The Kids Are All Right is the sort of movie that I admire more than I enjoy–in this case a very well-acted soap opera.
Pet Peeve: when I first tried to look up this movie online I first found a 1979 documentary about The Who called The Kids Are Alright. As far as I can see, the title of the current movie means “all of the kids are right,” which doesn’t really make much sense.
In any case this movie involves a lesbian couple (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) who have two great kids (Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson). For some reason they named the boy “Laser” which seems cruel, but never mind. The kids decide to track down the sperm donor who was their biological father (Mark Ruffalo). Everyone gets along wonderfully until two of the characters decide to do something stupid, hence the soap opera. Everything more or less works out in the end.
There’s one thing that bothers me about the ending, so I’m going to discuss it within <Spoiler> tags for the benefit of those who have seen the movie.
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It’s made pretty clear that the Julianne Moore character isn’t really a lesbian. Or maybe she’s a little bit bi, but she’s really only attracted to men, and she needs to watch gay male porn in order to get it on with Annette Bening. So she has a sheet-ripping affair with the Mark Ruffalo, but she ends up staying with Annette Bening because, well, any other ending would have sucked.
So lets try inverting this. Suppose the movie was about a heterosexual couple, and the husband realized that he was actually gay, but in the end he stayed with his wife out of loyalty to her and his children. I strongly suspect that Hollywood would never make a movie like that. Or if they did the critics would probably pan it instead of giving it the sort of praised heaped onto The Kids Are All Right.
It feels like there is a double standard here, but I’m not sure exactly what the underlying principle is. Is it
- Gayness must always win?
- Lesbians rule?
- Men are expected to seek sexual fulfillment, but women are expected to put their families first?
Your guess is as good as mine.
