Movie Scolded For Not Espousing Abortion

NewsBusters.org ^ | 6/20/07 | Warner Todd Huston

[Mobile Vulgus]

A new Hollywood comedy by Judd Apatow called "Knocked Up" is taking heat for its perceived stance on abortion from an unlikely source; the left. The movie is a comedy bordering on raunchiness that is proving a popular diversion this Summer with strong box office takes. It's about a slobish sort of slacker (actor Seth Rogen) who has a one night stand with an incredibly beautiful and together woman (the delightful Katherine Heigl) who's life is on the rise. Unfortunately for her, she gets pregnant. The rest of the movie centers on how these two very different people attempt to get together to have and raise their child... and therein lies the left's displeasure.

You see, the couple decides to keep the baby instead of aborting it. How revolting, eh?

A snippy little review by Anthony Lane in The New Yorker snidely comments upon how Apatow's film is geared towards the great unwashed "conservative" audiences, as if that in and of itself is a disgusting proposition.

Apatow, unlike his hero, is nothing if not careful: born in Syosset, New York, now living in the Los Angeles area, he clearly wants his movies to shock, but not to repel, a conservative audience, and thus the idea of his heroine’s aborting the child is no sooner floated than dispelled.

How dare Apatow "dispel" the idea of killing a baby, even if it is only a fictitious one!

In fact, The New Yorker seems to be disgusted with the entire theme of giving birth. Lane haughtily desparages the film with: "I suppose that, with a baby due, there is no way it was ever going to avoid a sentimental splurge." Here he is obviously turning up his nose at the very idea of a such a "sentimental" thing as a baby's birth.

Slate is no better with reviewer Dana Stevens seeming to insist that no one in an "upper-middle-class, secular L.A" would ever imagine that abortion isn't an option.

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.

Her pedantic use of "divagate" aside, Stevens is amazing because she is such a true believer in abortion that she just can't imagine that anyone else except, perhaps, a knuckle dragging midwestern rube, would ever care about the life of a fetus... or is that an unviable clump of cells? What ever the hip phrase for infanticide is today.

And let us not leave out The New York Times, all the news that's fit to abort, which quickly jumps on the why-not-have-an-abortion bandwagon with a review by Mireya Navarro.

The possibility of not having the baby is never discussed by either woman despite her circumstances. The word “abortion” is never uttered...Though conservatives regularly accuse Hollywood of being overly liberal on social issues, abortion rarely comes up in film.

One interesting portion of Navarro's NYTimes review, however, was a bit shocking for it's unexpected honesty.

While pondering exactly why it might be that movie makers don't show abortion as regularly as she would like, Navarro seems to admit that abortion is unsavory and makes the aborter an "unsympathetic character", revealing that even she knows deep in her heart that abortion is somehow wrong and/or bad.

Perhaps directors of feel-good movies don’t want to risk portraying their heroines as unsympathetic characters.

If I didn't think that Sigmund Freud was such a fraud, I'd say Navarro had a bout with parapraxis... or to be less pedantic, she had a Freudian slip there.

Navarro scolds the movie because conservative anti-abortion advocates are recommending the film for the fact that its characters don't consider an abortion as a viable parenting option.

Some on the anti-abortion side seem to think so. Many conservative bloggers have claimed “Knocked Up” as an anti-choice movie, in part because the movie never presents abortion as a serious option.

Gasp! The horrors!

In any case, each and every one of these political positions parading as a movie review says the same thing about the reason that Hollywood is reticent to highlight the abortion option in their films. They all assume that the box office take would be a bust for a film where expectant Mothers go about killing their babies.

And this begs the question... if abortion is so well accepted by everyone, if it is so matter of factly an option for most "sensible" Americans, why would a movie that reflects that be such an obvious bomb? Could it be because even common folks who accept abortion at some perfunctory level don't want to see movies where Mothers kill their babies? Could it be that even nominal supporters of abortion are uncomfortable with the procedure when all is said and done? Could it also be that far more people are either totally against abortion or are at least are uncomfortable with its moral implications than there are those who easily accept it as a mere choice in life?

In any case, these abortion supporting reviewers seem to be straight forwardly admitting that their blasé views on abortion are in the minority -- making them an awfully small audience -- and this would seem to be troublesome when spending the millions it takes to make a film.

