Knocked Up Contribution

I started out watching the movie. I had to look at it again because frankly, I looked at it for just comedy reasons. I personally like the club scene when Allison and Ben boogied. The song and the lame dancing matched perfectly. In regards to the group....I was a little stuck on how our group was going to present. We got together for a few minutes after class and decided to split the couples. Since we had 8 people in our group, it was better to focus on Allison/Ben and Debbie/Pete. While the movie touched points about identities (Barker) and radical romance, it also talked about real life. I decided to bring up that point because it could happen to anyone and it does happen. I didn't get a chance to read the script, but the screenplay pointed out masculine characteristics and feminine characteristics as well. I didn’t get a chance to point out that some of these characteristics were defined by their social environments. While Ben didn’t seem to mind to not relate to Allison’s sister/Pete relationship, Allison cared at times. What’s boggling about these two relationships in general is that it was a mix of radical/ neo-tradition characteristics. That was mentioned a little in our presentation. I wished we had more time for all of us to enlighten on the movie more. Although the movie is obviously more radical than anything else, the two couples’s relationships tell us about sexuality, values, love, and reality. I want to conclude by saying that if that was someone I knew that just got pregnant, I would tell them to look at the bigger picture.

Neo-Tradition Romantic Comedy and A New World Disorder

Let's start with the Neo-traditional romantic comedy. From my understanding, I understood one of the characeristics involved film interpreting a new form of traditional romantical comedies. Tamar McDonald illustrates examples from such movies as: Annie Hall, Sleepless in Seattle, and You've Got Mail. It's been some time since I've seen Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail. I know both of these movies featured Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. According to her definition, "Neo-traditional films follow the boy meets girl, loses girl, gets back girl notion, but the couple relationship ends". Something I thought was interesting was why do we, the audience, assume only love should be depicted as only heterosexual although we do not live in a world that doesn't seem to conform to this way of living? Another characteristic of this genre talks about how sex is downplayed. While it was important for the 1970s films to portray the meaning of sex as self-reflexivity, neo-traditional films do not focus on that. They focus more on a a lost romance that started, but soon ended.

A New World Disorder:
          This chapter has many opinions on differnet issues at hand. It talks about Fordism, and post- Fordism. One thing that stood out to me was the way in which the working world works. Sadly enough, people are right back in the same boat now that they escaped years ago. Nowadays, earning a Bachelor's degree is seen as earning am associate's degree. But on the other hand, that doesn't mean a job either. With the recession we have going on, many complanies are hiring or placing their businesses elsewhere. Hence, that lowers the demand for jobs in the United States. For businesses, it' about cost control and not going bankrupt. In the end, the real question is when will America fight for the people?

Sex Comedy---There's more to it...

Sex. The word itself raises some curiousity and conclusions. I'll try to make this blog understandable. There was a lot of information that I read and to think...the book considers "sex comedy" a sub-genre. By definition, McDonald writes, "Both sexes play this game of when sex will actually happen....instead this genre focuses more of a woman who prefers to wait till marriage and a man who wants sex without the committment"( 38). The sixties must have been some year. That's around the same time PlayBoy  Magazine was introduced. It's still every man's dream to experience anything coming close to Hugh Heifner, The Bunnies, or The Mansion. I guess that would also be the perfect christmas present for any man. I find it weird that the book talked about how sex was hidden and kept so sacred. Now, sex is the topic that gets a lot of exposure. My mom and dad were born in the sixties. If sex education wasn't talked about back then, how were they informed of contraceptives? It's still taboo in some cultures. We do live in culture that influences us to have sex or save it. But, I alos read that movie industries feared allowing sex to air---it might lead to more people having sex. Albert Kinsey wrote reports to show proof that, "women could have premarital sex just as much as guys"( 41). This still holds true to this day---men can sleep with different women and get cuddles for it, but women who sleep with different men is considered a whore. I also liked how the chapter focused on the importance of saving your virginity---that was part of the American dream. The white picket fence, three children, big yard, small city, married, perfect jobs, etc. One sex comedy I find hilarious till this day..."Booty Call". That entire movie is about that one thing. They went through hell and at the end of the night, they finally hit the jackpot. It all started with a double date, dancing, hormones, and the lack of protection. I was a little confused towards the last pages of the chapter...Hopefully a class discussion can help...

                                              
American Pie 


                                            How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days                                            

RomCom----They can be listed in any genre

So, I reread chapter 1 of Tamar Jeffers McDonald, "Romantic Comedy" Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre". I found many points profound. Steve Neale and Rick Altman stress the importance of how the romcom movies intertwine with other genres. This results in "hybridity" (8).  I also remembering watching the movie, "Jerry Maguire" and thinking Tom Cruise played one arrogant sports agent. It was an old movie, but the few scenes we did see in class the other day reminded me of how young the actors looked. The chapter also mentions how much marketing goes on into making a movie appear as if "you gotta see this". And it works. One example of that is the recent movie, "Easy A". There's advertisements for this movie everywhere. I wish they didn't show so much of the movie clips...I pretty much know how it's going to end. They define what a romcom is....."the movie focuses entirely on love and ends with that same focus" (9). The book also talks about how romcom sells products, which is true for most movies, and the myth that all these movies are "chick flicks". But, if we think about it, are all suspensful movies, for example, all guy movies? I guess we identify chick flicks with any movie that has two heterosexual beings falling for each other. Personally, I like comedies and romantic movies. Serious movies bore me.