As an african american who was raised in a single parent household. I find the blackface title offensive.

I have the same feelings about the title,iqonefiftynine. And I haven't seen the movie so I'm withholding further commentary, but from the previews I gotta say that it looks like this movie's treatment of class issues is going to be, uh, highly disappointing.

Was Baby Boom already taken? Wait, I guess it was. Of course, lest anyone be fooled, Tina Fey didn't write this one... that honor goes to director/writer Michael McCullers, who also scripted the brilliant Thunderbirds Are Go! movie.

This movie looks unwatchable.

This slate review was not too favorable of this movie: http://www.slate.com/id/2189886/

what is with the influx of all these baby movies anyway? Anyone else kinda creeped out by it?

It's funny that norbizness mentioned Baby Boom as the Rebecca Traister article tossed out Diane Keaton's name. Traister also references Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler when talking about Fey and Poehler, which is great, but Shelley Long? Really?

I think Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are smart, hilarious women and I'm so glad to see them on top, but the Baby Mama title threw me, too. It's offensive on a couple of levels. I'd be interested to know whether Fey and Poehler had any dialogue about the title with producer Lorne Michaels.

I love these women. They are so funny and smart and definitely some strong driven ladies. I'm also a little creeped out by the baby movies--has anyone else noticed that in many of them (ex. Juno) the main character chooses not to have an abortion, even though she considers it? Possible propaganda?

I love these women. They are so funny and smart and definitely some strong driven ladies. I'm also a little creeped out by the baby movies--has anyone else noticed that in many of them (ex. Juno) the main character chooses not to have an abortion, even though she considers it? Possible propaganda?

I saw this movie last night and I was extremely disappointed. I love Tina Fey, I think she's a great woman to pay attention to - but how on earth did she let the movie end like it did? I know she didn't write this one (it shows) but I was really disturbed by this movie. Sure, parts of it were funny, and I love the lead actresses... but the fact that everything works out perfectly in the end? Too much for me. There is nothing alternative about this movie. Which sucks. I was pretty sad. Oh well.

Has anyone else seen it yet? What did you think?

But how is this:

said Poehler, "feminism certainly informs my day to day, but then you've got to let it go. And also not worry. It's the same with worrying about sensitivity regarding issues of infertility and surrogacy. You have to not worry too much about who you're offending and who you're poking fun of."

Feminist?

SPOILER ALERT!

My boyfriend and I went to see the movie this weekend.
I left the theater with a smile on my face and giggled to myself a bunch of times for the rest of the day.
Baby Mama is a female buddy movie. Why does it have to be "alternative" or meaningful? We don't demand that all Will Ferrell movies have a responsible, deep social message.
It's meaningful in that two women are the headliners, and the love interest is a very minor aspect of the plot.
Fey's character wasn't obsessed with finding a partner. She just happened to fall in love with someone towards the end. I didn't mind how it all tied up.
It was just a silly, funny, sorta sappy female buddy movie. And there were almost as many men as there were women in the theater.
I love Tina Fey and I was just happy to spend two hours watching her on screen.

I saw the movie this weekend too--I have to confess, I think Tina Fey is hilarious. I love 30 Rock. She also--most of the time--makes my feminism feel good.

That said, the movie was (unsurprisingly, for anyone who's seen the previews) basically completely racist and classist. My gf and friend and I all did a collective facepalm at Romany Malco's first scene (his acting career is a pretty good example of how talented black actors get completely pwned by Hollywood), and every ten minutes or so for the rest of the movie we were cringing.

I *want* Fey to be my feminist beacon in the celebrity world, but I hope we are not so hard up for role models that we have to turn to movies like this.

I haven't seen this movie and don't plan to (it looks stupid), but I can't believe I didn't realize until now that the title may offend some people. I guess being the age that I am and having grown up where I did the term just seems like a normal part of speech. I'm not black, but I heard it all the time at my highschool (which was split pretty evenly between blacks and whites).

Guys who had kids or pregnant girlfriends always referred to them as their baby mama. I remember a white girl being pregnant with her third baby in her senior year and people wondering if she had a new baby daddy or if it was the same one she had her second kid with.

Thinking on it now though, it seems pretty idiotic to use "Baby Mama" as a title for a movie about an upper-class woman using a surrogate to have a child.

And what is with all the pregnancy movies these days??? Juno, The Waitress, Baby Mama, Knocked Up...Geez, what is the deal?

iqonefiftynine, I'm curious to know more about your take on the movie title. Could you explain some of your reasoning for equating the choice of title to blackface?

My personal experience has been that I've heard the term "baby mama" used in reference to women belonging to a wide range of ethnic backgrounds, and I haven't noticed any trends for the likelihood of its usage to be affected by the race of the woman in question.

