Knocked Up

Am I the only one that thinks this bit from Slate’s review of Knocked Up is really nitpicky?

On their second date, Alison tells Ben she’s eight weeks pregnant, and, this being a mainstream movie in which the word abortion literally cannot be uttered—when Ben’s pal Jonah briefly invokes the procedure, he says it “rhymes with ’shmashmortion’ “—she needs to know whether Ben’s onboard for the whole fatherhood thing.

Allow me to briefly divagate here on the nonexistence of abortion as an option in Knocked Up. This omission smells of the focus group, and it’s a disappointment in a movie that otherwise prides itself on its unsentimental honesty about the realities of unplanned parenthood. It’s just not believable that, in Alison and Ben’s upper-middle-class, secular L.A. milieu, abortion would not be matter-of-factly discussed as a possibility in the case of a pregnancy this accidental. If she doesn’t want one, great—obviously, there’d be no movie if she did—but let’s hear about why not. Otherwise, her character becomes a cipher, a foil for Ben’s epiphanies about growing up, without being allowed any epiphanies of her own. The biggest unanswered question about Heigl’s character is one the movie never tiptoes near—why does she decide to keep the baby?

I’m pretty sure they didn’t cover this because abortion isn’t funny. When you’re making a comedy, having a scene in which a pregnant woman agonizes over whether or not to have a baby is sure to be a laugh-killer.


posted by greg on June 5, 2007 @ 9:57 am

7 comments »

  1. Jesus Christ. I’m a Jew, by the way, so I mean “Jesus Christ” as a curse of exasperation, not as a segue to some loony rant. What would Slate’s review of Porky’s been? “Obviously the shower peep scene is a metaphor for the increasing omniscient “eye” of the information age we rapidly approach. Only Reagan’s stern “coaching / teaching” can guide our society’s inner child from the voyeuristic marvels the 90’s will bring. Or it’s a chance to show some titties.” Does every goddamn movie need an insightful message? Can’t something just be funny anymore?

    Comment by Jeb — June 5, 2007 @ 10:44 am

  2. Yeah, when I read this article yesterday, I was lured in by the title, which seemed to promise some actual issues raised by the movie. Then it turns out to be a person who really liked the movie, but had a few minor issues that were actually kind of bullshit anyway. Nicely done, Slate.

    Comment by Joe — June 5, 2007 @ 1:28 pm

  3. I will admit that haven’t seen the movie, but have to say that I was thinking the exact same thing as the Slate reviewer. A lot of women don’t agonize at all over abortion — I had one when I got pregnant at 22 and it was a very quick and entirely positive decision on my part, and a huge relief when it was done. Comedies like this one (i.e. not entirely surreal) should be grounded in reality so we can better sympathize with the characters and the situations, so why couldn’t the issue of abortion have at least been brought up, if only for her to say “no way, I’m keeping it”? It seems ridiculous to me that movies pretend that women and their partners don’t even *think* about it, that it’s just automatically assumed that a woman would never consider terminating a pregnancy — and especially for characters in that socio-economic and geographic cohort.

    Comment by ws — June 5, 2007 @ 6:15 pm

  4. The issue of abortion was brought up. In fact, the “shmashmortion” scene allowed for a couple different perspectives on abortion, including the idea behind the “shmashmortion” joke that the inability to discuss abortion as an adult is ridiculous.

    Dana Stevens wrote that article, and I just don’t get how someone I loved as a TV critic could be unreadable as a movie critic.

    Comment by E-Rock — June 6, 2007 @ 10:34 am

  5. The Knocked Up abortion discussion reminds me of one of the most ludicrous things I’ve ever read. I wish I remembered this when I wrote the post. From a Salon.com article about Tom Hanks :

    “Cast Away” is a hollow fantasy, in which FedEx fidelity will solve Chuck’s empty romantic space. You don’t really believe in Chuck surviving, growing, or loving. You don’t feel the threat of madness or irrational terrors. His sex life stops. I don’t expect the picture to be sordid or clinical, yet that man on that island, I think, would masturbate. Most people do — especially those with time on their hands, especially those, like Chuck, so busy they have to snatch satisfaction when they can. And it’s the kind of omission that reflects too many people worrying over Hanks’ image.

    That’s right. The problem with Cast Away was that you don’t see Tom Hanks jerk off.

    Comment by greg — June 6, 2007 @ 10:46 am

  6. E-Rock:

    Out of curiosity, does the pal Jonah bring up “smashmortion” in front of Alison, or does he talk about it only with Ben? Does Alison ever talk about it? That’s the crux of the matter for me, whether *she* considers it, because of the way that many on the Right paint abortion as “baby murder” and that women who terminate a pregnancy are unnatural and evil.

    (I’d go see the movie for myself but it’s not out yet in the country where I currently live.)

    Comment by ws — June 6, 2007 @ 6:13 pm

  7. Speaking of dissing movies because of what they choose not to include, there’s a deleted scene from Knocked Up that speaks to similar misgivings about another film.

    Comment by greg — June 6, 2007 @ 6:51 pm

Copy link for RSS feed for comments on this post or for TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>

(required)

(required)