comment #1

OtownRog says ...

That's astute. More than a few reviews picked up on the anti-abortion Knocked Up subtext. A few less got the 40 Year Old Virgin neo-con message.
And Funny People stands up for marriage in the face of infantile interference from Mr. Arrested Development, Adam Sandler.
But maybe his traditional values, sexist though they are, wrapped in that dirty-mouthed juvenile packaging makes a point that traditional values aren't necessarily the sole property of conservatives.

comment #2

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

"Family values" aren't exclusively a conservative thing. It's not like all liberals are having wild orgies every weekend and aborting babies on their lunch breaks.

Apatow has hinted in interviews that the reason Heigl didn't get the abortion in Knocked Up is that it'd ruin the whole point of the movie, and the resulting film would be about 10 minutes long. It's the plot. It's like asking why Steve Carell didn't just get a prostitute and be done with his virginity. It's the whole concept of the film.

I'm sure the glorifying of marijuana in his movies doesn't sit well with most conservatives.

comment #3

corey3rd says ...

he does know how to play to the Bible Belt Rubes

comment #4

GonePostal says ...

I felt the "wait until marriage" vibe from 40 Year Old Virgin, but Carrell's character is also a dull, toy collecting doofus, so it's a bit of a wash. If she has the abortion in knocked up, there's no movie. I know they tiptoe around the abortion thing there, but I know plenty of hardcore liberals who are uncomfortable with abortion. I thought the discussion about it was pretty honest in that film. And what's "conservative" about manning up an taking care of your kid? That's a pretty good value to have. As for Funny People, I haven't seen it yet. I agree with Otown on values not being a "conservative" thing.

comment #5

Gogocrank says ...

I'm not sure how Knocked Up is anti-abortion. Why, because they didn't have an abortion? It's barely addressed in the movie, if at all, which is a far cry from any sort of pro/con stance. "Traditional" and "conservative," at least in the political sense, are not the same thing, and just because Apatow skews the former does not make him the latter. After all, that would imply that abortions and broken marriages are somehow "liberal," but we all know those things are not limited to any particular political bent.

comment #6

LexG says ...

Well, in fairness, I guess you kinda HAVE to make movies that ultimately espouse the joys of marriage and children... when you pack them with your own real-life wife and children in central roles. I'm thinking it's Frying Pan To the Head Night at the ol' Apatow house the day he makes a movie about a comedy writer who in the end dumps his actress wife (played by Leslie Mann) for Megan Fox.

Course, the peril of making all these "ain't my family swell" movies is when you pull a Robert Rodriguez in real life and fall for the sexy actress in your movies after presenting the Happy Family that works together and plays together for a decade or so. But such is life. People shouldn't get married OR have kids, ever.

comment #7

Rich S. says ...

Just when Jeffrey was beginning to dig the Apatow vibe. (Knowing that Apatow reads this blog explains a lot.)

Nothing for it now, though. The pee is in the pool. The well has been poisoned. Someone at the NYT suggested that Apatow is conservative. The backlash shall be swift and fierce.

comment #8

Brendan says ...

How would the Jewish tribe have survived this long without "traditional values"?

The fact that the "right" has stolen this phase and have used it straight out of the Frank Luntz playbook, is a crime. Luckily people saw right through it in the last election and cringed every time it came out of Palin's mouth.

I hope the only time Judd would be called a righty is when he would be throwing a baseball.

comment #9

Travis Crabtree says ...

It's like I said in the other thread...... I don't care where it comes from....just make it funny.

Me like funny.

comment #10

Terry McCarty says ...

Around the time that TALLEDEGA NIGHTS was being made and after the success of THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN, Judd wrote a diary for SLATE. You might be able to glean some right-leaning sentiments from it; unable to copy the link, but look in the SLATE archives for "Judd Apatow diary". Entries start on September 26, 2005.

comment #11

Stringer Bell says ...

