Rollercoasters and American Gladiator Sounds Good to Me

This is the fourth entry in a dialogue about the films of Judd Apatow and the state of the romantic comedy among Double X Managing Editor Jessica Grose, Slate critic Troy Patterson, and Variety contributor Lael Loewenstein. Read the first entry here [2], the second entry here [3], and the third entry here [4].

Troy and Lael,

The two of you agree that Apatow privileges the bromance over any heterosexual union. Troy, you say that in Apatovia, women are not full-fledged characters, but merely plot wrinkles who pose a threat to the sanctity of dudely bonds. Lael, you wonder if the man-love is so strong in Apatow movies that it prevents Judd’s anti-heroes from having a good relationship with a wife or a girlfriend.

I don’t think all the romantic relationships in Apatow films are secondary to the bromance. As you point out, Lael, the love between Andy (Steve Carell) and Trish (Catherine Keener) in The 40-Year-Old Virgin is wholly functional. That film’s treatment of romantic love cannot be lumped in with Knocked Up, Funny People, or any of the other Apatow-related movies Troy mentions (Pineapple Express, Superbad, etc.). In the other movies, women are seen as interlopers who threaten male friendship; in The 40-Year-old Virgin, Andy’s male friendships help him to establish a healthy love affair with a woman.

Before Andy started palling around with his coworkers from SmartTech, he barely left the house except to watch reality TV with his elderly neighbors. His coworkers, in their oafish way, encourage Andy to meet women: they take him to the club, they send him to speed date. All of these men believe that happiness is being in a committed relationship. Or as Andy’s SmartTech coworker tells him, “Life is about people. It's about connections ... It’s not about butthole pleasures.”

Even though they still make anus jokes, the stars of The 40-Year-Old Virgin are adults who have grown-up relationships. As a result, the film holds up much better than the other Apatow movies. I wouldn’t call Funny People “unserious and incoherent, plagued by flimsy characterizations and narrative bloat,” as Troy did. (Jeez, Patterson, tell us how you really feel.) I do agree, though, that the bonds between the main characters in Funny People are nowhere near as compelling as the Trish/Andy relationship.

But that relationship is not the one that has been repeated in subsequent Apatow movies. The rest of the films show that men are truly happy in their dudes-only clubhouse. And who wouldn’t be happy in that playful paradise? In the opening scene of [5] Knocked Up [5], Seth Rogen’s character is going on roller coasters, playing American Gladiator-style games, and smoking pot with his five best friends in a sprawling if decrepit house. To this girl, that sounds truly awesome.

By contrast, look at the life of Alison (Katherine Heigl) in Knocked Up. She’s apparently friendless, living in her sister’s guest house, and working incredibly hard at her job at E!. And what about Leslie Mann in Funny People? She’s trapped in a difficult marriage, where her husband is away most of the time. She is wistful about her former career as an actress. Both these women are in a no-fun zone.

Apatow is far from the only perpetrator of the union between the clownish guy and the uptight domesticated woman. A ton of recent romantic comedies, including ones written by women (most recently The Ugly Truth and The Proposal), portray their heroines as exceedingly anal-retentive. David Denby described this meme [6] as “the slovenly hipster and the female straight arrow” in an article pegged to Knocked Up two years ago in The New Yorker. His description of the trend is spot-on, but he never answers the question that I want to pose to the two of you now: How did this become the default romantic comedy relationship? And is it a reflection of what’s going on in the trenches of the real life dating world?

In the meantime, even as I want to wring Apatow’s neck, maybe Daisy’s character spells progress for his portrayal of women. Even when Daisy has sex with Ira’s roommate, I thought Daisy would be shamed for it. Instead, it is Ira (Seth Rogen) who looks foolish. He tries to guilt Daisy for sleeping around, she makes the point that they weren’t even really dating yet, and the director gives her the last word.

Daisy is also taken seriously by the guys as a comic—the ultimate boy profession in Apatovia. She gets to ride on the roller coaster with the rest of the stoners. But will she—or Charlyne Yi, who plays a similar character in Knocked Up—ever get to be front and center in an Apatow film? If he made such a movie, who would go to see it?

I know I would.

Hopefully,
Jess