The TV Addict 

Is it just me or is there a surge of films of late whose entire story revolves around pregnancy? In the last few years alone we’ve had KNOCKED UP, THE BROTHERS SOLOMON, JUNO, WAITRESS, SHE HATE ME, with BABY MAMA and MISS CONCEPTION (formerly BUY BORROW AND STEAL) coming out in the next few months. If you throw in films with major plot elements involving pregnancy, you can even include CHILDREN OF MEN and JUNEBUG.

Now JUNO, WAITRESS, and MISS CONCEPTION, were all written by women who – as far as IMDB can tell me – are/were in their early to late thirties and had no children of their own, so one might initially be inclined to argue in favor of some greater biological time clock at work, but all the rest of the films listed about (the other 2/3) were written by men.

So what’s going on here exactly? Are children the new iPods? Are men developing child-wanting time clocks of their own? Is there some greater societal surge towards having more children that’s being reflected in these films? Are they – as almost every one of these films suggests – a symbol of maturation, of leaving self-absorption behind and learning to care about more than just oneself?

What do you, fair readers, think? Any theories as to why there are so many pregnancy movies of late?