Hezo Kittie

Men and Women are Still Conversing

I watched Knocked Up tonight with my sister, and I'd like to say that its infinitely times better than Juno. Apatow and crew continue to bring down the house; they're seriously unbeatable in my book.

I don't know what the critics thought of it, but there is an amazing amount of depth in the Apatow movies. Sure, the sex and drug jokes are killer, but there is sly humor all over this movie, such as Katherine Heigl's female boss, who only appears for about two minutes as the other boss's sidekick.

Anyways, Paul Rudd's wife, we'll call her Mrs. Sister, suspects that he's cheating on her because he just goes out for meetings with work people during random times in the day. So one day she follows him to one of these "meetings", walks into the front door and creeps into the room he's in, and finds him not fucking some random bitch but partaking in a fantasy baseball draft. What the fuck?

They go outside to talk, and he explains to her that he gets so stuck doing the work and family things that he doesn't have time for himself, to just relax and recoup. He felt like he had to lie because he didn't want to admit that he wanted to be by himself sometimes, and if he admitted it he thought she'd just get mad, because she just "gets mad" about seemingly trivial (at least, for him) stuff.

Then she asked him what he did last Wednesday night when he said he had to meet to see a band showcase, and he said he saw Spider-Man 3 by himself.

Mrs. Sister: "I like Spider-Man 3."
Paul: "Oh... well... we should go see it together next week."
Mrs. Sister: "But I don't want to have to ask you to ask me if I want to go. I want you to come up with it on your own."
Paul: "I don't even know what to say. What do you want me to do?"
Mrs. Sister: "You think that because you don't yell, you aren't mean. But this is mean."

By transcribing this I'm completely doing the scene injustice. Another thing I've realized is that body language is as important / more important than what the person actually says. The actors completely nail this conversation.

The scene is incredible on so many levels. Firstly, they manage to slip a little humor into it, because of the way Mrs. Sister says "I like Spider-Man 3". And the conversation between the two is totally realistic at the same time. Paul has a feeling of despair around his wife because it's come to the point where he can't even say anything around her with her seemingly "nagging" him, which is why he can't tell her about the fantasy baseball or the movie watching.

Mrs. Sister is deeply and truly hurt by the fact that he went to the movies alone without even asking her. Women tend to hate dragging their husbands or significant others around to events. The wife would much rather the husband WANT to do the things with her.

It's funny because the same situation could end up in totally different directions.

Situation 1

Mrs. Sister: "I want to go see Spider-Man 3. Do you want to go?"
Paul: "Sure yeah."
Mrs. Sister: "Ugh do you even want to go? The tone of your voice sounds like you'd rather just be drinking beers with your buddies tonight."
Paul: "Are you serious? Of course I want to go, how the hell am I supposed to say it?"
Mrs. Sister: "Why do you always have to be like this? Let's just go."

So they'll head to the movie on a sour note.

Situation 2

Paul: "Hey, Spider-Man 3 looks pretty good. Do you want to see it with me tonight?"
Mrs. Sister: "Yeah I've been looking forward to that one for a while."
Paul: "Great, let me get dressed."

And things'll go by nicely.

The weird thing about both situations is Paul could've either wanted to see it or not and both situations could've came up still.

In a nutshell, Paul thinks she nags too much and feels he needs to read her mind, while she thinks he is being oblivious and inconsiderate. I can't even imagine how many times women think to themselves, "How could he not have gotten it? It was so obvious", because if men aren't careful they slip into Lalaland and don't pick up on jack shit. Note to self: get the hint.

Even the line about being mean without being loud is pertinent. Men think that every time a woman raises her voice she's trying to start a fight, and that by speaking softly men aren't being mean. Obviously that's not the actual case on both sides.

Another thing is that Katherine Heigl and Mrs. Sister both think that the whole fantasy baseball thing is worse than if they were to catch him cheating on her. Paul Rudd and Seth Rogan both think that that statement is totally ridiculous, but the women's exaggeration was defused too far by the men. What the women wanted the men to realize was the seriousness of the situation, because even though he was sneaking around to do a pointless fantasy draft, he was sneaking around nonetheless, and principles can and are important at times. While I do agree that it's not worse than cheating by any stretch of the imagination, I do realize after watching this that the women do have a basis in their argument.

Why do these scenes work so well? I can only assume it's because Apatow has lived these exact situations, and is a master at translating them onto the big screen. It's fitting that Mrs. Sister is played by Apatow's real life spouse.

Men and Women are Seriously Still Conversing?

On one episode of Jon and Kate Plus 8, Kate is preparing a meal for the kids, and they're in a rush to go to some event later. Jon is standing there looking at the kids and his wife says, "We should have a role reversal day. Jon has to do all the work and prepare the food, and I get to stand there with my arms crossed doing nothing."

Jon's response: "I would've helped you if I thought you needed help, and you looked like you had it under control."

Later on, Kate's response: "It would've made the situation 99% less stressful if he could've just asked me if I needed help, even if I didn't need it at the time."

Men think they're completely fucked because no matter what they do or say, it's not enough. But that's probably because we don't do the simple shit like asking if the woman needs help, along with tons of other stuff in conversation that seem trivial but make all the difference.