We went to watch a certain popular movie about pregnancy this weekend, and I walked out feeling a little like I'd been smacked in the ballsack. The movie itself was funny enough on its own terms, I guess, but there was something that bugged me the more I thought about it.
There's a word we loved to chat about occasionally when I was doing my various grad degrees in literary studies: interpellation. It means, roughly, creating something by naming it. We are interpellated every day of our lives as citizens, employees, family members, etc. This activity helps us find our way in the world, but it can also be the source of all kinds of alienation, discomfort, and even anger. When somebody defines you in a way that you don't agree with, and you can't do anything about it, it can be pretty awful, and I think that's exactly what I didn't like about the movie.
The expecting dads in the movie were alternately defined as reluctant, cowering, utterly nonchalant, and merely proud of their seminal contribution. Interestingly the only father who had any hint of intelligence, excitement, or self-awareness ended up with a partner who miscarried. What does that say? Symbolically speaking, it suggests that if you don't fall in line with cliches about parenthood, or if you try to be an emotionally mature male in this world, your line is doomed. The miscarriage also just happens to occur for the family that conceives outside of wedlock. I think the symbolism of that one's pretty obvious.
I thought we were all grown adults here. Do we really need these morality lessons that simultaneously goad and chide us into strict regimes of behaviour? Snooze.
Even the movie's supposed moments of honesty, such as Elisabeth Banks' hilarious outburst at a mommy convention, fall into easily identified movie formulas. That one was the "sick of being a hero confessional." We saw it when Samantha pulled off her wig and told it like it is about cancer in that later episode of Sex in the City. This formula is supposed to reveal the humanness lying behind media images of various people, but in fact it's so predictable that its authenticity always rings through as deeply contrived. The revelation always seems to be "this actually sucks," but it never goes anywhere besides that. It never confronts us with the scary implications of that suckiness (in this case, perhaps, that parenthood is actually a terrible thing not worth doing).
Now's the time when I should tell you what these movies should be doing instead of what they're doing, but in fact that's not my job at all. That's the job of artists. An honest exploration of parenthood, say, would not follow a formula. It would hit you in a way that suddenly revealed some new, previously overlooked part of yourself and your experience. It's no easy thing to do, but it's an ideal that is worth the attempt.
There's a word we loved to chat about occasionally when I was doing my various grad degrees in literary studies: interpellation. It means, roughly, creating something by naming it. We are interpellated every day of our lives as citizens, employees, family members, etc. This activity helps us find our way in the world, but it can also be the source of all kinds of alienation, discomfort, and even anger. When somebody defines you in a way that you don't agree with, and you can't do anything about it, it can be pretty awful, and I think that's exactly what I didn't like about the movie.
The expecting dads in the movie were alternately defined as reluctant, cowering, utterly nonchalant, and merely proud of their seminal contribution. Interestingly the only father who had any hint of intelligence, excitement, or self-awareness ended up with a partner who miscarried. What does that say? Symbolically speaking, it suggests that if you don't fall in line with cliches about parenthood, or if you try to be an emotionally mature male in this world, your line is doomed. The miscarriage also just happens to occur for the family that conceives outside of wedlock. I think the symbolism of that one's pretty obvious.
I thought we were all grown adults here. Do we really need these morality lessons that simultaneously goad and chide us into strict regimes of behaviour? Snooze.
Even the movie's supposed moments of honesty, such as Elisabeth Banks' hilarious outburst at a mommy convention, fall into easily identified movie formulas. That one was the "sick of being a hero confessional." We saw it when Samantha pulled off her wig and told it like it is about cancer in that later episode of Sex in the City. This formula is supposed to reveal the humanness lying behind media images of various people, but in fact it's so predictable that its authenticity always rings through as deeply contrived. The revelation always seems to be "this actually sucks," but it never goes anywhere besides that. It never confronts us with the scary implications of that suckiness (in this case, perhaps, that parenthood is actually a terrible thing not worth doing).
Now's the time when I should tell you what these movies should be doing instead of what they're doing, but in fact that's not my job at all. That's the job of artists. An honest exploration of parenthood, say, would not follow a formula. It would hit you in a way that suddenly revealed some new, previously overlooked part of yourself and your experience. It's no easy thing to do, but it's an ideal that is worth the attempt.
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