On "Knocked Up"

I love self referencial writing. Few things are better than smart people indulging in how smart they are and then passing it off as art. It's beautiful. You might say that the entirety of Borges' witing is one big self reference, and thus, I eat it all up. Part of what made "Arrested Development" so funny, and so enjoyable, was its ability to take the substance of an old joke and reuse it fluidly into new dialogue so it became a new joke entirely (e.g. "No touching!", every scene with Franklin, GOB's perpetually failing magic act, Maybe and George Michael's unconventional relationship) all the while reminding you that they knew why the jokes were so funny. Almost everything that Bob Dylan does in "Don't Look Back" or maybe it's "No Direction Home"- either way, the one where he tours England with Joan Baez and Donovan- is some kind of self reference, some subtle or not too subtle way of indirectly bringing himself to the forefront of every conversation, interview or concert. Self-referencing is indulgence at its most eloquent, arrogance at its most delightful and, under the authority of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, the most salient and defining characteristics of modern comedy.

This past weekend, I got my matinee on super heavy (popcorn, junior mints) and saw "Kocked Up", the most recent film by Judd Apatow (The "40 Year Old Virgin"), which is about...well the title pretty much sums it up. I turn to the most prominent self-referencial moment in the film. There is a scene where Ben Stone, the main character, is tripping on mushrooms in a hotel room in Las Vegas with his friend/girlfriend's sister's husband Pete. As he wriggles around on the bed he watches a scene from one of the "Cheaper by the Dozen" movies, both starring Steve Martin, which are concerned primarily with the tials and tribulations of raising twelve children with Bonnie Hunt (or maybe there are just ten children, and so they are twelve in all. Who cares?). Ben Stone can't take it. The movie, surprisingly enough, makes him sicker than the mushrooms do, and it inspires an intense and absurdly revealing conversation between Ben and Pete (the latter of whom happens to be dutifly surveying the five completely different chairs the hotel room provides and is testing them all with striking diligence). We share Ben's feelings about "Cheaper by the Dozen"; Steve Martin's character, stalks his fourth or fifth daughter (which is maybe his seventh or eighth child) all the way into the movie theatre to spy on her on her first "date" because he somehow still has trouble understanding that she might someday require a little bit independence (not to mention a break from her family).
Rather, in "Knocked Up" we have two sincere and sincerely different people making a mistake and dealing with the surprising reality of giving birth and raising their first child. Both we and Ben Stone choose Ben Stone and Ben Stone's story because we are allowed to see into it, we see the immediate and overwhelming struggle that faces Ben and Alison.
The reality of their characters allows the film to be funny. As a perrenial slacker, Ben is charmingly undrepressed and unaffectedly sanguine about his vague future plans and uneventful past. Alison, on the contrary, works hard but has been given a cushion by virtue her beauty. Her future plans, while unexpressed, must be radically different than Ben's. A one-night-stand, provoked by too much alcohol and quickly forgotten becomes serious when she discovers that she is exactly what the film's title suggests. Their second date illustrates perfectly where they each stand with regard to one another as Alison reveals the reason why she's asked Ben out:

Alison: I'm Pregnant.

Ben: Fuck off!

Alison: What?

Ben: What?

There is no way to render this dialogue appropriately in text, so say it out loud, with a hesitation before each "what?" Not only are these lines delivered perfectly, in the film, not in your head, but they summarize succinctly the crux of their deliverers' problem. The simplest dialogue reveals precisely their characters and the central movement of the plot.
Comdey is hard to discuss because, if you're not funny when you talk about it, it's easy to miss the point (which is to laugh). It's also hard to discuss seriously because it's natural to begin by saying "Well, comedy aside..." so as to keep people listening in ernest. Neitzche says in 'Beyond Good and Evil' that when children play, they are serious about it. They have fun as though it were a duty to which they were excitedly obligated. He then says that we spend our adult lives trying to recall those moments, trying to find a way to be serious about fun again. Good comedy is, I believe, serious fun. Good comedy demands conversation because it opens our hearts and then tests our convictions and our comforts; it entices us with its fun and then brings to light events and feelings that are otherwise kept mum. Some feelings may need to be regulated, but until we find a way to communicate perfectly with one another, good comedy helps us understand and embrace our shortcomings and those of our loved ones. Just as good comedy demands conversation, our conversations should demand good comedy, and we should demand that Judd Apatow keep making movies.