Althouse: Keeping the baby.

June 2, 2007

Keeping the baby.

Isn't it interesting that two of the best-reviewed movies of the summer are about a woman going through with an unplanned and seemingly ill-advised pregnancy? In "Waitress" -- which has 91% positive reviews -- the woman is in an abusive marriage and expresses great bitterness toward the unborn child. In "Knocked Up" -- which also has 91% positives -- a woman gets pregnant after a drunken one-night stand with a complete loser. Is something happening here?

CORRECTED: I had "the two best-reviewed movies," which is probably inaccurate. The key thing is that these two movies stand out as the best romantic comedies/date movies to see right now. (Actually, I object to the characterization of "Waitress" as a romantic comedy.)

9 comments:

Tim said...: "Is something happening here?"

Yes.

As demographics change, so too are the politics of abortion.

But mostly it's just a movie.; 6/2/07, 9:22 AM
Meade said...: Something may be happening but it isn't really new. Same old Men Are Buffoons (unless the man is a grandfatherly Sheriff Andy Taylor-type) vehicles now spun with a Desperate Women Whose Biological Clocks Are Ticking And Tocking Loudly Enough So That The Convenience Of Abortion On Demand Is Not Really Quite As Desirable As It Once Was When Girls Just Wanting To Have Fun Was The Main Thing That Mattered Because You'd Come A Long Way, Baby, And Now You Can Be Equal To Self-centered Men Who've Historically Had The Freedom To Have Casual Irresponsible Sex Without Personal Cost To Themselves theme.

I'd be curious to know what percentage of movie tickets are purchased by women born between 1945 and 1965.

91%?; 6/2/07, 9:48 AM
Mark Daniels said...: Meanwhile, "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," the Romanian film about a woman who, with the assistance of a friend, seeks and has an abortion, wins the Cannes Film Festival. It was highly praised by critics as well as the judges.

Just another reminder that we live in a diverse world, I guess.

Mark Daniels; 6/2/07, 10:13 AM
Gahrie said...: Anybody else see the episode of House this spring when they operated on a baby in the mother's womb, and at one point the baby grabbed the doctor's finger?; 6/2/07, 11:21 AM
Tim said...: "...when they operated on a baby in the mother's womb, and at one point the baby grabbed the doctor's finger?"

It's based upon a true story. Here's the pic:

http://livingtheway.org/handofhope.html; 6/2/07, 12:11 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Truth always beats fiction.; 6/2/07, 5:17 PM
Ruth Anne Adams said...: Althouse: don't preach.; 6/2/07, 8:55 PM
Bill said...: I was amused by the local review: With "Virgin" and "Knocked Up," Apatow has confirmed he is the master of a new cinematic subgenre, the Filthy Feel-Good Comedy. In his hands, decency always prevails, even if half of his characters are porn addicts.; 6/2/07, 10:09 PM
Telecomedian said...: Mini-case study on demographics from "Knocked Up" this weekend for Meade:

I saw the movie on a packed, rainy Sunday afternoon in Arlington, VA, and, though I'm 34 years old, I was one of the older folks in the place. Most were early 20s, late teens.

Even though it has been tagged as "gross humor," perhaps the biggest gasps came from Joanna Kerns from "Growing Pains" advising her daughter, Katherine Heigl, to have an abortion. She was rather callous and said "you can have a real baby later."

That seemed to shock the audience more than the rampant pot smoking, nudity or language.; 6/4/07, 8:22 AM