Comments on: The Kids Are All Right: Marriage In the Bathroom Mirror

By: Martin Arnold

Martin Arnold — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 02:06:05 +0000

I know I have to be careful here.
1. The movie was entertaining, that is my main criteria.
2. The movie was well acted, no question about it.
3. Mark Raffalo couldn’t do anything right. His character was well intentioned but bitched out at every turn,
for riding the young lady on his ‘cycle; for wanting to be part of the family; for taking advantage
of a woman who literally threw herself at his feet (few would turn down Ms. Moore); in short
for just being a man.
4. Missing was the fact that males are generally positive roll models for young children.
5. The movie was anti-male, but as I said entertaining.

By: Mombian » Blog Archive » Mombian Weekly Reader

Mombian » Blog Archive » Mombian Weekly Reader — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 00:10:51 +0000

[...] by Belinda Baldwin at Change.org looks not so much at the movie (about which we’ve had much discussion here), but at what the debate about the movie within the lesbian community means. “It has become a [...]

By: Mombian » Blog Archive » All Right Kid Thinks The Kids Are All Right Is All Right

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 10:03:52 +0000

[...] for the Prop 8 decision to come out later today. In the meantime, let’s go back to the ongoing discussion about The Kids Are All Right. Over at Moms and Bombs, Kellen Kaiser asserts, “I’m [...]

By: Michelle

Michelle — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 20:17:32 +0000

I too saw the movie and was prepared, at the very least, to be entertained. Alas no. I can’t say it any better than reviewer Rick Groen of the Toronto Globe and Mail:

“Somewhere around the halfway mark, the realization arrives with a dull thud: Turns out that unconventional families can be just as tedious in their melodramatic dysfunctions as any traditional clan. And if that’s the message Lisa Cholodenko means to impart in The Kids Are All Right, give her full marks. She has succeeded in making interesting differences look boringly familiar.”

By: David Leon

David Leon — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 04:10:49 +0000

Hello. I just saw the “The Kids are All Right” movie today. In discussing the movie with my friends, I realized that the affair is less about the gender of the lover, and more about the strange chemistry formed because of the relation to her kids. Remember when Jules is intrigued by the fact that some of his gestures remind her of her kids? Of course, part of the problem is that the marriage was already strained by Nick’s distance (extreme involvement with work, emotional distance, and alcohol abuse). In summary, the movie is more about the complicated situation of interacting with a sperm donor who suddenly appears in their lives, than portraying a typical lesbian relationship (in my opinion).

By: Dana

Dana — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:45:26 +0000

Thanks, Shay. Apology accepted. I agree we need to stand up for ourselves–but given that there is diversity within the lesbian community as well as outside it, we are bound to sometimes disagree about what incidents and portrayals are worth standing up about. But it’s all healthy discussion, I think, and worth having.

By: shay

shay — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:27:38 +0000

My apologies, as capitalizing the word “LESBIAN” in my previous comment was not intended to express any feelings that you, yourself, are not lesbian, but instead to emphasize that many a lesbian shares the concerns expressed in The Lesbian Mafia’s review.

As well, the intent behind my prior comment was not to be ‘nasty’, rather to express the anger and frustration invoked as I watch review after review after review by lesbians cater to the misogyny and myth-promotion that “The Kids Are AllRight” portrays.

Lesbians prominent in the media, online blogs, and other facets can be viewed as “our voice”, this movie included (as it was directed by a lesbian), and I can’t fathom how we can expect orgs such as GLAAD to stand up for us as lesbians if we don’t stand up for ourselves.

By: JD in Pgh

JD in Pgh — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:35:29 +0000

I think the important thing to remember is that this is an affair. And an affair is a bad thing, regardless of who the married person is cheating with. It is treated as such by the film. Jules does immeasurable damage to her family by having the affair. It is not some moment of personal growth or change. It’s a huge f*ck up. She knows it. Nic knows it. And, here’s the sneaky part – the audience knows it.

The other important thing to remember is that Paul ends up on the outside of the family, rejected by Nic, Jules and, perhaps most tellingly, Joni and Laser. Cholodenko positions the audience – straight and gay – to be rooting for Nic and Jules, not Paul and Jules. That’s what makes this straight man in the soup so radically different from all of it’s other incarnations.

