Knocked Up

I was flipping through my cable channels the other day and saw that Knocked Up was on. I saw the movie when it first came out, but decided to watch it again, both for this class and because I'm now pregnant myself. After it came out, I remember hearing some controversy about how the female lead of the movie, Katherine Heigl, claimed afterwards that she didn't love the movie because she thought it was sexist. After watching it, I did some sleuthing on the internet to find out the details of what was really said.

Katherine Heigl gave an interview to Vanity Fair afterwards, in which she said that Knocked Up is "a little sexist" and "it paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys." The director of the film, Judd Apatow, felt the need to respond, and he made fun of the use of the word "shrew," asking if we were in the 1600s again. The website Buzzsugar did a poll asking people if they thought the movie was sexist. A good majority of the people thought it was sexist, but that it wasn't really a big deal. I tend to agree. Although it did spark some controversy, and other news outlets online wrote more about it, I don't think we need to necessarily take things so seriously.

This is why- even though the movie is sexist towards women, I think it can be argued that the movie is also sexist toward men. Just look at the preview up above. The female lead, Alison, is a strong career-minded woman who has just achieved an amazing promotion. The male lead, Ben, is basically a loser. He claims to be an illegal immigrant, he lives off money he received from a work injury, and seems to have no motivation in life other than to get high with his friends. One of the main points of the movie is that having a baby makes him grow up and finally become an adult, whereas Alison is to that point already.

There are parts that are sexist, though, and these are the ones I think are the worst. Two of the three actually involve the sister of the lead character, which is interesting because the actress who played her is married to the director of the film. One part is actually in the preview. Alison's sister and brother-in-law are getting ready for bed and the husband, Pete, tries to initiate sex. Debbie, the wife, replies by saying something like "Well, I'm constipated, but if you really want to.." The second part is when Debbie irrationally thinks Pete is cheating on her. When she finds out he is actually just doing a fantasy baseball draft, she stays mad, even claiming it's worse than cheating because he just doesn't want to spend time with her. The third thing is that near the end of the pregnancy, especially while she is in labor, Alison is portrayed to be a bit shrewish, like the actress said. Yes, all of these parts are funny, but they also just portray typical stereotypes of women. Women make excuses to get out of sex. Women always think mean are cheaters and don't have any trust. Women always scream and yell at their partners, especially during labor. These stereotypes are funny, but not always true.