Why authentic abortion stories in TV and film are a sign of the times in post-Roe era

Hollywood has rich history of abortion storytelling, according to researcher

Jenna Benchetrit · CBC News
Aug 06, 2022

In 2004, a Canadian TV show made headlines for a controversial episode in which a pregnant teenage girl decides, much to her boyfriend's distress, to get an abortion. Her mother drives her to the clinic.

Yes, it was Degrassi: The Next Generation — and the infamous episode, entitled Accidents Will Happen, was postponed for American viewers after a U.S. cable channel decided to pull it before it could air.

Continued: https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/abortion-storytelling-tv-film-1.6543210

How abortion storylines in film and TV have evolved in recent years

by Scottie Andrew, CNN
Thu June 2, 2022

(CNN) During the making of "Obvious Child," director/screenwriter Gillian Robespierre had a few balls in the air.

Would Jenny Slate's Donna, a fledgling stand-up comedian with a penchant for potty humor, end up with Jake Lacy's buttoned-up Max? And would Robespierre find investors who'd trust her to make the movie she wanted as a first-time filmmaker?

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/02/entertainment/abortion-film-tv-representation-cec/index.html

02.06.2022

movies about abortion

Never Rarely Sometimes Always

‘Silence guarantees nothing will change’: film-makers challenge the anti-abortion movement

Audrey Diwan’s 1960s-set drama Happening is the latest in a wave of films on an issue that is increasingly topical

Rachel Pronger
Fri 22 Apr 2022

When Audrey Diwan first started writing a script about abortion, people would ask her why. Adapting Annie Ernaux’s memoir about the author’s struggle to obtain an illegal abortion as a student in 1960s France, Diwan knew the story was important, but it was difficult to persuade others of its relevance. Fast forward a few years, and no one is asking why. When Happening premiered at the Venice film festival last year, critics were quick to draw connections between the plight of Anne (the character in the film) and the tightening of abortion restrictions around the world. As it lands in UK cinemas this week, this period piece feels timelier than ever.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/apr/22/silence-guarantees-nothing-will-change-film-makers-challenge-the-anti-abortion-movement

Opinion: On TV, abortion is the road less traveled. Life’s not like that.

Kate Cohen
Feb. 19, 2021

After the sixth episode of “Atypical,” I stormed into my daughter’s room.

“Please tell me the therapist is not going to have that baby.”

She paused to remember which show she had told me to watch, and then she shrugged sympathetically. “Sorry, Mom.”

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/19/tv-abortion-is-road-less-traveled-lifes-not-like-that/

19.02.2021

television and abortion

North America

United States

From Unpregnant to Obvious Child, ‘Abortion Comedies’ Are Here to Stay

And we need them more than ever.

By Jenny Singer
September 10, 2020

There’s a moment in Unpregnant, a buddy comedy movie about abortion now streaming on HBO Max, that is so magical, so dead on in its rendering of the fearful joy of being alive that it will stay with you far longer than any headline spelling the doom of legal abortion.

Two teenage girls—played by Barbie Ferreira and Haley Lu Richardson—are hundreds of miles from home, literally upside down on a whirling fairground ride on a spring night in Texas, shouting truths to each other.

Continued: https://www.glamour.com/story/unpregnant-obvious-child-abortion-comedies

10.09.2020

movies about abortion

‘Life is long, and this is one event’: Films like Saint Frances are finally getting abortion right

As women’s reproductive rights remain under constant threat, Beth Webb speaks to actor and filmmaker Kelly O’Sullivan about the importance of showing abortions on-screen

Beth Webb
July 20, 2020

About 30 minutes into Chicago-set indie comedy Saint Frances, Kelly O’Sullivan’s Bridget undergoes a medical abortion. In-between forcefully vomiting and sitting uncomfortably on the toilet, the 34-year-old waitress spends the day in the arms of her lover, watching nature documentaries and reading chapters from Harry Potter.

“It was very important to me to have a sweet abortion montage,” says O’Sullivan – who drew on her own medical abortion for her screenwriting debut, which is out in the UK now – from her home in Chicago. “Women and girls walk away from watching abortions in film and TV feeling truly scared, and that might impact the way they think about making a choice like that for themselves in the future.”

Continued: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/saint-frances-movie-abortion-kelly-o-sullivan-obvious-child-portrait-lady-on-fire-a9608341.html

Films such as Saint Frances and Obvious Child are showing that the subject need not be depicted with guilt and shame

Steve Rose
Mon 6 Jul 2020

There is nothing funny about the pro-choice v anti-abortion culture war that has been intensifying over the past few years, but comedy is proving to be a powerful weapon in it. To the extent that the phrase “abortion comedy” is no longer an oxymoron. You could well apply it to Alex Thompson’s new indie film Saint Frances, whose subject is a 34-year-old underachiever (Kelly O’Sullivan, who also wrote the movie) who hasn’t got her life together.

Becoming a nanny is a step forward; getting pregnant with a man she barely knows is a step back. She has no trouble getting a termination, but the film deals honestly with the aftermath, both physical (never has a film been less ashamed about menstruation) and emotional (even if her boyfriend has more issues about it than she does, which he writes down in his “feelings journal”). It does not treat the matter lightly, nor does it present a termination as something shocking or shaming or freighted with guilt.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/06/saint-frances-how-a-new-wave-of-taboo-busting-comedies-are-tackling-abortion

06.07.2020

Ctrl Alt Delete series

Kelly O’Sullivan

Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Planned Parenthood Goes to Hollywood

Planned Parenthood Goes to Hollywood
The group is winning in L.A., even as it’s losing in D.C. Can entertainment ultimately make a difference in the abortion wars?

Story by Nora Caplan-Bricker
September 23, 2019

It’s 10 a.m. on a Tuesday at Planned Parenthood’s New York headquarters, and I’m watching TV. Specifically, I’m watching a series of scenes clipped from movies and TV shows, all of which have two things in common: The woman beside me, Caren Spruch, had a hand in them, and each one features an abortion.

Spruch and I began our viewing session with her most recent such project, the Hulu series “Shrill.” Now, seated at a table in a white-walled conference room, we’re watching the first movie she worked on, 2014’s “Obvious Child.” Spruch is petite and animated, with a long face and dark bangs, like a more pixie-ish Anjelica Huston. She calls “Obvious Child” — a romantic comedy about an unemployed 20-something who finds herself pregnant after a one-night stand — “the one that changed the world,” setting a new standard for stories about abortion. She has seen it, she estimates, more than 25 times.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/magazine/wp/2019/09/23/feature/planned-parenthoods-woman-in-hollywood/

How comedy is speaking up about abortion

How comedy is speaking up about abortion
It remains a contentious and emotive issue – but, despite opposition, comedians are determined to break taboos and speak their minds, writes Alice Jones.

By Alice Jones
22 August 2019

Comedy has a long and noble history of busting taboos but is every subject fair game for humour or are some too serious to joke about? What about abortion, for example?

In 2019, it remains a contentious and emotive issue: a YouGov-Cambridge Globalism survey in May found that 46 per cent of US citizens thought abortion was unacceptable (in the same poll, only 17% of British people said abortion was unacceptable). Beliefs aside, it has the potential to be a traumatic topic for some who have undergone the procedure.

Continued: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190821-how-comedy-is-speaking-up-about-abortion