Did Conan ever do a bit specifically where he merged Rogen & Heigl's face and showed what their baby would look like? I miss those bits. His 12:30 show was funnier than the 11:30 one.

comment #12

Gogocrank says ...

Wow, that guy is married with kids. What a right wing loon.

comment #13

DeeZee says ...

And people said I was being stupid to suggest that Knocked Up and Juno partly did well because they were pro-life.

comment #14

Indeed says ...

God. Gimme a break.

comment #15

Phatang! says ...

More obviously, Jason Reitman. Thank You For Smoking and Juno are two hip right-of-center movies from a young director.

comment #16

Travis Crabtree says ...

That's not why I said you were being stupid, DeeZee.

comment #17

drbob says ...

If Apatow were a liberal, where's the comedy in one night stand leads to unwanted pregnancy, couple has abortion. I know Fast Times did it, but that was more of a multi-character arc film - it wasn't just about the Jennifer Jason Leigh character.

comment #18

mccool says ...

Jeffrey, haven't you proven yourself to be a conservative already? Are you still crying wolf? I see ads are drying up so you're trying to drive traffic. I dig. But this site is growing increasingly lame. You're losing it, man.

comment #19

Sabina E says ...

JUNO might be pro-life, but not necessarily anti-choice. Diablo Cody has openly called herself a feminist, although I've never heard her discussing abortion or the pro-choice agenda in any of the interviews I've read.

comment #20

SnarfTheFierce says ...

Wow. Seriously, Jeff, this is the first inkling you've encountered that Apatow's films are nigh-conservative? Hell, I thought that was the bedrock of half the Apatow criticism on here (from commenters, at least).

One can argue semantics, and it's true: if Carell actually "fucks one of these hoodrats," or Heigl aborts the fetus, there aren't movies to be made. But the thematic effects of those necessary decisions nonetheless exist.

I was rather skeptical of Funny People, honestly, as the whole "populist conservatism" (to paraphrase an HE commenter whose identity I forget) of Apatow's work had grown sour for me. The movie takes those expectations, though, and turns them in new and interesting directions.

comment #21

TL says ...

It's a leap too far to observe that Apatow has made some films with traditional/conservative values, then conclude that he has an conservative agenda.

I mean, Barack Obama has a pretty conservative lifestyle -- wife, kids, mortgage, went to law school, wears suits -- despite being a Muslim socialist....

comment #22

Gogocrank says ...

Obama is so gifted, he's a radical secret Muslim socialist *and* a fascist. Or don't you read the Internets?

comment #23

Abbey Normal says ...

If comedy stems from absurdity, then Apatow's themes actually make him a liberal. It's "hey, what if she didn't do the rational thing and get an abortion, which anyone in their right mind would do, but instead does something totally absurd and keeps the baby ! That would be hilarious!" Or "so what if there's a guy who isn't totally liberated and out to get laid any chance he gets, but is actually so sexually backward he's 40 YEARS OLD and hasn't gotten laid? That would be so funny!" The humor of his premises stems from Apatow's (and the audience's) expectations of "rational" (i.e. "liberal") behavior against the unusual and "irrational" (i.e. "conservative") situations he invents.

To me, this viewpoint is undoubtedly a leftist one.

comment #24

Circumvrent says ...

How foolish of Rogen to say it, and then you to repost it. Being politically pro-choice has nothing to do with whether or not someone is personally pro-choice, and I'm surprised that no one here has brought up that distinction yet. Katherine Heigl's character in Knocked Up would not have, in a million years, gotten an abortion; but if Rogen had impregnated Charlene Yi, it'd be a short film.

The rest is more bullshit about the conservative party trying to monopolize having and enjoying a family, even if you solicit sex in a bathroom or head to Argentina for a fuck-weekend.

comment #25

PopcornEyeglass says ...

"if Rogen had impregnated Charlene Yi, it'd be a short film"

THANKS FOR THE IMAGE, GUY.

comment #26

Josh Massey says ...

