Knocked Up Consumption Analysis

Knocked Up seemed to get a lot of different responses. Judd Apatow, as we even saw in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, is not scared to push the envelope and put images on screen that usually aren’t shown. For this post I am going to look at two film critics responses to the movie. The first one by Joey Leydon written on March 13, 2007 (the movie came out June 1st 2008) and the other by Cinema Dave written on June 8th. Joey Leydon seemed to genuinely like the movie saying it was “uproarious” and that the movie was “bound to generate repeat business among ticketbuyers.” He mentions Apatow’s use of colloquial language and dialogue, saying that [Apatow] has a knack or a “perfect-pitch ear” for both. However, in Cinema Dave’s opinion, the words fall flat. Dave seems more put off by Knocked Up and distracted by the sexual elements and the immaturity of the characters to appreciate the movie. He even says that both the crowds he saw the movie with were displeased and goes on to say that “Knocked Up lacks the discipline of executing a well thought out gag or any original thought on baby making.” Looking at this, it is rather obvious that viewers could either be amused by the snappy dialogue or turned off by the sexual behavior of the characters and the sexual references. Or, even arguably, both. I personally liked Knocked Up, I thought it was funny for what it was, though at the same time, I felt, like in most of Judd Apatow’s movies, that nothing really happens, it is just a snippet of characters lives and different actions. At times I was a little taken aback at how graphic the images on screen got, but the dialogue and the comedy was able to make up for it. However, in Cinema Dave’s opinion, the movie’s script couldn’t save it from the “gross humor.”

Reception Studies: Pirates of The Caribbean 1 & 2

Pirates of the Caribbean was a phenomena among movies, making over forty-six million dollars its opening weekend alone and having five Oscar nominations. When it came out in 2003, I remember talking to my friends about it and knowing that it had become instantly popular. However, when the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie came out (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest) a lot of fans of the first movie became overly disappointed. Thought its opening weekend it got over 135 million dollars, overall, the responses to Dead Man’s Chest were less than positive. Even looking at comments on imdb.com I found one that stated “It’s definitely one of the worst films I have ever seen;” while comments from Curse of the Black Pearl sounded more like, “Black Pearl was - and is - sheer magic that does not get old. The second was too heavily weighted with special effects at the expense of actor screen time and character development.” Arguably, the only reason Dead Man’s Chest got so much income was because of the success of the first one. Looking at the two movies through a consumption analysis lens, viewers, after seeing both films, compared them to each other and interpreted them in different ways; the first being more entertaining than the second one. According to the second quote, and in my opinion also, it seems that viewers were more interested in character development and the story than special effects and unnecessary action. Looking at the income that a series gets does not always reflect how much the viewers liked or disliked the movies.

Mulvey's Point in Miss Congeniality

Miss Congeniality, a movie thought to be about a strong female heroine, is actually an excellent example of trapping and taming women. Mulvey talks about the two dominant pleasures that we has viewers have while watching a movie: Scopophilia (or, the love of simply looking at things) and Narcissism (being able to watch a movie and feel like it was made specifically for you.) However, she argues that the camera presents those two pleasures through a man’s point of view, which is very evident in Miss Congeniality. At the beginning of the movie the main character, Gracie Hart, is a tomboyish girl that her later love-interest, Eric Matthews, barely acknowledges. However, when she has her makeover for her undercover operation, he suddenly is entranced by her beauty and becomes more interested in her. There is a famous slow motion scene where Gracie steps out for the first time after he makeover wearing a short dress and flipping her hair. This is a perfect example of how the audience sees through the male perspective. We are looking at her body as she walks toward the camera slowly (allowing us to view her body for an extended amount of time), she cannot see us, we see Eric’s positive reaction to her, and she does not even notice Eric’s reaction. Eric and the audience is able to look at her without her knowing, which Mulvey would argue is what men especially like to do. Also, Gracie gets “put in her place” at the end of the movie by the undeniable fact that she and Eric will end up together. Instead of having a strong woman who is fulfilled simply why solving the crime, she needs to have a man at the end of the movie to feel complete.

Mulan and Mulvey

In the film, Mulan, we see a Chinese girl who is very different than the rest of the women around her. She does not seem to fit the mold of a “good bride” and even fails to impress the matchmaker at the beginning of the movie (the matchmaker is even keen to say that Mulan is a “disgrace.”) However, though Mulan seems quirky and different, going off to fight the Huns in place of her father, in the end she chooses to leave a position of power usually given to men to go home to her family and be a “good daughter.” In Mulvey’s piece she argues that we need to make films that will undermine the idea of giving men the power and making women the objects that are merely looked at and ultimately bow down to giving men the power. Even in the movie, Chi Fu (when he is told that Mulan saved China and is a hero), says, “Tis a woman,” meaning, she most certainly could not have any authority. Another issue with the movie that Mulvey would point out is the fact that at the end of the movie, Shang, Mulan’s love interest, comes to her house. We are not certain why he is there, but before he sees Mulan, Shang addresses her father as “The Honorable Fa Zhou,” meaning, it can be deduced that he is probably there to ask for Mulan’s hang in marriage. Mulvey says that even movies that have a female protagonist, such as Mulan, have the women “trapped” at the end of the movie in a man’s world. In this case, Mulan will probably get married to Shang and fulfill her “place” as a woman, even though she had a different fire about her throughout the entire movie.

-Christiana