From the PopUp Annals: Knocked Up: A Comedy From the Pro-life, Relationship-Hating Hellmouth.

By K. M. Zwick

(Note: Mature content and sarcasm warning) (Originally appeared in The Weekly Digest in October 2011)

Back in 2007, at the beginning of the aughts bromance comedy era, this was one of the most enjoyable mainstream comedies I’d seen in a long time. Having not been familiar with Apatow’s Freaks and Geeks ensemble yet, I was impressed with my introductions to Seth Rogen, especially, and his motley crew of degenerate man-children roommates with their impeccable comedic timing and bizarre roundtable-flavored banter. Additionally, having had no exposure to Ms. Katherine Heigl via Grey’s Anatomy, I considered her adept in her role as the albeit one-dimensional and gorgeous shrew. I laughed big belly laughs the whole way through this film, knowing all the while I was going to wax finger-wagging as soon as I left the theatre. Hey, I’m multi-dimensional.

Until Bridesmaids this summer, Knocked Up was Apatow’s top-grossing film. This movie was successful enough to become a household name over the past few years, and with all its subtle and not-so-subtle messages about contraception, family planning, motherhood and heterosexual relationships, I am compelled to highlight what seems so problematic to me about it in hopes to remind viewers – and myself - to be ever-mindful of the harmful messages present in our most gut-busting and commercially successful entertainment. Knocked Up grossed nearly a quarter of a billion dollars worldwide. We are the ones who pay Hollywood to keep certain messages going. After all, this film spawned many babies: I Love You, Man; Superbad; Pineapple Express; Hot Tub Time Machine and the like. For this Motherhood issue, editor Brandie Rae Madrid asked me to dust off my 2007 review and re-tool it for this issue. As I do so, I remind myself and readers what we’re not only consuming but also promoting with our entertainment dollars. 

Contraception: Woman’s Responsibility/Unsexy.

During the one-night stand and film-premise-kick-off scene between black-out-drunk Ben (Rogen) and Alison (Heigl), Ben decides to discard his condom right when he's putting it on in preparation to have sex with Alison because he interprets what Alison's saying - "Just do it already"- as her meaning "Forget the condom, let's go for it."

Message: It's the woman's responsibility to bring contraception into sex, because a man will bone anything in sight and not consider the consequences. Not only is this insulting to women, it is also insulting to men and their ability to take care of themselves (STDs? STIs? Paternity suits?). Beyond that, the scene supports that old adage that condoms are annoying nuisances, difficult to manage, and potentially ruin the enjoyment of sex. In an ongoing era when health-promoting sex education and family planning is actually a plausible aspect of a child's upbringing, do we really need a wildly popular film that promotes these stereotypical and ultimately damaging ideas about responsible engagement in sexual intercourse? Meh.

Rich People Can/Should Have Kids, Not Choices.

So, surely, the film would approach the options available to Alison when she discovers she is pregnant – due to this two-person sex gaff - maturely, if hilariously, right? But no. What we see of Alison’s decision-making is precisely a lack of her decision-making process.

We see a tearful cry from Alison to Ben letting him know she's decided to keep the baby and she just wanted him to know; we do not see any of the thoughts or reasoning she had that led to that weighty decision. I suppose as we see her sitting in her plush guest-house bedroom at her sister’s enormous bungalow-cum-mansion, a white gal with great looks and uncomplicated blonde hair, with a fancy star-laden job at E!, we perhaps are to assume “Well, her family is rich enough for her to have a kid, so, it’s probably a good idea.” With its lack of transparency about such a critical and life-altering decision, the film gives us no other option but to assume the reasons Alison decides to keep the baby. to suspend our disbelief and just accept that that is what she wants to do for illusory and unstated good reasons.

Pro-Choicers Are Uptight/Eugenicists.

