hooky line for the front page of the paper.
Queenan's theory is this: because a fat bloke gets a girlfriend in Knocked Up, it shows that Hollywood is both mysogynist and stupid, which is dangerous, as it's so successful, this might lead ordinary blokes to believe that they can get girlfriends too. He's clearly seen Knocked Up and not much liked it - or, more likely, not liked it as much as nearly everybody else. Perhaps feeling guilty for naming it Film Of The Summer last week in the same issue of the Film and Music supplement which was "wrapped" in a quids-in advert for the film, the Guardian can't wait to redress the balance, and thus gives Queenan his head. Fair enough. Except the piece is full of holes.
Queenan points out that many "serious critics" have "fallen for" Knocked Up, as if perhaps they have been conned. Perhaps they just liked it. He says it "focuses on immature, misogynist, porn-obsessed male losers" - hard to argue with that - and that it is a "tale of a loser ultimately saved by the love of a good woman" - again, true enough. "There is, of course, another way of looking at this subject ..." he says. "That the new genre of romantic comedies are not really upbeat, coming-of-age motion pictures about young male schmucks who are saved by the love of a good woman, but heart-rending tragedies about beautiful young women who are doomed to spend the rest of their lives with juvenile, not especially good-looking dorks." A very clever turnaroud, but untrue. This is not a tragedy at all. "I think women need to start their own film industry: this one isn't working," he continues. It's odd to use Knocked Up as a stick to beat the patriarchal film industry with, when it's the first of a new generation of comedies to find a female as well as male audience, and that Judd Apatow, its writer and director and producer and my best friend, has been applauded - by "serious" critics - for providing his female characters with decent dialogue. His wife appears in his films, and he told me that she helps with this, by critiquing his dialogue from a woman's point of view. Certainly in Knocked Up there are plenty of all-female scenes to balance the male-loser scenes, notably between Apatow's wife Leslie Mann and the pregnant character played by Katherine Heigl. For once, here's a slacker comedy that cares as much about the woman's perspective. Who can honestly say that, for instance, Cameron Diaz had such depth in Something About Mary, or any of the other pre-Apatow blockbuster comedies about schmucks? Beautiful, unattainable women are usually just that in comedies, with little depth.
"One night Seth Rogen meets a beautiful young woman (Heigl) at a singles bar no bouncer worth his salt would have ever admitted him into." I'm no expert on clubs, but we see Rogen and his pals queueing up at the club, while the good-looking Heigl is allowed by the bouncer to jump the queue, thus exposing the sexist nature of club bouncers. Later, when Heigl is pregnant, the same bouncer refuses to let her jump the queue: again, a comment on the selective nature of bouncers, followed up with a very funny speech by the bouncer. Why take aim at the supposed unreality of this situation when Apatow addresses this very issue? It weakens the argument.
"It is anybody's guess what the female protagonist gets out of the relationship with Seth Rogen in Knocked Up," Queenan wonders. Why? He's a layabout, yes, and a stoner, but he's not that ugly (what is this, Nazi Germany?) - he's a bit podgy and unshaven, with curly hair, and makes a lot of jokes about being Jewish (he says he uses a product called Jew on his hair!), but his character is clearly good-hearted and sweet and funny. He's not such a nightmare. "The point Knocked Up purports to make is that men do not grow up until they have children, and maybe not even then. This will probably not come as a complete surprise to most of the women on this planet." Wow, as a guilt-ridden male myself, I must doff my cap at this example of gender self-hatred!
"The other point that Knocked Up seems to make is that women, even the ones who work in television, exist for no other reason than to help men grow up, if necessary by having babies." I'm not sure it makes this point at all. These two characters sleep together while drunk. Both of them roaring drunk on beer and slammers. Neither exploits the other. Indeed, she snogs him first. He's dumbfounded, and happily goes along with it. But she leads the way, a strong woman for the new century, who's just as fallible as a drunk bloke. This doesn't make the unplanned pregnancy either party's fault, and both parties regret it as much as the other, but I certainly don't view Heigl's character as a victim, or as a device to teach lessons to Seth. She learns lessons too. Could Queenan be taking his own feminism too far?
"We never find out why" she sleeps with him, Queenan says. Yes we do. As established, she was drunk. She was in a celebratory mood after getting a new job. Has Queenan never met women who drink heavily? They do, you know, some of them. It's not just blokes. He seems to have missed the revolution. Perhaps he is one of those men who believes that it's unseemly for chicks to drink too much. "Nobody could be drunk enough not to realise what a schmuck he is." Yes, they could. And he's very charming to her at the bar, selfless and sweet, and entertaining. These qualities do matter to some women. Does Queenan think that beautiful women are only interested in beautiful men, regardless of their personality? (Apatow himself always says he can't believe he's married to the good looking Leslie Mann! But he is. And that's because he may not be classically handsome, but he is clever and funny and creative, and presumably, a nice boyfriend who turned out to be a nice husband.)
