Is Hollywood pregnant with pro-life themes?

Colleen Carroll Campbell, in a recent column for The St. Louis-Post Dispatch, writes about some recent movies and what they reveal about the attitudes of some "GenerationX" movie makers:

It is noteworthy that the writers and directors behind these three films — like those behind "Bella," a more overtly pro-life film also released this year — are Gen Xers raised in the wake of the sexual revolution and the legalization of abortion. Under the cover of crudeness, their comedies pointedly mock the hollow values of their postmodern upbringing: the clinical soullessness of their sex education classes, the simplistic assumption that sex is just another contact sport for which condoms offer sufficient preparation and protection and the puerile fear of commitment and disregard for human life that feed our astronomical abortion rates.

Abortion-rights activists have decried these films for "glorifying" unplanned pregnancies and denigrating abortion. But the potty humor and compromised characters that dominate these stories hardly qualify them as family-values propaganda. And the scores of movies celebrating sex without strings surely deserve more blame for unplanned pregnancies than the handful depicting the consequences that follow from all that copulating.

Still, there is no mistaking the pro-life theme running through these stories and the cultural shift they signify.

A young friend (24 years old) recently pointed out how different, in his experience, are the attitudes of Baby Boomers and GenXers/GenYers toward pregnancy and childbirth. The former tend (again, speaking generally) to have a pragmatic, even utilitarian, approach to conception and children, as though they are just one small part of a life that is usually quite focused on work, career, and social status. The latter tend to see conception and birth in a more integrated way, as a vital part of a way of life, as opposed to being an interruption or side project to be endured as best one can. This does, I think, have a ring of truth to it. It is one thing to support and even demand legalized abortion when you yourself were born in a time when such a thing was unheard of; it's quite another to consider (as Campbell mentions) that you could have been just another nameless statistic.

Comments

[Christopher W. Milton]

I'm sure it wasn't the intent of the article, but there is nothing crude about "Bella." "Juno," on the other hand, made me blush in ways I thought weren't even possible, but at the same time offers the message as strongly as "Bella" does that, no matter how crappy the circumstances, choosing life is the way to go.

"Bella" you take your new girlfriend to, win bonus points and quickly figure out where she stands. (Having a hankerchief handy is an additional +5.)

"Juno" you show to your high-school-age son and say, "Yeah, things will work out in the end, but wouldn't it have been easier if he just kept it in his pants?"

[joanne]

Thanks for the most helpful review on "Juno", Chris. My sibs already told me I wouldn't like "Knocked Up" and now I know that if I see "Juno" I should go alone or with someone OLD like me.
One thing that bugs me about the crude pro-life movies is that, to a thinking pro-choicer, they prove the wrong point, ie "Unplanned pregnancy is not only unwise, but what kind of fool wants to suffer what this woman suffered? Had she dealt with her problem 'responsibly' her life would be on-track." So, as pro-life films ago, aside from Bella, these films might be considered mistakes.
Time will tell. We'll have to wait and see how loudly PP reacts. Based on past experiences, I'd say that if they scream "Foul!" it was a touchdown for life.

[Gail]

I have not seen any of the movies, but it seems that they send different messages to people of different ages and/or opinions. To the "thinking pro-choicer" as Joanne calls them, they do seem to say "If she had just used birth control none of this would be a problem." See Ellen Goodman's recent column on "Juno."

But to people who are against abortion, they seem to say, "We TOLD you girls still get pregnant! Real girls who get pregnant have to deal with the consequences, and this is what they are. Killing their babies isn't one of the options."

Either way, Colleen Campbell is right. These films are very different from previous films that showed either abortion as a sad but inevitable choice to keep girls from "ruining their lives," or pregnancy and birth as a sad choice that did ruin lives.

Gail

[Dan]

Everyone seems to be so impressed that Juno recognizes the obvious about abortion that they overlook the fact that the film celebrates a deliberate choice to consign the unborn child to being raised without a father.

[MMajor Fan]

These few films are an important beginning to re-normalizing having babies at all back into the film making landscape. After so many decades of the concept of pro life being banished from the entertainment industry no one or two films can have it all. My hope is that a few movies will soon be dozens of movies where pregnancy and having/loving babies in a variety of scenarios is normal film making again.

[Cristina A. Montes]

I haven't watched any of these movies, but I agree with those who've posted that not everyone will draw pro-life conclusions from these pro-life movies.

Furthermore, the cultural shift from pro-choice attitudes to pro-life attitudes does not necessarily imply an increasing reverence for human sexuality. It's possible to see abortion as wrong, while at the same time thinking that sex outside of marriage is okay.

That said, I welcome the depiction of pro-life themes in movies. Granted, not everyone will get the pro-life messages. Granted, there will be viewers who will think that "contraception", not "abstinence", is the message of these movies' candid depictions of hardships caused by unplanned pregnancies. We have to be realistic about what movies can do and what they cannot do. I think what these movies can do is expose the audience to pro-life responses to unplanned pregnancies, and to show that -- contrary to what anti-life propaganda claims -- these pro-life options can work out well for those involved. These movies may not convince everyone that pro-life solutions are the right solutions, but they show that pro-life solutions don't have to make you miserable.