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News, Reviews & Commentary on Gay and Bisexual Men in Entertainment and the Media

Knocked Up goes all Brokeback

So, the advance reviews for Knocked Up, the film from the folks who brought us the 40 Year Old Virgin, which opens nationwide on Friday, have been great, with some critics calling it one of the funniest movies of the last two decades. And you're going, okay, is there really something gay about this movie, which is basically about two heterosexuals having an obviously unprotected sexual encounter during a drunken one night stand, which results in the pregnancy of the female half of the couple?

I don't think the movie itself goes there, but this outtake is really really really gay. So gay I can't even embed the clip, but have to link you to it - which is in fact sort of the point of this scene, which I tragically cannot even quote one single line of, because the dialogue is definitely NSFW.

It's a deleted scene featuring a pregnant Katherine Heigl (Grey's Anatomy) and her friend Jonah (Jonah Hill) who isn't gay, seriously, because he didn't enjoy it at all that time he tried it, watching Brokeback Mountain together. If you haven't seen it, you must watch it immediately. It's also interesting to see this clip hit the 'net in the wake of recent comments that the film contains some homophobic humor.

H's picture

LOL

That was really funny!

 I'm really excited to see this movie, I mean, if people say it's one of the funniest movies in a long time, you just have to see it.

John's picture

is the homophobia in the

is the homophobia in the movie pure hate,  or is it the type of "you know how I know you're gay?" humor from 40 Year Old Virgin?   I know some gay people who were offended by that scene (I cringed but because it drug on too long), but you know what?  I know a lot of gays who laughed their asses off too.   And I don't care, Seth Rogen is kind of cute.
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Jon's picture

From what has been said so far

here and in a USA Today interview with Katharine Heigl, one scene has Seth Rogen making a joke which implies gays are pedophiles (his reaction when a gay man says he will help Heigl "rear" her children), and in another scene, a woman calls a man "faggot" when she's angry.

What bothers me the most with these films is they are supposed to be some ode to the average guy, the guy who is looked down, yet this same guy tends to look down on gays.

Whatever the intention, the general audience reaction to these types of scenes will often be "ha ha, look at the (insert homophobic slur here)", or, "ha ha, it's so funny to say words like (insert homophobic slur here)". These movies make money off the backs of gay people, and just encourage more of the gay hate out there.

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Michael Jensen's picture

Brian is seeing it tonight so stay

tuned for his thoughts on it.
Jon's picture

Gay reaction to these films

Not referring to Brian, since I don't know what his opinion of the movie is, but I notice that a lot of gay men, when they see films with anti-gay content or jokes, often have a reaction which is along the lines of, "I'm in on the joke," with the implication of, "Unlike those other gays." Society leaves us with the impression that we shouldn't object to anything which might be offensive, because we should just be grateful for what we have. Or we should be careful because we don't want to be called humorless, and no one likes a humorless gay. Any time anything anti-gay shows up in the industry, the reaction from some gay men is that we shouldn't complain. I remember hearing things like, "Why do we care what Isaiah Washington says? We look like wimps when we complain!!!" or, "At least we aren't being killed, like gays in Iraq, so who are we to get so upset?"

There are some gay men who like to look cool by saying they love this type of humor, but the problem is that just because we may "get" some of this humor doesn't mean straight people will have the same reaction. They often are not laughing in any kind of ironic way. They're just laughing at anything which makes fun of gay people. And it reinforces the homophobia which is already so prevalent in society, and dehumanizes gays, makes people less likely to see us as human beings, as being worthy of respect.

I hope I'm wrong about this film, but I knew after the crap in that 40 Year Old Virgin movie got so much big acclaim, that Apatow's natural reaction might be amping up the homophobic content. If this is yet again praised and yet again a big success, this will just tell him, and Hollywood, that cheap jokes against gays are big box office.

 

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Anthony D. Langford's picture

OMG!

I think I just wet myself laughing. That was one of the funniest things I've seen in quite some time. Hilarious!

Anthony

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AbqGWM's picture

I also found it to be more

I also found it to be more humorous than offensive and now I kind of do want to see this movie. "It was just the head" lol
John's picture

without really trying to

without really trying to "compare struggles" (a frequent complaint African-Americans use when gays try to draw analogies between being gay in America and being black,  I do notice that Apatow is very Jew-centric in his movies, being Jewish himself and frequently casting Jewish actors (Rogen, Carell, Rudd...) as the leads in his movies, with references to their faith.   While I respect where he's coming from and think Jewish people are great, I do find it funny that he seems to cop a "gay people are so different" attitude in his movies, when I'd argue that outside of areas like NY and California, that being Jewish is just as "different" as it is to be gay.  I have a close Jewish friend who even told me him and his brother were the ONLY Jews in their high school of over 2000 people.   So I find it funny that Apatow tries to treat gays as if they're so much different than him when in fact he is also part of a minority that isn't viewed as the status quo amongst the majority of Americans.

Just a little food for thought that came to mind after I saw a thing on Knocked Up on E! earlier and they went in depth about all the Jewish references in the movie, when in a lot of areas, people are likely to know more gay people than they are Jewish people.

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