MovieChat Forums > The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (2009) Discussion > So does being PREGNANT make you decent?

So does being PREGNANT make you decent?

posted 14 years ago by cornelia123
3 replies | jump to latest

I HATED the last shot of Eva Mendes there all pregnant touching her stomach REPEATEDLY (yes, dear, we get you are pregnant [roll}, as if the stupid director is implying 'look guys, she's decent now, she's no longer a slut'? Like as if there aren't thousands of drug addict sluts who are ALSO pregnant......doesn't mean a thing, but for the stupid puerile director, it does: Mother Vs Slut (Decent vs Whorish).

Seriously, I thought the film was so-so, some scenes okay, some 'who cares', but when it came to the ending, it ruined it for me. How incredibly chauvanist AND puerile.

Anyone else cringe bigtime when they saw that scene?

[–] PurpleProseOfCairo 14 years ago

It was more that he was telling us their relationship was on a more stable footing.

But I DID say to my wife at the time "Pregnant women in films always hold onto their bump".

[–] little_mi 14 years ago

I took it to be a pastiche of a hollywood happy ending - to go from being a drug addicted prostitute to a blissful, committed family relationship in the space of a year is clearly an OTT turnaround. This is emphasized by the following scene which shows him up to the same old tricks. So it's actually a sad ending for him, because it looks like he'll never change.

I think Herzog is playing on conventional ideas or markers for decency, but pushing them so far they seem perverse, especially when placed in the wider context of the film. It's particularly jarring when 'everything works out for the best' at the end, for example, because you've witnessed the largely appalling journey it's taken to get there, and have to wonder if the ends justify the means.

The entire concept of the film, it seems to me, is to take markers for decency and subvert them, and vice versa. The clue is in the title, after all!

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]