{"id":622,"date":"2014-06-20T09:51:43","date_gmt":"2014-06-20T13:51:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/?p=622"},"modified":"2019-03-24T07:17:20","modified_gmt":"2019-03-24T11:17:20","slug":"the-new-honesty-about-abortion-in-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-new-honesty-about-abortion-in-film\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Honesty about Abortion in Film"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have not seen \u201cObvious Child,\u201d a recent romantic comedy about abortion, but I did take note when film critics kept going on and on about how honest it is. It’s \u201canchored\u201d by an edgy \u201ckind of truth-telling\u201d according to the L.A. Times<\/a>; the N.Y. Times<\/a> says that it’s \u201ctrying above all to be honest;\u201d and Buzzfeed<\/a> describes it as even \u201cpainfully honest\u201d in the headline. This would be surprising, since honesty about abortion isn’t terribly well received. After all, when some pro-life activists start bringing exceptionally gruesome placards onto college campuses, the honesty of such images is seldom lionized. So how could an honest narrative about abortion gather such glowing reviews from liberal Hollywood? The answer, based on reading the reviews at least, is that true honesty about abortion is too alien to be recognized by that particular culture.<\/p>\n

Apart from frank comic discussion of bodily functions (which is now described as \u201chonest\u201d rather than \u201cpotty humor\u201d I guess,) the main claim to honesty seems to be that the heroine of the film actually goes through with the abortion\u2014a fairly rare event in popular films and television. When filmmakers want to create a likeable character, the tendency is to make her somehow avoid the procedure. The N.Y. Times inadvertently reveals why while trying to make the opposite point: \u201cThere have been a handful of comedies \u2014 \u201cJuno\u201d<\/a> and \u201cKnocked Up,\u201d<\/a> most notably \u2014 about women who choose not to end their unexpected pregnancies, so why assume that the other side of the coin is off limits? Like it or not, abortion is a fact in many women\u2019s lives and therefore as available for humorous treatment as any other aspect of human experience.\u201d You know… just like child molestation. It’s a fact of life & human experience and therefore just as available for humorous treatment. The honest truth is that it’s very hard to make a character actually funny and genuinely likeable when she inflicts terrible violence on her own child.<\/p>\n

Daring to include the procedure in the narrative is, of course, not the same thing as being honest about it\u2014something lost on the critics. The worst offender on this point is the aforementioned Buzzfeed review. It highlights the film’s \u201cresponsibility… toward the procedure\u201d by noting how \u201cthe camera follows Donna right into the examining room and holds on her anesthetic-addled face.\u201d It doesn’t mention the camera lingering on any of the more gritty and real parts of the procedure that immediately follow the anesthetic. The review also talks about the movie’s \u201cacknowledgement of the way abortion tends to be discussed in whispers and euphemisms and part of some furious skating around the issue itself\u201d and praises how \u201cYou won\u2019t find euphemisms here.\u201d The same review euphemizes abortion as \u201can unfun possible outcome of sex\u201d and Donna, the mother, as \u201cnot yet ready to be a mom.\u201d Of course abortion, though presumably unfun, isn’t a mere possible outcome of sex anymore than wife-beating is a mere \u201cpossible outcome of burning a pot roast.\u201d Likewise, the character of Donna was already a mom\u2014one who makes a grisly decision how to treat her child.<\/p>\n

Having not seen it, I cannot judge the film itself, but as far as the critics are concerned, I’m underwhelmed at their ability to discern anything at all as \u201chonest\u201d on the subject of abortion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have not seen \u201cObvious Child,\u201d a recent romantic comedy about abortion, but I did take note when film critics kept going on and on about how honest it is. It’s \u201canchored\u201d by an edgy \u201ckind of truth-telling\u201d according to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe New Honesty about Abortion in Film - The 96th Thesis<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-new-honesty-about-abortion-in-film\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The New Honesty about Abortion in Film - The 96th Thesis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have not seen \u201cObvious Child,\u201d a recent romantic comedy about abortion, but I did take note when film critics kept going on and on about how honest it is. 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