MovieChat Forums > Burn After Reading (2008) Discussion > How come no couples in the film have chi...

How come no couples in the film have children.


Even the couple at the Cox party at the beginning of the film didn't have children.
When Harry mentioned that his wife wrote children's books, the woman said that her neices and nephews loved them, which seems to imply (in my opinion) that they don't have children themselves.
Most of the people in the film also seem to be middle-aged people already, so they probably won't be having any children in the future.

Perhaps they don't have children because they are simply in uphappy relationships.
Would this mean that the couple at the Cox party were likely to have an unhappy relationship too?
Linda and Ted also don't have children because they have relationship problems in their life i.e. the absence of an intimate relationship

Or are they trying to say something about government jobs and children.
Or perhaps government jobs and unhappy marriages.
Or perhaps unhappy marriages being linked to both people in the marriage having careers.
Or perhaps they were more specifically trying to say something about the women in the film seeing as both Mrs Cox and Mrs Pfarrer have jobs involving children. Perhaps there is a connection here.

Or perhaps children were simply not suitable for a dark movie like this and Im looking too much into such a small detail.
I don't think that I am though, because they easily could have had the woman at the Cox party say that her children loved the books rather than her neices and nephews. This implication in the dialogue seemed deliberate to me.

Anyone have any ideas?

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Maybe the Coen Bros just didn't want to work with kids this time.....

But yeah, McD even mentions in the DVD extras that she enjoyed making the film because there are so few nowadays that primarily feature middle-aged people. Maybe they felt the presence of children would be a distraction.

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And they clearly show us why using the scene of the child visiting Dr Cox. :-)

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That part was funny. She was a pediatrician that didn't seem to like kids at all.

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Yes, people chose not to have children only because they're unhappy or have relationship problems. Take a look at the assumptions you're making.

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^ Yes that was to be my point as well. That's quite an assumption to make that

Perhaps they don't have children because they are simply in uphappy relationships

Personally, I am 27 and I never want kids. Just not my thing. I think kids are lovely and cute, but I have no desire whatsoever to bring any into the world and raise them. And I know many people who feel the same.







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"It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard."

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The reason is simple.

The entire movie is about a bunch of SELF SERVING IDIOTS....

NO ONE cares for anyone but themselves (ie. everyone cheating on everyone).

To have children would destroy the "plot device" of "Selfishness" and make it harder for the Viewer to find humor in this self serviing (yet Karmic Payback nature of things).

For Example Clooney's character--how could he be running around town cheating with every woman who will sleep with him, if he had children at home?

It would make his character deplorable (vs. Laughable)---which is the point of the whole movie.

All the characters are Laughable in their own Selfish Living Ways..

With kids, it would be too easy to "hate" a character like Cloony's....vs find him funny...a.la. the Back Pillow Scene..ie., before he stomps off in anger out of the house...he goes to retrieve his back pillow...that's PURE GENIUS HILARIOUS to show how "Self serving", HILARIOUS of a Character he is. Come on...how many people in "real life" would do that??. It's done to show you how selfish he is.

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It's because children actors are greedly little *beep* that ask for too much money!

... Plus they're like midgets.

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Because making love to a dildo-chair doesn't get your pregnant.

Damn it! We're never getting any candy if Kenny keeps eating people!

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Because these people are all self obsessed...didn't you pick up on that? They are some of the worst examples of human, middle class, scum you are ever likely to meet. Thank God at least some of them end up dead, would you want to see what kind of messed up, middle class scum kids they would raise?

I think the fact that McDormand's character is happy for two of her friends to die as long as she can get her plastic surgery is evidence enough of the depravity of the central characters.

Some people just shouldn't breed!

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The world is grossly overpopulated, anyway. There is too much of a value on childbearing. It's become a form of narcissism in and of itself, and all nations and cultures are guilty of it. As selfish as the characters in this movie are, sans Cox's violent behavior toward the end I'll take them over the Snookies and Bristol Palins of the world.

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I think that maybe its because that is the way the writers wrote the movie. You know, with no children. I suppose there could be a deeper meaning to it all that might be exposed if you took the time to examine it in minute detail but ... Nope, it think it was the writers.

What really go me thinking was why none of the characters wore Micky Mouse watches, Why do you think that was?

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