Little Ricky Goes To The Movies

I’m currently trying to avoid any news whatsoever on the Iowa caucuses (hey, it would be cool if John Edwards pulled it out, especially because New Hampshire would be a much tougher slog), partly because I don’t have much “capacity” for the blogging thing at the moment and I want to spread it around as much as I can, and partly because I’m sick of hearing about Iowa and I just want it over and done with, OK?

So, with that in mind, I happened across the latest tripe from Former Senator Man-On-Dog in the Inquirer today, and I felt that (as usual), it deserves a response.

Little Ricky is waxing philosophic (for him) over what he sees as a positive trend in the movies, and that is “recognition of life in the womb” (which, as we know, is the “soft focus” code language regarding the attempts to criminalize a woman’s right to decide what transpires regarding her body).

To wit…

U.S. audiences flocked to see five motion pictures with life-affirming texts or subtexts: Knocked up, Waitress, Bella, August Rush and Juno.

In these movies, abortion was urged on women facing an unplanned pregnancy, and rejected. Ultrasound images awakened characters and audiences to the humanity of the unborn. Having a baby, even in the most challenging circumstances, became the compelling "choice." Adoption was held up as a positive alternative to abortion. And, unlike the news media's portrayal of pro-lifers, protesters outside abortion clinics were authentically depicted as warm and concerned. This stood in contrast to the indifference of the staff within.

I can’t judge that remark because I didn’t see these movies, but I’m sure it is every bit as bogus as something you might expect from our former senator (and as far as those “warm and concerned” pro-lifers – and I’m sure many are, to be fair – take a look at this).

And while I know it is “department of the obvious” stuff to point out that this supposed “flowering of pro-life America” is nothing but corporate Hollywood forcing its imprimatur on its movies in order to placate an extremely noisy and easily-dissed minority that is as offended by the “a” word as they are about the exposure of Janet Jackson’s 40-year-old, diamond-studded, African American mammary gland, it needs to be pointed out anyway (and the New York Times does so here)...

Though conservatives regularly accuse Hollywood of being overly liberal on social issues, abortion rarely comes up in film. Real-life women struggling with unwanted pregnancies might consider an abortion, have intense discussions with partners and friends about it and, in most cases, go through with it. But historically and to this day in television and film — historians, writers and those in the movie industry say — a character in such straits usually conveniently miscarries or decides to keep the baby.

“It’s one of those topics that would alienate a portion of the audience no matter what you do,” Sarah Brown, executive director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, said of Hollywood’s reluctance to tackle abortion more realistically.

Perhaps directors of feel-good movies don’t want to risk portraying their heroines as unsympathetic characters.

Jonathan Kuntz, an American film history professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that for the entertainment industry, “It’s a no-win situation.”

“It’s kind of a tricky topic,” he said. “It’s something that’s going to turn off people on both sides unless you do it just right. It’s no surprise Hollywood avoids it.”

Well, since our moviemakers apparently think American audiences are too immature to watch a production that deals with abortion intelligently and realistically (which is, in the end, a good way to curb abortion anyway, but Santorum’s mentality of denial is part and parcel of the dogma of keeping men and women and children sexually ignorant anyway), I should note here that a Romanian film "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" won the best film prize at the 20th annual European Film Awards in Berlin last month (“a harrowing film about illegal abortion in communist-era Romania,” according to the story).

Sorry that doesn’t sound like such a “life affirming” tale, former Senator Scumbag, but I guess we have to leave this country altogether to watch an intelligent treatment of this topic that would probably do more to encourage the pro-life choice desired by many than anything you could muster with your prejudiced and misinformed editorial attacks.