Live birth, menstrual blood: pioneer images in Knocked Up and Superbad
August 24, 2007 – 10:53 am
Knocked Up and Superbad were, for me, not only the two best movies of the summer, but made it up there on the all time list as well. I heard of the failures of The Cable Guy (same producer, Judd Apatow) and Freaks and Geeks (same producer, actors), but the group has hit an entertainment goldmine this time around. Both movies were a huge box office success, but I won’t go into why the audiences may have liked them so much. What is indeed most interesting about these movies is that they premier, in a Hollywood blockbuster, images never before popularly viewed on the big screen: live birth in Knocked Up, and menstrual blood in Superbad.
While the live birth passed by audiences as a beauty factor and a sequence during an intense part of the movie, the menstrual spot on Seth’s borrowed pants slid in as a pure gag factor the audience accepted it mostly on its shock value. Regardless of technique, both moments pioneer topics that are shunned in conversation and common humor alike, and did so in a seamless, creative matter. Birth is beautiful - each one of us was born once - it represents a beggining to everything we know. Menstrual blood is regarded as a black topic in all cross-gender public conversation. Why should it be? I can’t tell whether this is an offense to women or a big step for feminists but I think the debut of smart comedy could not have been done without it.