Knocked Up---10/26/10

Is this film a traditional romantic comedy or is it radical?

Knocked Up is a hilarious film that tackles modern social issues without beating the audience over the head with an agenda. These issues include:

Single motherhood
Pre-marital sex
Pregnancy
Abortion
Marriage
Social Class/ Status
Habitual Marijuana use
Allison is a traditional woman who seems to be seeking a traditional path to marriage and family. Ben us a radical man who does not work, runs a pseudo porn site and who smokes an excessive amount of weed. Allison and Ben’s stark differences in personality and family values eventually cause a riff in their relationship. Allison wants Ben to be more like the traditional man protects and defends his family. Ben at first resists the change, but in the end he changes to become the man that Allison wants.
The topic of abortion is discussed discretely at minimal length when the pregnancy is first discovered. The way it is discussed illustrates the filmmaker’s stance on abortion. The word is never actually used through out the film which suggests that it is never a viable or real option when faced with pregnancy. The different ways that abortion is tackled is telling of Allison and Ben’s socioeconomic class differences. Ben and his father discuss the pregnancy at an L.A. diner. The diner represents their class. Middle class and low status. Ben’s dad supports the pregnancy and never mentions an abortion. Allison and her mom talk about the pregnancy over lunch at a fancy restaurant. This feeds into the idea that Allison and her family are better than Ben and his family. Allison’s mother is unsupportive of the pregnancy. Although never actually saying abortion, Allison’s mother intimates to her daughter to “take care of the pregnancy”. She insists that the “baby isn’t real” because the pregnancy is a mistake. In Allison’s mother’s eyes it would be more socially acceptable for Allison to “take care of it”, than be an unwed single mother. In the end it Allison who makes the ultimate decision to keep the baby. Again this plays into society’s normative view of the mother as the sole decision maker during pregnancy.

"Feminafesto" 10/21/10

Charlotte and Emily Bronte are two of the most celebrated female authors of all time. Charlotte, Emily and their sister Anne published their novels under the name Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell.  These novels include Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. Charlotte wrote of their decision to publish under assumed names,
"Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because—without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called 'feminine' -- we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice; we had noticed how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true praise." (from "The Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell, from the preface of the 1910 edition of Wuthering Heights.

“Feminafesto”

In the “Feminafesto”, Anne Waldman argues for the complete overhaul of modern discourse. Waldman claims that all language is inherently male and ultimately alienating of female writers and feminine audiences. Waldman points out that, “much feminist criticism has centered on the misogyny of literary practice”. Throughout literature women are portrayed as wither good or evil. We women are either “angels or nuns, mothers or nuns, daughters or whores.” Waldman would like to completely change use of the feminine in our language. Women should not be judged first against their own femininity before even being criticized fairly against their male counterparts. An author is first defined as male or female. Male authors are simple Mark Twain or Charles Bukowski. Their gender is not made glaringly obvious in the way that it is for female authors. Anne Waldman would not just be writer Anne Waldman, but female author Anne Waldman. The inclusion of the author’s sex causes the audience to pause and possibly even second guess the credibility of the female author. This double standard for women, Waldman argues, needs to be stopped completely. She proposes, “…a utopian creative field where we [women] are defined by our energy, not by our gender”.