Remember
Murphy Brown? Yeah, me neither. In fact, I did: but
all wrong, which goes to show that I have way more faith
in mainstream media than you’d credit from such a cynic.
See, in my head, the whole controversy was because Murphy
(crime-fighting single woman) decided to have an abortion
when she got pregnant and thus gave a good, hard yank on
Dan Quayle’s wedgie.
But
no, the hullaballoo was all about her decision not to have
an abortion, and become that treasured figure of the centre-left:
the independently well-off, white-collar-working single
mom. As Catherine Tunnacliffe writes in eye magazine,
<http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_03.25.04/film/boxpopuli.html>
Ms. Brown + baby became a high-profile pioneer of a TV show
stereotype: the unexpected mom, who goes against all expectations
to make it work.
At
least Murphy Brown considered getting an abortion,
before the show’s producers decided that single momdom
was the lesser of two political evils in the ratings war.
So much for the show being a standard bearer for this column,
which formed in my head as a plea for representations of
close encounters of the unexpected kind (broken condom,
rape, sex with a guy who lied about his vasectomy, missed
Pill...) and the available (increasingly more so medically,
and less so politically) solutions.
When
was the last time you saw a character in a movie or TV show
use a condom? Or talk about being on the Pill? Sex and
the City may have irreparably impaired many women’s
self-esteem (and lower backs, if they caught Carrie’s
shoe habit) but at least the fearless four occasionally
mentioned contraception — and, in Miranda’s case,
abortion. But that show was late-night XXX rated viewing.
I may have missed something, but have soft-focus shows with
a teen audience — Gilmore Girls, Veronica Mars
— ever broached the subject? Of course not. They’d
get canned in a second. One of the reasons that Judy Blume’s
Forever was so legendarily forbidden by parents and
read by teen girls was that (OK, once you get past the major
highlight of the guy naming his penis) it showed a young
woman taking control of her sexual destiny and getting contraception
— with her grandma’s support, for heaven’s
sake. That was in the 1980s — and things have only
gone backwards from there. They remake Alfie (for
no discernable reason) and keep the abortion subplot —
but make it less frank and honest than in the 1960s original.
The
Royal College of Medicine did a study showing that, out
of the 100 most profitable American feature films made in
the post-HIV era, only 2% of films even mentioned contraception,
and a film aimed at teens, American Pie, came bottom
of the safe sex league (lower than Basic Instinct)
<http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,1583719,00.html>.
Although my friend Tim, who as a film reviewer knows these
things, says that Jason Schwartzmann almost redeems himself
in Shopgirl by going out to buy a condom — not
before he’s a) brought a breath mint instead (because
sweet breath is more important than infection-free genitalia!)
and b) suggested using a baggie. The shadow of American
Pie and its underage casual fuckers falls long... I
can count the films showing heterosex where I can remember
condom use on — well, it’s not an abacus. Let’s
see: In the Cut (Jane Campion), Friday Night
(Claire Denis)... (and one Buffy episode: "Where
the Wild Things Are"). Is it a coincidence they’re
both female arthouse directors? Hollywood cinema swings
carefree.
And
yet, with all those unprotected bits bobbing around, no-one
wakes up the next day (with mascara intact) and goes, "Oh
shit! Where’s the nearest pharmacy?" (If the film
were set in most of middle and southern America, they’d
be screwed, because pharmacists are permitted to opt out
of dispensing the morning-after pill if they have religious
objections). Or two weeks later (with mascara intact), and
goes "Oh crap! What’s that burning sensation?
Where’s the nearest STI clinic?" And never, never
do they wake up and go, "Oh hell! I think I’m
gonna throw up... Where’s the nearest washroom?"
Or if they do, one pregnancy test later, there’s one
brave new single mom, or one more in the long tradition
of shotgun weddings. There’s one abortion on screen
I can remember: in Jesus’ Son (Alison Maclean),
which leads to (or from?) smack addiction and suicide. Such
a true representation of the many women living valid, vivid
lives after abortion. And just look at what happens to poor
dear Vera Drake and all her customers... although there’s
a stern warning in that film for GWB & co. about the
dangers and impossibility of completely eradicating abortion.
When
I think back to how I knew about abortion provision, obviously
I think there was more information out there than there
actually was. It sure as hell wasn’t Murphy Brown who
talked me through what the experience might feel like. I
think it must have been Ani Difranco, whose early albums
are studded with songs about the personal and political
impact of abortion. The clinic’s table, she sings,
is "a sterile battlefield / that sees only casualties,"
including the eventual closure of the clinic to right-wing
religious pressure. Avril and her ilk certainly aren’t
adding any commentary to the echoing vacuum in contemporary
media about contraception and abortion.
So
in case you’re Googling in your room, or at school,
or the library, looking for information that your parents
won’t give you and teachers are too afraid to, and
the chickenshit media, having taught you your ABCs from
Sesame Street on, is too busy practicing neither
Abstinence nor Being Faithful nor Correct Condom Use —
nor Damage Control, (Medical) Examination, Farmaceuticals...
— here are some places you can go to learn more:
Planned
Parenthood <http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pp2/portal/>
NARAL
Pro-Choice America <http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/index.cfm>
Women
on Waves <http://www.womenonwaves.org/>
Teen
Sex Information Program <http://www.ppt.on.ca/tsip.html>
Scarleteen’s
Heather Corinna on Safe, Sexy Sex <http://www.scarleteen.com/sexuality/safer.html>
Ani’s
Choice Page <http://www.righteousbabe.com/action/action_choice.asp>
So
yay to the Golden Globes for awarding Felicity Huffman Best
Actress for her role as a male-to-female transsexual in
Transamerica — but boo to the film’s writer and
director who make Bree the one-night-stand father of a son
whose mother marries an asshole who abuses her and her son
to the point that she kills herself and her son (with that
crushing logic of American liberal media) becomes a rent
boy. There are other choices — but when will there
be a film ready to show them to an audience that desperately
wants to the right to choose?
he