Comments on: Evil. Banality. You Know the Drill.

By: topspun

topspun — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 22:26:37 +0000

stevethomas (if that is your real name): I think what’s curious about these films is that the female figure essentially “rescues” the male from the friendships, at the same time that the relationships remain desirable. The question seems to be about finding the balance between the pathology and health of the male relationships. (i.e., in Knocked Up, the secret fantasy baseball friends are as important an element as Rogan’s pathological relationship with his friends). That these relationships are also marked by “excessive” sexuality (the discussions of the male friends are always much *filthier* than the actual *romantic* relationship) seems to be an element of these films as well.

By: Sadaf

Sadaf — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:17:35 +0000

God, I am so tempted to dive into the potty training thing, since it has been the bane of my existence for the past three years. Mina’s almost there too and she’s about BG’s age, I think. Jordan, on the other hand, took four years. And it’s only been a recent thing that he bothers waking up in the middle of the night to piss on the toilet.
There are no answers. Only the strange mysteries of childhood.

Having just seen Revolutionary Road, I think I’ll take your version of chocolate chip cookies and meatloaf any day over the depressing dysfunction of suburbia I saw. Yikes.

By: steventhomas

steventhomas — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:43:55 +0000

I agree with she. I haven’t seen Zack and Miri make a Porno… but Knocked Up is basically a “schlubby guy gets hot chick” fantasy movie.

But I don’t think your reading and she’s reading are incompatable. Male bonding, sure, you’re right… but male bonding through hot-chick fantasy.

A pretty classic plot device, as I know you well know: “woman” as the “thing” that allows the men to bond. You’re right that it’s not about a woman at all, but it is about “woman” (in the way that Lacan says that “woman” is just a symptom of men’s neurosis.) So, no matter how you slice it, it’s sexist drivel (as Katherine Heigle herself said about her own movie), even if you want to slice it in a way that argues the movie makes fun of its own narrative logic — which it may do, but so what.

I haven’t seen the others because I thought Knocked Up was so lame. Oh, wait, I saw the stoner one. But I wasn’t stoned when I saw it, which I think everyone in the audience is meant (or assumed) to be. (If I had to guess, I would say that almost everyone else in the theater was.) So I got bored.

By: topspun

topspun — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:24:35 +0000

We heard the whole “girls easier to potty-train” thing, too. I can’t speak to it as a general matter. All I know is that babygirl’s little boyfriend was potty-trained in a long weekend, while our own efforts stretched on for months. I think part of it was our own doing. When we were frustrated, we slacked a bit, and let her go back to diapers rather than just letting the whole filthy business of free-flowing potty stuff play itself out (on the floors and rugs, in other words). So we were giving mixed signals, I think. Next time, I think we’re going to try the whole No-Compromise-Weekend thing and see if that works better. But again, it seems to have been mostly a matter of will: she knew what she was doing for about two months of the saga; she just didn’t want to do it. At the end of the day, she’s pretty much well potty-trained and she’s not even technically three yet, so we’re fairly happy with the results, even if the process was a nightmare.

By: jenny

jenny — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:30:06 +0000

I have heard some amazing neighbor-couple fights in my day. In one particularly depressing apartment, I actually looked forward to the fights because it meant one of them would leave. If they both stayed home–and were in good spirits–in meant bone-crushing thumping bass that was so intense that the pictures of my wall literally shook.

And everyone has been telling me that girls are so easy to potty train. Is this another lie?