The fuller story
Meet the Fockers, Jay Roach’s sequel to Meet the Parents, opened on December 22, 2004. Robert De Niro’s Jack Byrnes, the retired CIA man who spent the first film terrifying Ben Stiller’s Greg, is now a grandfather with a theory of child-rearing, and a rubber breast to go with it.
Reviewers couldn’t look away. PopMatters described it as “a rubber device emulating his absent daughter’s left breast, so little Jackie can feel soothed at feeding time.” Time Out asked the question everyone in the audience was asking: would “the macho Jack of the first film really don fake breasts to feed milk to his grandson?” He would, and with total seriousness, which is the joke.
The prop has a proper name: the Manary Gland. When the film came out on DVD, the extras included a three-minute featurette about how it was designed. Somewhere, a props department spent real time getting the rubber right.
Why it matters
The scene works because Jack is the last man you’d expect to strap on a breast. Underneath the gag is something the book takes seriously: the urge to nurture doesn’t check anyone’s gender at the door.
NURturing deSirE’s FAQ asks, plainly, “Does it make me less manly to nurse?” The answer starts with “Absolutely not!” and ends somewhere better: real strength comes from embracing what makes you feel connected, and being open and vulnerable with a partner is a true sign of it. Jack Byrnes, of all people, makes the point for us: comfort is comfort, whoever’s chest it comes from. Most men who meet milk do it with a lot less latex, and a lot more tenderness.