Another blunder: "Amazingly, neither party ever seriously considers the highly attractive option of abortion, which may be a sign that the anti-abortion movement is gathering strength in Hollywood, or may simply result from a realisation that abortion makes a poor subject for a comedy." Both both parties do consider it! One of Seth's mates makes a discreet comment about it when they first learn the news, but the important thing is that Heigl talks to her mother about it, and she recommends getting rid of the baby. "The film now moves in an excruciatingly predictable direction, as Rogen gradually realises that he will have to shape up and do the right thing." It does indeed do this, but it's not predictable at all. How often do men in comedies make women pregnant? It's not exactly a common occurence. Movie pregnancies usually turn out to be a false alarm. "This is a film for teenage boys who dream of growing up to be teenage men." Is it? Most teenage boys would rather die than imagine having to grow up at all and have a baby and be responsible as Seth does. Maybe it's actually a very challenging film for teenage boys. I like to think so. Even the slacker mates grow up a bit, sharing in Seth's joy at the birth. If anything, it's a bit conservative, Knocked Up, but certainly not misogynist. There are some very funny scenes at Heigl's workplace showing her boss and female assistant treating her in a sexist way. The joke's on them.
Then he says, "The clueless, accessorial blonde girlfriend has been a staple of comedies for years, though Heigl, with her infuriating Lisa Kudrow Acting School mannerisms, brings a new level of vacuity to the genre." So now he's having a go at the actress! I don't recall many other "accessorial blonde girlfriends" in comedies actually going through painful childbirth. It's actually a very strong performance, I think, but that's a personal opinion, so not much of an argument here. Let's move on to:
"Apatow and his posse never stop working, everything they pitch gets enthusiastically greenlighted, and until one of these films bombs, the public is going to be seeing an awful lot of his work." That's certianly become true, but for most of the time up until The 40 Year Old Virgin, which was a hit, they didn't get anything green-lit, and Apatow's two TV shows were uncermoniously cancelled. Why the sour grapes? "The dark ages are back. Not that they ever left." Talk about over-reaction. Then there's a sidebar about other "nerds who get the girls". One of the threads that unites these schmucks is that, hey, most of them, from Stiller to Sandler via Rogen, are Jewish. This is one aspect Queenan fails to mention. We're in the classic tradition of Woody Allen and Larry David and Seinfeld. It's a rich seam. (Also, the inclusion of John Cusack in High Fidelity is an own goal, since he's super good looking, as well as a nerd. It can happen!)
Oh well, it filled a gap, and got me riled, so job well done. Anyone else out there think Knocked Up was misogynist, or dangerous? I'd be keen to know.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 3:28 PM
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19 Comments:
I've not seen it and I don't intend to, because this type of film does not appeal.
But I fail to see why this is being viewed as anything new. It's a story as old as time, the nerd gets the girl - and...
Any Eighties teen comedy from Weird Science to Gregory's Girl and beyond covers this off. Why now is it a cause for debate in The Guardian?
That's exactly how I felt, Five! The story may be as old as time, but the treatment isn't. Gregory never got his Girl pregnant, did he? I'm not saying you must go and see it. If you don't fancy it, best not. But it really is different.
Damn. F-C has said exactly what I was going to say. I've not seen the film and I don't have any interest in seeing it, but it doesn't exactly sound like a revolutionary moment in cinematic comedy, so why on earth has it provoked such thesis-level debate?
I haven't seen it either, and won't bother with its ilk until we have a female podgy, good-hearted, sweet, funny character who actually gets the guy - any guy! - in a movie. Having played the role of the Funny Best Friend too long in real life, this kind of crappy movie sexism really gets my dander up.
After all that I've written on the subject (having seen the film twice) and being no fan of this type of film normally, you still don't believe me! Please don't condemn without seeing it. I never said anyone should kill to get a ticket, but let's not fall into the Daily Mail trap of criticising sight unseen. It may not be worth a Great Debate, but my entry was only a counterpoint to what I felt was a misleading article in a national newspaper. It's easy to be contrary. I'm surprised nobody's written a piece saying The Wire is rubbish yet!
If it's an old-fashioned sexist film, why do we see Seth Rogen's bare arse, but Katherine Heigl keeps her underwear on at all times! It's actually quite chaste in its own way. Animal House, the 70s equivalent, which helped me through a difficult time in my early teens, was full of bare breasts being exposed for a male audience, and no responsibility was expected of the rampant young college boys, even the one who slept with an underage girl (you saw her breasts too). We've come a long way, I think.
Ah - I see she's already been here!
It was your impassioned blog entry, Clair, that inspired me to write mine.
Link to Clair's entry on the subject.
Wasn't knocking you, actually, AC - I really am just genuinely a bit baffled.