Not wanting to have an abortion doesn't mean you're anti-choice. I would never want to go down that path, but I consider myself pro-choice.

That said, Apatow buddy Sandler is a Republican. Maybe they get together at night and club baby seals. With their Bibles.

comment #27

DarthCorleone says ...

It's not that Knocked Up and Juno are necessarily pro-life. It's that their narratives allow pro-lifers to enjoy them without feeling that their viewpoint is being assailed.

comment #28

SnarfTheFierce says ...

That's a rather interesting reading, Abbey Normal--that Apatow is contextualizing and subverting our perceptions of "conservative" behavior. I'm personally not sure he's really coming from so specific a social curiosity, but your perspective works as well as any.

What bothers me the most is that Apatow goes to incredible lengths in establishing the comfortable cameraderie of his male-character cliques, only to scold them in contrast to a tradional family unit. Even his staging reveals this divide: none of the guys in Virgin are sitting together at the wedding, and the hospital scenes in Knocked Up only further dilineate Rogen's friends from him, after which he rides away from them at the vehicular pace of a senior citizen.

It's a very black-and-white set of morals, which Apatow routinely muddles. Sandler's Thanksgiving speech, in particular, is a nigh-rallying cry for youth and its attendant web of relationships. In the end, though, it always comes back to that family unit...though, in Funny People, it's hard to tell whether Apatow realizes how sour the unit in question (Bana/Mann/daughters) seems to be.

comment #29

JD says ...

Apatow certainly doesn't seem right wing in interviews/commentaries, but the dude's rich, white, married and has kids. Even if you forget his beliefs for a minute, he happens to be living a lifestyle that gels with conservative notions of happiness. If he makes a personal movie, that lifestyle's going to come across. That said, Funny People actually has a somewhat liberal message. It implies that money alienates people and makes them unhappy, while people struggling to get by have more vitality in their lives. It also portrays marriage -- if not kids -- as a dishonest, prison-like institution. Plus, the movie has a pretty accepting attitude about casual sex and most of the characters are into left-leaning music/movies.

comment #30

Glenn Kenny says ...

From Apatow's "Slate" diary: "Whether it is reading to children during 9/11 or complimenting Brownie on doing 'a heck of a job' while people die, Bush is the real disaster."

Hope that makes you feel better.

comment #31

SnarfTheFierce says ...

Sidney Greenstreet for the win!

comment #32

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

The fact that Blue Blood Brook Busey calls herself Diablo Cody is enough to question pretty much anything she claims to believe in. When she was first on the scene, she seemed like a genuine character, now she just comes across as a very lucky poser.

Apatow's problem is that he is terrible at writing for women. He's smart enough to cast actresses who can help flesh them out, but he himself seems to have no empathy for female points of view. Looking at his bio, it seems very telling that even though he has a younger sister, when his parents divorced she went with the mother while he stayed with his father.

Which brings up the gloss-over of abortion in KNOCKED UP, which seems more about plot expediency than any hidden pro-life message. Remember, her mother (Joanna Kerns) had one and there's no "biggest regret of my life" angle to it. In fact, she encourages Heigl to have one matter-of-factly.

No, it just seems like Apatow couldn't come up something because he lacks meaningful insight to the female perspective and glossed over Heigl's rationale not to because of it. In just the last year, a friend of my wife and I's decided to keep a baby as a single mother because she didn't want to keep waiting for the right man. Wasn't planned and she admitted had it happened a year or so before it did she probably would have exercised her Roe V Wade right to a safe & legal procedure.

Oh, and just because someone uses drugs, doesn't make them a hippy. Ask Rush...

comment #33

Travis Crabtree says ...

As someone who doesn't toe the lefty line here I always find it amusing and even a little creepy how so many of you are often trying to smoke out suspected conservatives.

Just because you feel justified (and usually self-righteously so) in "outing" Hollywood conservatives, (or suspected conservatives), that doesn't make it any better in theory than painting people red back in the day.

comment #34

SnarfTheFierce says ...

