Hollywood Wants You Knocked Up.

I have a simple theory when it comes to most Hollywood comedies, if the critics shower a particular film with golden showers of praise I tend to stay away. What critics tend to find humorous usually involves a lot of what I like to all “non-jokes”. A non-joke is something that really isn’t funny but if you remain silent long enough after you say it people start to laugh. Knocked Up is one such film, sure their a few unexpected jokes here and there, but for the most part I thin it proves that what you say when you hang around with your buddies is really just funny to you and doesn’t belong in a major motion picture. But if that were the worst of it I wouldn’t even be writing this review, Knocked Up sends a very dangerous message to its viewer. One that had my head rolling every minute or so as these two morons on screen seemed to come right out of the 1950’s.

First up to bat, Alison, a successful young woman, independent, and works for E entertainment news. She’s given a chance to even star in her own show which is most anyone’s dream who works in that industry. On the other side of the coin you have Ben, probably didn’t graduate college, sits at home doing nothing, and his dream is to open up a web site where you can find how far into a film your favorite actress shows her boobs. These two would only get together in one way, the super drunken one night stand, that part the film gets right. The part that it gets wrong is that someone in Alison’s position never would have kept that baby. The film lightly mentions abortion as an option and it’s immediately shrugged aside as if the Christian coalition busted in and forced it out of the script. Am I crazy or was that truly the best option in this situation? Ben is loser, a stranger, and she’s going to destroy her career to have his child? Maybe this film was funnier then I thought, or maybe we traveled back in time when women had to use coat hangers because the law told them they didn’t have a choice.

Next up on the list, now that Alison is properly knocked up as the title promises, she not only decides to keep the baby but once again she travels back in time to learn that now she must force herself to love the man who got her pregnant. WHOA! That’s the biggest mistake 99% of couples make, assuming that pregnancy ties you down to someone you don’t love, don’t like, and never would have married if that baby wasn’t part of the equation. Couples that that marry for this reason always end up hating each other and having miserable marriages. Instead of debunking these myths Knocked Up decides to reinforce this fairy tale that the person you don’t love, well you can learn to love them, and even better you can change them.

I just didn’t buy anything these characters said or did, not in this day and age. Maybe if at the beginning they told us the film was taking place many many years ago. In the end you got this baby, parents who will probably just end up divorcing each other, or parents that stay together to be miserable just for the sake of this poor little baby who was born into this terrible mess.

2/5

Tag: Biggest Loser