Two of the best-reviewed comedies of the year, one of which is getting major awards attention, would have you believe that unwanted pregnancy is a blessing in disguise, a valuable learning experience that can bring about maturity and responsibility in young people. To varying degrees, these two movies (Knocked Up and Juno), along with indie dramedy Waitress, represent an odd trend this year of theoretically countercultural filmmakers extolling the virtues of traditional family values. Knocked Up goes so far as to chastise its audience of vulgar, immature dudes about their slacking ways and redeem its protagonist only when he sobers up, gets a job and becomes a responsible father. What a bummer.
At least the insta-family is less reified in the other two films; Juno gives her baby up for adoption and gets to keep being a teenager, while Waitress’ Jenna rejects both of her suitors in favor of raising her child on her own. Still, all three movies treat abortion with varying degrees of jokey uneasiness and imply that becoming a parent is the best (if not only) path to true adulthood. Me, I’m inclined to believe that the childless future of last year’s sci-fi dystopia Children of Men was really a utopia after all.