Fair point, TC. If anything, liberals (myself included) should take a silver lining from any "outed" conservative celebrity, as it puts the lie to the "them's all crazy Commies" view of Hollywood.

comment #35

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

Jeff, do you have any conservative friends?

comment #36

larry braverman says ...

"I like conservatives personally -- they talk in a plainer, more straight-from-the- shoulder way than a lot of liberals I know -- and I certainly understand the plight of filmmakers who support Republican or conservative causes."

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on April 25, 2007 at 10:01 AM

comment #37

Michael says ...

Gosh Wells, this whole situation could be cleared up if you just requested that Apatow sign a loyalty oath.

Does it really matter?

comment #38

Josh Massey says ...

Glenn: Not liking Bush (or McCain, or Palin, or O'Reilly, or Beck) doesn't mean one's not a conservative. Trust me on all of the above.

comment #39

Jeffrey Wells says ...

McCool = asshat.

comment #40

mccool says ...

You're losing it Jeff. You're in your Spielberg slide. Your thinly veiled attempts at driving traffic are obvious, rote...really obsessive and just boring. You're like a broken record. Your posts lately are all like Gus Van Sant's 'Psycho.' You hate conservatives....loud and clear. It's like your stuck in some kind of Andy-Kaufman-Jerry Lawler funk and you don't know when to call it quits. You're quickly become a fringe site instead of an everyday read. Just an observation.

comment #41

Yuval says ...

The biggest problem conseratives have today is admitting you voted for Bush-Cheney-Palin. It's very hard to take anyone seriously at that point. Let's forget about abortions and virginity, do you mean Apatow voted for Bush-Cheney twice and then Palin?

comment #42

crazynine says ...

Is this because Funny People tanked?

Because the Wells I used to know would just bash the movie that flopped. I guess he's getting subtle in his dotage, and now just flat-out impugning a filmmaker's motives.

It's one thing to be a lousy filmmaker; it's totally another thing to be-- gasp!-- less Left than Che Guevara.

It suggests something very, very wrong with a person to be this consumed by political thought. Not just politics-- but actually have their lives, their loves, their art colored by politics.

Everyone loves to laugh and point when The Christians (TM) do this sort of thing. It's just as disturbing when those on the Left do it.

99% of life ISN'T POLITICS. At all. Full stop.

Of course, even believing such a radical thought like that immediately paints oneself as a "conservative." No political consciousness, you see. Just part of that oblivious Big Gulp-swilling Eloi herd, you see.

It's all bullshit. People who spend this much time focused on the political opinions of those around them to the exclusion of other characteristics are insufferable, rude bores that normal people avoid at parties.

That is, until, you give them a gun and they take to lining their opponents along the wall. . .

comment #43

Jonah says ...

Mctool said:

"You're losing it Jeff. You're in your Spielberg slide. Your thinly veiled attempts at driving traffic are obvious, rote...really obsessive and just boring. You're like a broken record. Your posts lately are all like Gus Van Sant's 'Psycho.' You hate conservatives....loud and clear. It's like your stuck in some kind of Andy-Kaufman-Jerry Lawler funk and you don't know when to call it quits. You're quickly become a fringe site instead of an everyday read. Just an observation."

And yet you keep fucking reading and posting.

Doesn't Ann Coulter or Sarah Palin have a blog or tweets you can read?

comment #44

DeeZee says ...

I generally don't care about the political agenda of a pic, with the exception of the likes of, say, Triumph of the Will and Birth of a Nation. Otherwise, all that matter is it's entertaining. Hence why I like Team America, even though I think it glosses over the neo-con fuck-up that was Iraq. Meanwhile, I hate "A History of Violence", because it's from a Canuck director pretending to know more about rural America better than the people living there, even though, ideologically, I'd agree with its obvious anti-gun control message. So it really is all about execution and subtlety.

comment #45

DeeZee says ...

