Comments on: Is Hollywood aborting Roe v. Wade?

By: Bernie

Bernie — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 01:56:10 +0000

A few earlier articles that took on this same topic: Dana Stevens’ insightful analysis of “Knocked Up” in Salon, A.O. Scott’s review of the same film in NYT, and J Peder Zane’s review of pop culture’s abortion taboo

It seems to me it’s all a lack of guts. Reality is reality — not dealing with abortion is avoiding a fact of life.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 01:53:15 +0000

A few earlier articles that took on this same topic: Dana Stevens’ insightful analysis of “Knocked Up” in Salon, A.O. Scott’s review of the same film in NYT, and J Peder Zane’s review

By: Maitland McDonagh

Maitland McDonagh — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 21:23:07 +0000

I find myself having a flashback to the glib ’70s feminist rallying cry that if men got pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.

As far as I’m concerned, starting in the late 70s, Hollywood has become increasingly geared to serving the fantasies of boys. Not men. Twelve-year-old boys of all ages. And what 12-year-old boy wants to so much as think about icky lady parts and processes?

Periods, pregnancy, menopause… it’s all just too gross, and not in a cool, can-you-handle-this-dude kind of way. No wonder abortion is topic non grata.

By: Jennifer Merin

Jennifer Merin — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:05:22 +0000

I find it interesting that we find it difficult to conceive of a movie scenario in which a likeable woman who decides to have an abortion for a well-thought out reason doesn’t become so unsympathetic she’s deemed a box-office-killer. I know several women who’ve had abortions for various reasons, and find their stories quite sympathetic. I think the keys to creating a character– even one whose actions might not be totally acceptible to a segment of the population– are the actor’s honesty and the performance choices she makes.

The choice of “Pursuit of Happyness” as an example is an interesting one. Why is Will Smith’s character, based on a real person, so likeable and sympathetic as he drags his son from squat to squat while trying to get a job? Is it because he’s a single dad? Would a single mom have received the same leeway, understanding and support?

And, along the same line of questioning, why do we sympathize with out-and-out killers (Ben Kingley’s character in “You Kill Me,” for example) who kill for their profession or for reasons of anger, when we can’t accept a hardworking, honest woman who’s trying to do the right thing in her life and feels she has to terminate an unwanted pregnancy?

“Vera Drake” is a great film that raises the question of abortion in an honest, non-judgemental way that serves to promote discussion and public awareness. Imelda Staunton’s Vera– a character who breaks the law while ‘helping’ women with unwanted pregnancies– is unquestionably sympathetic. We, the audience, are not told what to think about her and her actions. We are, however, priviledged to witness her, come to understand her way of thinking and empathize with her.

I can think of several personal “I had an abortion” stories I know about that I’d say produce, although they’re not on screen, in me the same sort of empathy. I don’t dislike the women who’re at the heart of these stories, and I don’t think audiences would either– if they were honestly portrayed in a filmed version of their lives and circumstances.

By: Carrie Rickey

Carrie Rickey — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 17:31:02 +0000

Having not seen “Stephanie Daley,” I am at a disadvantage. For Hollywood to make a film involving abortion, the premise has to be commercial, not only ideological, I am not for supressing discussion about abortion, I’m for imagining scenarios where a woman who elects an abortion can be seen as sympathetic and pro-family. Can our readers imagine such scenarios? Or is the typical Hollywood message movie like “The Pursuit of Happyness,” where self-improvement is almost overwhelmed by extreme selflessness?

By: Jennifer Merin

Jennifer Merin — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 17:05:49 +0000

Just a reminder that the girl in “Stephanie Daley” was the victim of rape. Yet there was no discussion of termination of the pregnancy– which was, in part, the point. The girl was extremely naive and entirely without information and skills to deal with her pregnancy. And that, in a way, resulted in the death of the child, albeit not by abortion. Could that extreme ‘innocence’ be the product of society’s– and Hollywood’s– reluctance to discuss troubling topics like abortion? Is non-discussion a good way to deal with difficult issues that cry out for public debate?

By: Carrie Rickey

Carrie Rickey — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 16:42:42 +0000

While I fervently believe that no one in Hollywood has the brass to make a movie in which the heroine has an abortion, whether incidentally or as a major plot point, I also believe this:
1) Despite the excellent “Vera Drake,” about a ’50s-era abortionist in the UK, abortion is box-office poison.
I can imagine a feature about abortion working dramatically only if the heroine was the subject of incest or rape or if she and the father had to weigh the emotional and psychological choices of terminating a pregnancy where the fetus was genetically compromised. While I can imagine scenarios where the heroine elects abortion for justifiable personal reasons (career, not wanting children, not wanting to be a single parent, inability to afford another child), the choice to terminate a pregnancy for these equally excellent reasons immediately stamps the heroine as selfish and therefore unsympathetic. Dramatically speaking, I don’t see a way of getting beyond the double-bind here, unless the heroine terminated a pregnancy for her career and her career was discovering a cancer cure. Can it be that the last widely-distributed American feature about abortion was “Citizen Ruth”?
2) Without the decision to keep the baby, there would be no second and third acts in “Waitress” and “Knocked Up.” This said, for emotional verisimilitude I wish there had been some discussion of the abortion in the latter.