Right before we see this phone call from Alison to Ben, there’s the scene in which Harold Ramis's character (Ben's dad) gives a little speech to Ben amounting to this: "you never know where life will take you, you just have to go with it," which, for all its hippy dippy feel-good vibes has the underlying tone of "She doesn't need to get an abortion, man. She just needs to go with the flow, man. And so do you: have a kid.” Apparently Ben was a "mistake," but mistakes are cool, man because Ben is the proclaimed best thing that ever happened to his dad. Hooray for mistakes!! Let's all throw our condoms out our apartment windows and make lots of life-changing mistakes!!

The pro-kid voices in this film – Ben’s dad and Canadian patriot Jay Baruchel - are the cool and lovable ones.

Prior to The Phone Call, we also meet Alison's mother (played by Joanna Kerns) -- the Pro-Choice Hellbitch. The one potentially rational voice in the film supporting the mere option to have an abortion – besides morose and cynical Jonah (Hill), the most unlikable character in the film – comes across as an evil heartless wealthy a-hole who believes in eugenics. She and Alison are having lunch, and Alison's mother dictates that Alison has to "take care of it" (translation: get an abortion). Mom then gives an example of a friend/family member who had an abortion earlier in her life and now is married and "has a real baby" (translation: only married people have real babies). Way to fairly portray the mind of the pro-choicer: "Abort the fake babies that you don't want and give birth to the real babies later!! Kill the fake babies!!! Hooray!!!"

Men Only Have One Choice/No Choice.

This film seems to forget that men have choices, too. Ben is not given the option from anyone in his life giving him advice that he might want to consider getting a job and helping Alison solely (and importantly) financially while continuing to live his own life. Or, he might want to be an ongoing friend to Alison and a helpful, present male figure in the baby’s life. After all, during Alison’s tearful cry to Ben, she does not invite him to participate in the pregnancy and rearing of the child. We are to assume, though, that that is Ben’s only choice since she decided to keep the baby. The options available to Ben in the film are extreme, black and white, and frankly sort of terrifying psychologically: either Alison gets an abortion and Ben is absolved of involvement with her, she goes her way and he goes his (the film made it abundantly clear that Alison would not “lower herself” to date Ben if she were not keeping the baby), or she keeps the baby and Ben therefore must attempt to date her, be a romantic partner and full-fledged father to this child. Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for men taking equal responsibility for their involvement in sex and its consequences; at the same time, there are a number of viable and healthy options for what that responsibility might look like. Knocked Up posits that the only option available to the man is to go along with whatever the woman is doing, like he is a hostage to the entire situation, not a fellow adult with choices of his own. While Alison’s options are somewhat fleshed-out in this film, we do not even get a taste of the idea that an adult man has choices of his own in this situation. 

Men Are Distant Slackers And Need To Change. Women Are Bitches And Don’t.
 

The film attempts to highlight “real-life crap” that can occur in romantic relationships by giving us snippets of Debbie (Alison’s sister, played by Leslie Mann) and Pete’s (Paul Rudd) marriage, but instead it offers us an incredibly harsh view of partnerships that is, again, psychologically terrifying. It veers far afield of healthy dynamics with an albeit hilarious in-the-dog-housed Pete and Ben weekend trip to Vegas and a heartfelt male-bonding mushrooming experience that culminates in Pete realizing he doesn't need alone time or his own activities, he just needs to accept the smothering love of Debbie and adhere to her whims. Simultaneously, Debbie and Alison engage in a girls' weekend which leads to the realization that they, as women, are too old and/or pregnant to be single, so they might as well face facts and deal with their (in their minds) fuck-up male sig o's.

Debbie and Pete’s relationship is a nightmare. He’s a charming but secretive, lying avoider who honestly could probably use some time to himself, but he tells himself his wife is too controlling and reactive to be honest with her. She’s a cloying harpy who wants to affix herself to his flesh and make him into a female version of herself. Neither of them appear to know how to talk to each other honestly and kindly. My guess is they could both use time to themselves, nurturing their own interests and interdependence. But the film’s solution? Pete crawls back to his cloying harpy and surrenders his back-flesh to Debbie, and she’s happy. And as long as you can keep a woman happy, your relationship will work out fine. Thanks, Knocked Up, for priming us for Mad Men.

