*eyeroll*

[moominmuppet]

Judd Apatow is very hit or miss for me; I find his assortment of regulars pretty thoroughly hysterical (especially Seth Rogen and Jason Segel), and there's stuff of his I utterly love (Freaks and Geeks, Superbad, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall especially), but I barely made it halfway through 40-Year-Old Virgin, and I'm currently finally watching Knocked Up, and about as irritated by it as I expected. I can totally buy deciding to continue an unexpected pregnancy. Happens every day. But everything about the relationship between the two of them feels so far beyond unrealistic that I can't particularly get into it, even as an over-the-top sort of thing. Because a one-night-stand she's horribly incompatible with got her pregnant, she's going to try to create a romantic relationship out of it? Seriously? I could even buy it a bit more if they were just trying to be good co-parents, and ended up falling in love, but this is one of the most unbelievable premises I've heard in a while. It's frustrating, because I'm so enjoy watching the cast, and am so disliking the movie itself.

Comments

[jajy1979.livejournal.com]

There were a bunch of folks who warned me about that movie. It's never been my cup of tea as a movie type, but the complaints were enough to ensure I didn't bother even letting Dad drag me to it.

It royally offended a ton of the childfree folks too.

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

It garnered a lot of conversation on prochoice blogs, especially in combo with Juno and Waitress, about the way the topic of abortion is handled, too. I didn't personally find it too problematic in that regard (certainly not like the clinic scene in Juno), but I can see their arguments. I watched it mostly to have first-hand context for making a decision about what I thought about how it was handled, actually.

[jajy1979.livejournal.com]

I'm not on a whole lot of pro-choice blogs. But Anna was livid with Juno after some of her customers started making references to her being similar to the character, something that went over like a ton of bricks with my wife.

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

*snort* I bet. For a few months after Juno got big, our antis actually changed some of their usual repetitive screaming to stuff from the movie (about fingernails).

For Juno to be a movie, she needed to decide to continue the pregnancy, obviously. But I just don't understand why the clinic needed to be portrayed that way, why they didn't show the kind of counseling that happens (and often leads women to the realization that they want to continue a pregnancy), why it had to be antis yelling about fingernails. Gives people a bad and inaccurate image of clinics, and encourages the antis. Friggin' lovely. *grrr*

[blackbyrd2.livejournal.com]

I had issues with the romance myself, but then had to ask myself if I was thinking it was unbelievable simply because she was thin and beautiful, and he was dumpy and clutzy. I had to ask myself if it was possible for a 'pretty' girl to fall for an oh-so-'regular' guy, and how much of the cultural stereotype I was allowing myself to be manipulated by.
Then of course, you have to deal with the backswing to that, and whether or not you're overthinking things, or trying too hard to be non-stereotyping.

All of which really kind of took me out of the movie.

In the end I accepted the premise, mostly in the interest of attempting to enjoy the movie. (Because I do love a movie with a happy ending. That escapism is all about why I watch most movies. I can swallow some relatively outrageous premises in order to allow the movie to succeed.)

It would have been a better (and easier to accept) movie if they'd done a better job of character development before the one-night stand.

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

I had issues with the romance myself, but then had to ask myself if I was thinking it was unbelievable simply because she was thin and beautiful, and he was dumpy and clutzy. I had to ask myself if it was possible for a 'pretty' girl to fall for an oh-so-'regular' guy, and how much of the cultural stereotype I was allowing myself to be manipulated by.

*chuckle* I had the opposite reaction; I really didn't like her much at all, as a person, and didn't see much of what he saw in her (then again, his character is much more my kind of guy than her character is my kind of girl). But even not liking her personally, I didn't get why she'd make the decisions she did about the relationship, etc.

[blackbyrd2.livejournal.com]

It wasn't that I liked her and didn't like him. I thought he was very likable, but expected (because of the cultural stereotype) that she'd either take advantage of him or otherwise be cruel/mean to him, not fall for him. That was me falling prey to the stereotype of 'pretty' women being less nice people. There's probably a bit of sour grapes mentality involved in that stereotype, but it's seldom been proven wrong.
(Of course, as with all stereotypes, it's false, and I spent a good deal of time trying to break out of it during the movie.)

ETA: This concept could probably use a much longer post to clarify, but I think you probably understand what I mean.

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

*nod* I think I do. Interestingly, it was hitting me on a very different level than relative attractiveness. For me, it was about normative life-plans and goals vs non-normative. Anytime one brings a child into things, lots of practicalities have to change. However, the ways in which it's possible for them to change successfully are really remarkably varied, and seeing it simplified to "grow up and act normal" really didn't sit well with me. That she was that force in the movie is the largest part of why I didn't connect with her.