Were I a movie producer, I think I'd like my film to get a wider audience than that tiny fragment of the country who are rabid abortion advocates.

How about you?

[Mobile Vulgus]

They can't even watch a comedy without going nuts!

[big'ol_freeper]

Coulda predicted that.

[Old Professer]

Like they say, you gotta be f..... up before you can get knocked up.

[Jibaholic]

The fact of the matter is that young people, particularly young women, are increasingly turning against abortion. The polls back this up. We are softening hearts and the left hates that.

[Necrovore]

So, making sure the white male lead in a comedy looks like a complete buffoon is no longer enough for these people?

[discostu]

I don’t suppose it occurs to them that if the characters chose to abort that would be the end of the movie.

[Michael.SF.]

Of course, they are over looking the fact that if the character aborted the baby they then would have had an additional 98 minutes of screen time to fill.

[Alouette]

I wasn’t planning on watching this movie which I thought was just another stupid chick flick, but I think I will see it now.

[Wil H]

Of course, they are over looking the fact that if the character aborted the baby they then would have had an additional 98 minutes of screen time to fill.

Maybe 98 minutes of graphic film from Dr Tiller's Late Term Abortion Farm in Kansas would have satisfied them?

[Pravious]

Is it *beyond* the reasoning of the pro-death crowd that if the topic of abortion had been seriously raised, the film would have had to make a STRONGER anti-abortion stand, since the baby couldn’t have been aborted without destroying the plot? Then again, if they were reasonable, they wouldn’t be pro-death to begin with.

Anyway, seeing as that Apatow was one of the major talents who brought us “Freaks and Geeks,” one of the best TV series *ever* (IMHO), it’d be very hard for him to get on my !@(*-list... :-).

[KingLiberty]

Saw this film, some funny parts. I liked the pot smoking, for example. But the left is wrong here, because they say their issue is choice not murder. She had the choice in the movie, decided to keep the baby, and that’s that. What’s their complaint? Puzzling, unless their common sense button was turned off when they started complaining about the film.

[Popocatapetl]

“Abortion as a viable parenting solution?” Did their editor read that?

[sageb1]

You’d think they’d at least be happy with the pre-marital sex.

[FourtySeven]

I don’t know why the “sexually free” leftists wouldn’t like this movie.

As was pointed out upthread, if they aborted, then there wouldn’t be a movie.

But beyond that, this movie promotes the idea that “Hey, feelin a little randy? Just go out, have a one night stand, and even IF you get pregnant, then life will just be a bed of comedic roses afterwords”.

Yeah, it’s good that abortion isn’t discussed, I guess. But here’s an even more radical idea: DON’T HAVE PRE-MARRITAL SEX IN THE FIRST PLACE, AND YOU WON’T EVEN BE IN THIS SITUATION!

[Ingtar]

You’d think they’d at least be happy with the pre-marital sex.

But without abortion as an option, it does not fit their template for that. They seem to preach that if you get knocked up, it should be easy to get rid of the consequences. They cannot have those they are propagandizing thinking of consequences.

[wagglebee]

The movie is hilarious, but you probably shouldn’t take young kids.

[oblomov]

I thought they wanted to make abortion “safe, legal, and rare”?

A morally circumspect person would never even consider an abortion to be an appropriate resolution of a one-night stand.

[Mr. Jeeves]

She had the choice in the movie, decided to keep the baby, and that’s that. What’s their complaint?

Katherine Heigl's character is like their model, young, dream, career-oriented feminist, so for her not to choose abortion - especially when the father is like an example of everything they abhor in men - is a violation of all of the Hollywood "rules".

The movie is really funny. Anyone who liked "The 40 Year Old Virgin" will like it - people who get hung up on vulgarity probably won't. A lot of people were complaining about the casual profanity used by all of the characters...I can only conclude these people don't live in California. Everybody talks that way in the cities here. ;)

[FortWorthPatriot]

“Abortion as a viable parenting solution?”

That's pretty much a contradiction in terms!

[Revenge of Sith]

> Everybody talks that way in the cities here. ;)

I know many Catholic priests who talk that way.