Oops, I meant Cannes Hack director.

comment #46

Jonah says ...

" I hate "A History of Violence", because it's from a Canuck director pretending to know more about rural America better than the people living there, even though, ideologically, I'd agree with its obvious anti-gun control message. So it really is all about execution and subtlety. "

I know. I'm drawing attention to the idiocy of fake DZ. I can't help it. The guy is brilliant and stupid at the same time. I love it.

comment #47

DeeZee says ...

Sorry, pro-gun control.

comment #48

Jonah says ...

Even with the correction it's still an idiotic statement.

comment #49

Movie Watcher says ...

A lot of discussion. I don't think Apatow is a conservative. The abortion would not have worked in KU, and Mann did go back to her husband in FP, but that was more of a necessity than turning down Sandler, because she knew what kind of dad he would have been, not a good one. Of course family values means you don't fuck someone else when you're married. At least that's what it's supposed to mean.

comment #50

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Jonah -- fake or not, this dude can't be for real.

Look what he posted over on another thread when he was called out on his G.I. Joe prediction being wrong.

"I'm technically right, since it opened to higher than $50 million. =p

But, all joking aside, I wasn't the only one who believed it was going to under-perform; and the only reason it did better than expected was they rigged the theater count and pandered to the birthers. Anyway, even if 'Joe beat my bet, it's still a bomb which has yet to reach $100 million, even if I count WW estimates. A bomb with a good opening, but still a bomb. And I read that TF2's money was used to save Joe, which makes that a disappointment, too, thus proving me right in the end. Teehee."

That is pure insanity. A perfect storm of ADD distraction, false assumptions, and circular (dis)logic.

Teehee indeed!

This whole persona is just artificially constructed (like Tony Clifton), right? It HAS to be. Please?

Holy fuck.

comment #51

mccool says ...

Jonah ... the Salieri of HE. All the venom, but none of the wit.

I like Jeff's site .... but lately it's all fatties and conservatives. Boring.

comment #52

mccool says ...

...and what a ridiculous notion .... should Jeff stop watching movies because there are those he feels could/should be better? It's this line of thinking that keeps you stuck in the minors, Jonah...

comment #53

Jonah says ...

"Jonah ... the Salieri of HE. All the venom, but none of the wit."

The moment you say something witty make sure to let me know. I'll have to see it to believe it.

"and what a ridiculous notion .... should Jeff stop watching movies because there are those he feels could/should be better? It's this line of thinking that keeps you stuck in the minors, Jonah..."

Do you really believe that's a reasonable comparison? it's exactly that kind of thinking that keeps you stuck in little league, Mctool...

By the way, I'm not proud of copying your insult. It was a lame, third grade level, insult in the first place.

comment #54

Jonah says ...

Citizen,

I honestly don't think he believes a thing he says. Nobody that can get out of bed in the morning could be quite that stupid, except maybe Sarah Palin.

comment #55

Travis Crabtree says ...

Sarah Palin!

comment #56

mccool says ...

Sorry if the Salieri comment was over your head.

Coulter, Palin, Coulter, Palin, mctool, mctool ... jesus, what a mind.

comment #57

DeeZee says ...

Kane: The point is that I'm only wrong in the sense of how much it made that particular weekend. But even then, that's still not profit, since the sucker costs at least double its WW take, not counting P+A. So, technically, I'm still right about the actual monetary value of the opening.

comment #58

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Technically, you're still right about nothing.

STFU about profit and P+A. You said gross, bitch. Do you even know what that means? Hellllooooooooo

comment #59

free games says ...

I don't care where it comes from....just make it funny.

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comment #61

gaintwee says ...

Farrelll's role is supporting. Playing a big pony-tailed, fair-minded country star. Yassir Arafat stubble, streaks of gray hair, decent fellow, easygoing personality. Three or four scenes -- a smallish but not miniscule part. Colin has the Southwestern accent down fine. Bachelor degree education AND associate degree advertising AND associate degree project management
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