Beyond which, on a personal note, if my wife of 10 years cheated on me, I can say with complete authority that I wouldn’t give one rat’s ass who she was cheating with, just that she betrayed me. But everybody else’s mileage may vary, I realize.

By: Kate Martini

Kate Martini — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 16:39:38 +0000

I don’t know if I will see this film, but I’m leaning toward no. I appreciate that it shows a long term lesbian relationship, lesbian parents, and older children of lesbians, but I have a few objections that I don’t think I can get rid of. One is the most common objection I’ve read, which is the near-universal fate of lesbian main characters in literature and film: becoming straight, going crazy, or dying in some horrible and violent fashion leaving her lover to wander the world forever in grief. I know Jules goes back to Nic, but if her cheating “isn’t about that” as she says, then why doesn’t she cheat with a woman? I don’t like cheating, but at least it wouldn’t fall in the trap of nearly every other portrayal of a lesbian in a mainstream storyline. A comment on another review caught my attention on this- when movies about straight couples depict troubled marriages and cheating, the husband never cheats with his male business partner, or the woman with the female housekeeper- they cheat and get to maintain their sexual identity. So, I don’t think that Jules’ cheating has nothing to do with sexuality- what many have speculated is probably right- it is the filmmaker’s effort to attract straight viewers, but unfortunately it gives them more fodder for anti-gay pathologizing and stereotypes.
The second is that I actually think it damages the view of lesbian parenting. How are the kids supposed to be all right if their family blows up because their mother starts having sex with their sperm donor? They’re already going through something highly emotional and having to sort out what having a sperm donor and meeting him means to them. Then they have to try to understand why their mom starts sleeping with him? Granted, in a movie, they might not find out, but in real life? Maybe it’s because I can’t imagine taking a spouse back after that, so Nic doing that seems unrealistic to me. It’s at least as likely that the couple would divorce, in which case the kids would probably find out why. Parents divorced after 20 years and mom sleeping with the sperm donor they just met- talk about destroying a kid’s world! I find myself wondering, does Jules care at all about how her actions might affect her kids? I think it represents terrible parenting- not the way I’d like to be represented as a lesbian mom.
Further, I feel it drives up the controversy and stigma around (semi-)anonymous sperm donation, by which many of us create our families. Instead of making the idea more normal for the straight people that the Jules/Paul twist is supposed to attract, now whenever the issue of sperm donation comes up, they’ll think of this movie and inevitably, the image of Jules cheating with the donor. At least, knowing how other movies have affected my thinking about various subjects in the past, that’s what I think would happen for me. My wife and I are going to have a baby soon, and when we make our announcements to people, this is not what I want them to be thinking about. And I certainly don’t want that idea coming up when our kid(s) decide to meet their donor, in our own minds or those of our children. So, while there are some aspects that I would like to see this movie for, I probably won’t. I hope someday soon a movie about kids from lesbian families will arrive that doesn’t sour the whole thing for the people is supposedly represents- I can’t wait to see that!

By: Dana

Dana — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 22:40:18 +0000

Shay: I do not like your implication that The Lesbian Mafia's review is a "lesbian review" and mine is not. My partner of 17 years would beg to differ if you are hinting that I am not a lesbian. I would not normally tolerate that kind of tone here, but I'm going to let your comment stand to show that I am willing to air all perspectives about the movie. If further comments from anyone are nasty, however, I will turn off commenting on this thread and/or block the commenter. We can disagree and still be civil. For those who want to see The Lesbian Mafia review to which Shay referred, it is here. I do not believe the film at all reinforces the message "you can change." In fact, as I said in my original review, Nic asks Jules upon learning of the affair, "Are you straight now?" Jules responds, "It has nothing to do with that." Not only that but (spoiler alert) Jules returns to Nic, not to Paul, at the end of the film. I also do think it is important that the movie appeals to a straight audience as well as an LGBT one. Mainstream films like this are one of the best vehicles for helping people to see that LGBT parents can raise children as well as anyone else. Only by getting that message across will we begin to create the kind of change we need so that people no longer "judge and belittle us and our existence." I understand that you feel the affair between Jules and Paul was a sell-out to old stereotypes. I think that by making Jules never question her sexuality and return to Nic in the end, the film shows the same-sex relationship as the strongest one in the movie. That is a truly new take on the old cliché—and the film may at the same time have taught straight audiences a few positive things about lesbian moms and how we raise our children.