{"id":1087,"date":"2008-01-18T23:53:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-18T23:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2008\/01\/juno-fast-times-and-all-that-stuff\/"},"modified":"2008-01-18T23:53:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-18T23:53:00","slug":"juno-fast-times-and-all-that-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2008\/01\/juno-fast-times-and-all-that-stuff.html","title":{"rendered":"Juno, Fast Times, and all that stuff."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>
Judith Timson<\/a> of the Globe and Mail<\/i> is bothered by the latent pro-life elements<\/a> in recent films like Knocked Up<\/a><\/i> and Juno<\/a><\/i>:<\/span><\/p>\n

But could [these movie plots] also be part of a subtle attitudinal shift against abortion that conservative thinkers like David Frum are calling for? Mr. Frum, in his new book Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again<\/i>, prescribes \u201ceducation and persuasion \u2026 rather than changes in law\u201d in the continuing fight against abortion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sounds creepy. But do<\/i> these films represent an \u201cattitudinal shift\u201d, \u201csubtle\u201d or otherwise? At least two writers think not. Last week, Michael Currie Schaffer<\/a> of the New Republic<\/i> wrote:<\/p>\n

Juno\u2019s choices, or non-choices, are nothing new on either the big screen or the little one. Just as Hollywood tends to give its characters unusually large New York apartments or unusually clean suburban kitchens, it manages to give them unusually fertile wombs. Whatever the case may be in the culture at large, abortion has long been a rarity in celluloid life, where all kinds of improbable moms bear all kinds of inconvenient children in order to produce all kinds of plot lines. . . .<\/p>\n

In fact, the improbable and inconvenient pregnancy is a staple of popular culture in the post-Roe v. Wade<\/i> era. Kerns, who as Katherine Heigl\u2019s mother in Knocked Up<\/i> played a cheerleader for appropriately-timed childbearing, oughta know: She first became famous playing family matriarch Maggie Seaver in Growing Pains<\/i>. Her character, who had gone back to work as a reporter once her kids were adolescents, suddenly got pregnant late in the series. Ditto Family Ties<\/i>\u2018 Elyse Keaton, Roseanne<\/i>\u2018s Roseanne, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air<\/i>\u2018s Vivian Banks. In fact, film and TV feature a lot more unlikely pregnancies-would a typical mainstream single Manhattan career gal like Friends<\/i>\u2018 Rachel Green really have carried that baby to term?-than terminated ones. There\u2019s a reason that the abortions in Maude<\/i> or Fast Times at Ridgemont High<\/i> stand out: They were so unusual.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And two days before that, Joshua Glenn<\/a> of the Boston Globe<\/i> charted the rise and fall of pregnancies and miscarriages, spontaneous and otherwise, in pop culture over the past few decades:<\/p>\n

Before Roe v. Wade, fictional women who got abortions suffered dire physical, mental, and social consequences; in the following decade, this was no longer the case. However, as single motherhood lost its stigma, women were no longer forced to choose between abortion and adoption. That\u2019s when TV networks and movie studios, perhaps intimidated by the \u201cright-to-life\u201d movement, which was then hitting its stride, developed a meme. . . .<\/p>\n

At the height of the Reagan and Bush era, however, the keeping-my-baby meme triumphed. In 1986, Madonna\u2019s \u201cPapa Don\u2019t Preach,\u201d written from the point of view of a teenage girl who\u2019s \u201ckeeping my baby,\u201d topped the charts. Then, in the 1988 movie \u201cFor Keeps,\u201d Molly Ringwald plays a pregnant high school senior who \u2014 well, you figure it out. By 1991, when Candice Bergen decided to raise a child without a father on \u201cMurphy Brown,\u201d the keeping-my-baby meme was already well established. In fact, another fictional middle-aged liberal, the titular protagonist of the NBC dramedy \u201cThe Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,\u201d beat Brown to the punch by an entire TV season.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the birth of Murphy Brown\u2019s baby, America elected a president who was both pro-choice and a devout Christian. For nearly a decade, TV screenwriters waffled along with Clinton, penning one scenario after another in which a knocked-up character agonizes over whether to have an abortion, then suffers a miscarriage before going through with it. Victims, in chronological order, of this conflicted meme include: Heather Locklear\u2019s Amanda, on \u201cMelrose Place\u201d; Neve Campbell\u2019s Julia, on \u201cParty of Five\u201d; Jennie Garth\u2019s Kelly, on \u201cBeverly Hills 90210\u201d; and Courtney Thorne-Smith\u2019s Alison, on \u201cMelrose Place\u201d again. Even the 1996 film \u201cCitizen Ruth,\u201d which lampoons both sides of the abortion debate, would end with Laura Dern\u2019s miscarriage.<\/p>\n

Since the election of the current President Bush, however, the times, they are a-slowin\u2019 down again. On the DVD of \u201cFast Times,\u201d director Amy Heckerling says that she \u201ccould never make that movie now,\u201d because its depiction of guilt-free sex (and, presumably, consequence-free abortion) is \u201cunacceptable in the current political climate.\u201d In recent years, we\u2019ve seen unmarried and unprepared women on shows like \u201cER,\u201d \u201cGrey\u2019s Anatomy,\u201d and \u201cThe O.C.,\u201d choose to keep their babies, no matter what the consequences. It\u2019s enough to make the convenient miscarriage plot seem downright progressive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Alas, I watch virtually no TV, so I can\u2019t really comment on analyses like these. But I\u2019d be curious to hear what others think.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Judith Timson of the Globe and Mail is bothered by the latent pro-life elements in recent films like Knocked Up and Juno: But could [these movie plots] also be part of a subtle attitudinal shift against abortion that conservative thinkers like David Frum are calling for? Mr. Frum, in his new book Comeback: Conservatism That […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nJuno, Fast Times, and all that stuff.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Judith Timson of the Globe and Mail is bothered by the latent pro-life elements in recent films like Knocked Up and Juno:But could also be part of a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2008\/01\/juno-fast-times-and-all-that-stuff.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Juno, Fast Times, and all that stuff.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Judith Timson of the Globe and Mail is bothered by the latent pro-life elements in recent films like Knocked Up and Juno:But could also be part of a\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2008\/01\/juno-fast-times-and-all-that-stuff.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-01-18T23:53:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_MwnH1kpbPRM\/R5GxBdOQIBI\/AAAAAAAABDM\/-_Nqg_c8k-I\/s400\/fasttimes-a.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. 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