Sticks and Stones and Weed and Bones

I had real problems with the film Knocked Up. On many levels, but mainly because I just never bought that idea that a girl as bright and attractive as Katherine Heigl's character would put up with someone as immature and stubborn and all-around average as Seth Rogen's character. I got bored with being expected to wait patiently as he never grew up. (I think the "last straw" scene was towards the end of the movie when he saved his bong instead of his pregnant girlfriend during a earthquake.)

I was asked if I felt the same way about Pineapple Express, and the answer is no.

Seth Rogen's character is dating the super hawt Amber Heard, who plays an 18 year old high school student, but the difference is 1. the whole movie isn't about their relationship, 2. he seems to actually really like her and is trying to make things work, 3. there's an acknowledgment of how backwards their relationship is.

Basically, I don't think Apatow knows how to deal with female characters, and luckily in Pineapple Express, he doesn't try (I really liked the movie a lot - maybe not as much as Stepbrothers though).

That said, I feel like Dana Stewart expressed my thoughts and annoyances pretty well in her review of Pineapple Express for Venus Zine entitled:

The best part of Pineapple Express? The M.I.A. song in the preview (lol):

"...I simply cannot stop thinking about the fact that if Rogen were a woman, he’d never be starring in his own movie. I can’t stop thinking about all the cool, talented, hilarious ladies who are the female equivalent of Rogen, similarly do not fit the mainstream ideal of “acceptable body type,” and who got left in Judd Apatow & Co.’s collective dust.

Ever since Freaks & Geeks, the Apatow Doctrine has allowed for an expansion of what a male on TV (eventually in movies) can look like. This was never extended to females. From Linda Cardinelli on Freaks & Geeks, both Jules and Becca in Superbad, and now Rogen’s girlfriend, the ridiculously beautiful Amber Heard as Angie in Pineapple Express, the women in Rogen/Apatow films are conventionally, infuriatingly, beautiful. There’s no way that’s a coincidence."

I should state: I think Seth Rogen is adorable. Lots of girls think he's totally f-able. It's just, he's not a typical stud, and the ladies in these movies are typical beauties. So don't get me wrong, K?