In the film, it's the men who are positioned as fuck-ups, who are dishonest, who are difficult, who are immature, who have to change. A very tangible subplot in this film is the journey Ben has to go on to become ready to be a decent boyfriend and dad. And Pete has to be more willing to be fawned over and ordered around by Debbie in order for their marriage to work. The women need to do nothing but tolerate the men.

While Alison’s emotional outbursts and fear-filled rejections of Ben, as well as her unstated invitation to Ben to be involved in the baby’s life, encourage Ben to look deeply at his goals and decisions, there is no counterpart in the film that forces Alison to change from being a selfish, lying, underearning control freak into an insightful, nurturing, honest, compassionate, more independent good listener. Did she read the baby books she nags Ben to read? Are we supposed to assume she did because she's a woman? Or that she doesn’t need to read the baby books because she’s a woman? And are we supposed to assume that even though we do not see her mature emotionally even one iota in the film that as soon as her baby is born, she'll suddenly become a more decent human being, capable of listening to her partner and nurturing her daughter without letting her arrogant narcissistic issues get in the way? Why are we to assume that?

Because women are biologically manufactured to be good mothers, and this makes them good people. They don't need training. They just "know."

Layered into the idea that only these men need to change in order to make their relationships work (while the women have to do nothing) is the duly offensive idea that women are childlike in their inability to alter their own behavior. They need to whine and throw fits and fly off the handle and smother their partners in affection all the time, and, boys, you better just tolerate it, because women have no capacity to grow up or receive feedback. This infantilization of the female characters in the film wouldn't have been bothersome to me if the women underwent intense self-reflection and growth and made a commitment to understand the needs of their partners in order to maturely address the kinks in their relationships. But Debbie and Alison were relatively unlikeable, whiny, needy women from start to finish. Alison got a free pass for much of the film because she was pregnant. Maybe that's fair? But, newsflash, women aren't all hormones all the time during pregnancy. They are still thinking, feeling, working, productive beings in society who take responsibility for their behavior. Not Alison, though. She was just hormonal. The film wants us to cheer for Ben, whom we give big props to for taking all the heavy things weighing down that relationship (including Alison's juvenile reactions to many things) onto his own back and being a remarkably stand-up dude, capable of learning selflessness, compassion, and all the way through offering an unbeatable wit.

Katherine Heigl was certainly right when she said the film is “a little sexist.” But it is not just anti-woman; it’s also anti-man. Ben and Pete may be fun-loving and sweet, with adorable smiles, but they’re also totally whipped. And the film posits that men being whipped is the only way for relationships to work, because women are incapable of changing.  

Parenthood Is What You Need to Be A Real Adult.

Fast forward to the birth. We're at the hospital. Ben and Alison have made up, after a 2-month long break-up, in 5 minutes, because Ben has proven that he "read the Baby Books!!!" (again, he changed, she did not) and because Alison has no one else to help her while she's in labor. Fast forward through the birth (most of us know by now about the most sterile and unrealistic shorn prosthetic vagina-with-crowning-baby-head shot by this point, yes?) to Ben, holding his newborn baby girl. Ben is sweetly describing to the baby how she was conceived and says something like, "So Mommy said, 'Just do it already,' which was really confusing for Daddy...But I'm really glad I didn't put that condom on."

Don't we all wish our infantile 20-somethings would get their shit together and grow up already? Well, this film has the answer: accidental pregnancy! Hooray! Boys will become men. Girls will become...if not women, then 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 pink-eye-infested loser pot head friends. Girls will...become mamas. Boys will stop talking about blowjobs and big titties all the time and bond with upwardly mobile 30-something dudes who have real jobs and families. Girls will...only get knocked up.