I mention this not to dispute the validity of your opinion, but rather to give you an idea of how much dot-connecting I'm asking for.

iqonefiftynine, I also would like to hear more about your take on the name. My experience with the term "baby mama" has typically referred to an unmarried mother, and hasn't been as much connected to race, so I'm curious about how your experiences are informing your opinion. (And ditto with Unicron's statement-- not judging, just wanting to learn more!)

I won't surmise to know what iqonefiftynine specifically was thinking when s/he commented, but when I first read that comment I thought "oh right, blackface. That's exactly what it is."

My own take is that "baby mama" is OBVIOUSLY a racialized (and by extension, classed) phrase--and if anyone actually wants to debate that, well, the movie itself makes pretty clear that that's the racialized context they're drawing on. In one scene, Tina Fey is insisting to Malco's character that her surrogate is not a "baby mama" essentially because her parenting choice is "legit" (this is obv pretty fucked up to begin with) and Malco responds "Ask any black man in Philadelphia-- you've got a baby mama."

The humor of the title hinges on the audience finding it unexpected and funny when affluent white women act like/have lives that approximate racist, stereotypical perceptions of black men. In this sense, Tina Fey is essentially (if figuratively) performing a stereotypical construction of blackness to humorous effect--which certainly seems like a form of blackface to me.

But you know, someone more articulate than me will probably explain this better.

*My own take is that "baby mama" is OBVIOUSLY a racialized (and by extension, classed) phrase--and if anyone actually wants to debate that, well, the movie itself makes pretty clear that that's the racialized context they're drawing on. In one scene, Tina Fey is insisting to Malco's character that her surrogate is not a "baby mama" essentially because her parenting choice is "legit" (this is obv pretty fucked up to begin with)*

Here again, so-called "racially charged" material is completely off-limits for parody and even discussion. Purely speculating, if those acting in the film were African American then would this be ok? Someone else had suggested this in an earlier post...Can we pin "baby mama" and its implications solely on African Americans?
I am troubled by those who are seemingly motivated by heroics when, in fact, they only succeed in overanalyzing the concept...of a comedy.

Erika-- I understand where you're coming from, but just because the tone is light doesn't mean it doesn't communicate something important. One big concern I have with humor that communicates a troubling message is that often it is "immune" to complaints. If a woman complains about a sexist joke from a coworker, her concerns can be dismissed as her being "humorless" -- likewise, the troubling aspects of a comedy (for example "Bringing Down the House with Queen Latifah) are worth analyzing, simply because these are the places where statements that are really quite serious and potentially damaging are likely to be dismissed as frivolous.

I saw this over the weekend, if only to support Fey, Pohler and a film with two female leads, however I was very disappointed. Not because I was expecting a life changing experience but because I was expecting funny and for me it wasn't there. While I wasn't offended by the title (pretty much everyone uses baby momma now, like "bling bling") I am getting tired of Romy Malco's mistrel characters (see also: 40 Year Old Virgin).

Add to that, there was a completely unnecessary line tossed out by Fey when she's talking to her sister about her decision and she goes (and I'm paraphrasing), "Yeah, I know I always said I didn't want [a kid] but one day I woke up and babies were every where." and my mouth DROPPED. Up until that point we'd been led to believe that Fey's character had always wanted a kid but put it off, and this line felt like a smack to me, about women not actually knowing what they want. Like every woman (i.e. ME) who says they don't want kids will one day wake up and have baby fever.

I know it's possible that women change their minds (but NEVER about having kids, oh no) but still, it felt like a jab at child free women.

UltraMagnus, I agree about a lot of the roles in which Malco's been cast, but in the specific case of the 40-year-old virgin, the commentary reveals that the character was mostly created by Malco's improv. The race of the character as written was actually unspecified.

If you want to see him in a TRULY condescending role, check out his turn in the title role of the made-for-VH1 biopic "Too Legit: The MC Hammer Story".

Also, I WANT THE MATRIX!

Thank you iqonefiftynine and others for pointing out the blackface connection. I didn't see it at first, which is lame.

I was wondering... as a white man if I say phrases like "baby mama" or "you go girlfriend"... does that constitute blackface as well? Should I be checking that?

I feel like me saying "yo" as a greeting is these days race-neutral enough that it's not blackface, but I think I have a sense of where that line is. With "yo" it's sort of a natural part of my language, but saying "girlfriend" is definitely a performance of some kind.

As a single teen mama, I learned my lesson from Knocked Up and Juno and have decided to steer clear of Baby Mama. I, too, find the title offensive and am disappointed by the lack of attention paid (by the actors and filmmakers) to issues surrounding surrogacy and fertility and the (mis)treatment of women by patriarchal models of medicine that govern reproduction. i just feel like this would be a good platform for fey and poehler to address some of these issues.

i'm just tired of films offering the same essentalized, moralized view of pregnancy. one shouldn't expect much else from popular film, i guess.