Another entry in the
series where I finally
watch the movies whose trailers I’ve seen a million times on VHS tapes that were played on a constant loop throughout adolescence. So far, the coming attractions are universally terrible.
Many of us grew up loving and defining our high school
experiences through John Hughes films. I still have a hard time rectifying my
deeply entrenched nostalgia for the movies that kept me company for untold
hours in adolescence with their often troubling themes: the fact that Sixteen Candles makes light of what is
objectively a date rape or that The
Breakfast Club features some graphic sexual harassment, among other issues. But seeing his 1988 film She's Having a Baby as an adult, there's no internal conflict about identifying exactly what is so absurd and awful about this movie.
Hughes films, many of them rom-coms, tended to end the story right about the
time a couple got together. So She’s
Having a Baby, which came out a few years after his Brat Pack stride, is the logical next step in these characters’ lives. It starts with high
school sweethearts’ wedding day and the mundane horror (only experienced by
men, apparently) of settling down into a career and married life after the
excitement of courtship is over.
This isn’t the She’s
Having a Baby trailer that I remember. I don’t know if it came before St. Elmo’s Fire or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or something else. The trailer I remember featured
a semi-ominous strings score with quick cuts that made it seem like this
coming-of-age dramedy was a lot more serious than it turns out to be. Here’s
the only trailer I can find online—it’s a lot truer to the movie’s tone.
It’s a terrible movie for many reasons. These are just 10.
1. The protagonist is a milquetoast, mealy mouthed douche.
Kevin Bacon is in love with his wife but alternately consumed by either the
nightclub-hopping life he thinks singletons enjoy or a massive sense of
entitlement as a brilliant-yet-undiscovered writer (by day an ad copywriter).
His magnum opus ends up being the story told in this sappy, crappy movie.
2. Despite the fact that all of the main characters supposedly
grew up in Chicagoland, the wife, Elizabeth McGovern, is the only one who has
an accent. Those naaaaaaging A’s.
3. There’s so little development of why Bacon and McGovern even
like each other that we don’t particularly care if their relationship can last
despite temptation. See No. 6.
4. The depiction of marriage is insulting to anyone who’s ever
been in a relationship, but especially hetero women. This film adds to the
cultural narrative that marriage is something that women inherently want and
that makes men inherently miserable. When McGovern is given something to do
except stare blankly at something, she’s only concerned with nagging Bacon or
getting knocked up (and taking the pleasure out of sex). Bonus points for the
revelation that McGovern has never, ever, in their yearslong relationship,
initiated sex. Except when she went baby crazy.
5. Which brings us to the totally fucked-up theme of McGovern
trying to sneakily get pregnant. The trailer above frames this as part of "every married life"—when your lady tells you she’s gone off
the pill. Most women don’t just stop using contraceptives without telling their
partners. We all probably know a few women who would—but they are few. And
probably blood relatives.
6. At one point, the sleazy, bad-influence, bachelor best
friend (Alec Baldwin) comes on to McGovern and tells her she’s the only person
he’s ever loved. This follows longing glances in the one or two scenes he’s in
before this. It’s unbelievable that Baldwin pulls off tortured, unrequited love
in the face of McGovern’s just plain wooden performance. But he does! So it’s
pretty unsatisfying that she doesn’t go for it. That would have made exactly
one unexpected plot point in the whole movie.
7. Speaking of the totally dreamy young Baldwin, anyone who
rejects hetero, married, suburban bliss is either sinister or secretly
depressed, according to this film. Deep down, Baldwin just wants a nice wife.
And his one-time girlfriend, who isn’t interested in the suburbs or tradition,
is a condescending jerk who doesn’t even care that her mother is dead. And
according to Baldwin, she’s also a “slut.” That’s right, she dared to have sex
with him for fun.
8. The tone is all over the place. The scenes of Bacon
imagining assenting to suburban-consumer-hell vows during his wedding, seeing
his lawn-mowing neighbors break into dance to point out their
all-but-choreographed existence, and—a personal favorite—him burning the pages
of his book to keep his wife and would-be child warm, are jarring, unfunny, and
out of place. Especially when life-threatening stuff turns the movie to
tear-jerker territory. Father of the
Bride walked this line much more successfully a few years later.
9. There are weird cameos during the ending credits of Hughes-film
stars and other stars in character, including folks from Cheers and Star Trek: The
Next Generation. It’s the cherry on top of a random, inconsistent movie.
How does it work in the diegesis that Ferris Bueller and the guys from The Great Outdoors are suggesting names
for the baby? Maybe because most Hughes films are set around Chicago?
10. The film is called She’s
Having a Baby, but “she” isn’t even pregnant until well over an hour into
the 106-minute movie.
Bechdel Test: Pass, barely
Feminist Grade: F
Overall Grade: D-
