For a long time I have been annoyed by the treatment of abortion in movies and television. An estimated 3500 abortions are performed every day in the world, but abortion is so sensitive to many people it has become a procedure to be consistently rejected in film and tv. I find it frustrating to be watching a show dealing with unwanted pregnancy and suddenly I am watching a repudiation of abortion. Examples of ways that the possibility of abortion is treated often in shows and movies are A) she has a miscarriage B) she visits an abortion clinic but is discouraged by a person or the place itself.
In real life, women get abortions.
Even more preposterous are the movies with plot lines about unwanted pregnancies that refuse to even say the word. KNOCKED UP has a single, career minded women get pregnant from a one night stand. The whole movie is about her pregnancy, but the word abortion is never uttered. One character uses a word that rhymes with abortion to avoid upsetting his friend and others ask her if she will "take care of it' but they won't even use the word.
2008's WAITRESS is about a women who is trapped in a marriage with an abusive man. When she becomes pregnant she is horrified and even writes letters to her unborn baby blaming it for her miserable life, but this movie also never uses the word abortion. A friend asks if she will "get rid of it" but when her answer is simply, no, they move on and never come back to the suggestion.
This unbalance of what women in movies are doing vs. what women in real life are doing seems so absurd to me that it greatly offends my feminist sensibilities.
In real life, women get abortions.
Even more preposterous are the movies with plot lines about unwanted pregnancies that refuse to even say the word. KNOCKED UP has a single, career minded women get pregnant from a one night stand. The whole movie is about her pregnancy, but the word abortion is never uttered. One character uses a word that rhymes with abortion to avoid upsetting his friend and others ask her if she will "take care of it' but they won't even use the word.
2008's WAITRESS is about a women who is trapped in a marriage with an abusive man. When she becomes pregnant she is horrified and even writes letters to her unborn baby blaming it for her miserable life, but this movie also never uses the word abortion. A friend asks if she will "get rid of it" but when her answer is simply, no, they move on and never come back to the suggestion.
This unbalance of what women in movies are doing vs. what women in real life are doing seems so absurd to me that it greatly offends my feminist sensibilities.
The recent movie that brought all of this to mind is BLUE VALENTINE.
(there is a spoiler coming up so don't read on if you care)
BLUE VALENTINE is a movie trying to capture raw intimate moments in a relationship that is falling apart. It shows the beginning and the bitter end. Soon after the couple meet she realizes she is pregnant. (The pregnancy is accidental.) She decides to have an abortion. The movie focuses on her as the procedure begins; she is emotional, and watching, so was I. The scene is graphic and honest. And then she changes her mind and stops the abortion and continues the pregnancy.
Now, here’s the problem. The pregnancy is the reason the couple marry and the reason they end up where they do. Had she gone ahead with the abortion the couple would not have had a child to rush them into marriage and unhappiness. She has a baby because it is necessary to the movie’s plot. So why does she start to get an abortion? The decision to stop the abortion took me out of the movie. It is a scene in which I was emotionally invested and then I was yanked out of the movie because, once again, a woman in a movie does not have an abortion.
To be fair, I really liked BLUE VALENTINE, and so it is more annoying than usual that, again, an abortion is avoided.
I have made a list of movies that deal with abortions.
1) Dirty Dancing
2) 4 Months, 2 Weeks, 3 Days
3) Enter the Void
3) Enter the Void
4) Lake Of Fire
5) Vera Drake6) Revolutionary Road
7) Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her
8) Cabaret
9) Godfather II
10) Greenberg (although they never say the word, a lead character does get one)
I agree to a point. In a lot of those cases, the film would have no further story. I mean it is the main plot point of Knocked Up to be pregnant. I am pro choice and I really wish the whole religious right would go away on the subject and start being the compassionate beings their beliefs profess but alas to them it is not about compassion but more about political power and getting into peoples personal lives.
ReplyDeleteAbortion is a complex and very personal subject. To choose to terminate a pregnancy is a painful but at times necessary choice. So any film that takes that route is not going to be very fun to watch if that is the focus of the story, so it has to be either a sub plot as in Dirty Dancing, which in context really carries a message of safe and legal procedures. Or it is the main point which is just depressing and sad. I guess my point is that abortion is a medical procedure/ decision that is not something to be lauded nor should it be demonized. It just is. Speaking from personal experience it is mostly a private decision and should not be mandated nor villified by the state.