I do think, though, that more often than not, the sight of a man's bare arse in this kind of film would be included for added comedic value, whereas a woman in her underwear ( I am assuming that she IS shot in her underwear at one or more points in the film, but of course I may be wrong about that as I haven't seen it) is normally there for the usual 'phwooargh'-factor. Not having here boobs flashed may be a step towards redressing the blance, but in my view it's a pretty tiny one.
Glad you've acknowledged the truth about John Cusack's looks, though, after having a pop at his hair on telly last week!
AC - you are just plain wrong! (sorry hasn't happened for a few posts, so I thought I better redress the balance).
I'm quite wary of the phrase 'not my kind of film'. It's an argument that rings around our house regularly, when me and Mrs S decide what to watch. I might have said it about this film, but isn't 'Knocked Up' by the guy responsible for 'Freaks and Geeks', which I really liked...
Mind you, if it's got no tits in it...
I haven't seen the film, partly because it's not my kind of film (no Fred Astaire, no Gene Kelly, again) and partly because I've only been to the cinema three times (Herbie Rides Again, Cliffhanger, and The Secret Garden - peer pressure). But I have seen quite a few reviews of Knocked Up and I would say that they've all been at least fairly positive and have conveyed the general idea that this is a smarter and more mature film than your average male-centric sex comedy. This seems like a remarkably long blog entry to answer one bad and lazy review. Your defence of NGO against that bad preview in The Observer was shorter than this, I think. The papers are full of this sort of pointless article (I should say I generally like Joe Queenan's stuff too); perhaps you like this film more than you thought?
Well said Andrew. And why is no one treating Knocked Up as a genuinely funny film instead of picking on it for its supposed right wing approach to the couple making a go of it?
I've seen it twice, laughed throughout and I actually think it's the smartest dumbest movie that's been made in years. Compared to the three-quels that we've been forced to sit through all summer long, Knocked Up was nothing short of a revelation. And we get to do it all over again in a couple of weeks with Superbad (look away now, Joe Q).
Bring on the bare male arses! I might go and see it now...
Straight off the bat Superbad is excellent (eh apparently *cough*). The stance of the article does seem odd considering I'd read a couple that had praised it for not casting an equally attractive male lead. Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann make an attractive couple and you can see that Apatow has brought his wife on board to write those scenes as they seem to be a very balanced look at a relationship from both sides of the gender divide, especially when we are talking about a comedy that has taken $150 million in the US. I also think that we get a depth to Hiegel's character that we'd not usually expect.
For anyone that has seen the US Office, especially the third series (*cough* again) we see a massive gulf in the skill of writing a female character, Lucy Davis is more attractive to look at than Jenna Fischer but Pam's character is given so much more depth we can actually see why Jim (the Tim character) would be so smitten with her. To see female characters written like that is a much better state then say how the female characters are presented in all the American Pie films.
Oh Animal House. I know all about those difficult times in early teens. It helped all us boys.
Dave, I decided to take Joe Queenan's article apart point by point (which made the blog entry very long) as a kind of general riposte to this sort of filler in newspapers. It's hacked out, very quickly, with one eye on the word count, and it's no wonder that inconsistencies and generalisations slip under the radar. Queenan is a good writer, and full of interesting opinions, many of them against the grain, but I really felt passionately that this was misleading, and thus pulled it to bits, as I once did to another G2 cover story by a Guardian columnist, and look where that got me.
Don't remind me of that long blog entry about the unfavourable preview of NGO! I over-reacted. It happens. I shan't be as precious this time around, as it's a second series and I didn't write the first episode, so feel more like a viewer for that one than a backroom boy. I'm really looking forward to sitting down and watching it tomorrow night at 9.30. (It's great for you lot, too, as you can say what you like about it. If you like it, I'll absorb the praise on a collective level, and if you don't, well, hey, I didn't write it!)
Not seen it yet but I rate Weird Science in my top ten films of all time, so am probably not likely to be too diplomatic on the issues.
Not knocking Weird Science, Swines, but did he get Kelly LeBrock pregnant in it? No. Different set of circumstances. No debate to be had.
I wasn't knocking Knocked Up... was saying I like these kinds of movies and if it's a cut above the standard fare then that's all for the good.
Does Knocked Up have a bit where his kitchen turns blue?
My problem with Knocked Up (and I speak as someone who adored Freaks and Geeks) is that although it is funny, the women aren't allowed to be the geeky, funny ones - they're either sensible or shrewish. A few American critics have said that Paul Feig (the co-creator of Freaks & Geeks with Apatow) must have been the one who was responsible for that programme's really well-rounded, funny female characters, who were often dorky and endearing. I think Queenan went too far in his review - I don't think the film is as bad as he claims - but I share his irritation at films and books (don't get me started on High f***ing Fidelity and its patronising assumption that women don't care about music - but THAT'S A GOOD THING, because they're so much more sensible than men! God, I hated that book) that force women to be the straight men (so to speak). Have you seen 30 Rock? It's really, really funny, and it allows Tina Fey to play the sort of nerdy, schlubby role that men usually play.
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