“Hollywood Is Aborting” Review: Politics and popular culture intersect in a wide-ranging yet insightful doc

Speaking about abortion stories in the 2000s, one media scholar commented on how Hollywood seemed “divorced” from the “political reality” of the era.

In our offers, from fatherhood to Private practice to Better thingsthe characters were freely exercising their right to choose, supported by sympathetic loved ones and unsuspecting medical professionals. Meanwhile, in the real world, the rising Tea Party was experiencing a “tidal wave” of increasingly stringent restrictions, turning those same scenes into increasingly inaccessible fantasies.

Hollywood does abortionpremiering in Tribeca, aims to fill this gap. Combining news footage, interviews with experts and a stunning array of film and TV clips, the documentary raises the issue of the inextricable relationship between popular culture and politics, with each side shaping the other. If she necessarily prioritizes breadth over depth, her insightful insights constitute an exciting start to a long-overdue conversation.

It is helpful that despite the often frustrating topic, Hollywood does abortiondirected by Janet Goldwater, Barbara Atty, and Mike Atty, is a surprisingly easy watch. The pace is brisk but never rushed, and its jumps between eras or themes are never difficult to follow, thanks to writer and editor Jimmy Boyle’s well-organized narrative flow. Statistics are judiciously presented to make a clear statement, rather than being thrown at us willy-nilly.

Speakers include academics and activists as well as creatives such as His crazy ex-girlfriend Creator Rachel Bloom and Dirty dancing Writer Eleanor Bernstein, and the film allows their specialized knowledge and personal perspectives to shine. (In a sharp touch, almost all of them are women.) One minute, they might be thoughtfully backing away from former President Bill Clinton’s “safe, legal, rare” line, which stigmatized choice even as he defended the right to make it. In another case, they might laugh at their angry reactions to an irresponsible piece of storytelling.

If abortion is often viewed as a topic so complex and controversial that even the most powerful institutions and ambitious politicians are loathe to approach it, Hollywood does abortion He makes a point of presenting it as easily digestible and approachable.

Covering half a century’s worth of storytelling about reproductive rights — from A Mod The episode that aired shortly before Roe v. Wade to blondreleased shortly after the coup in 2022 and beyond—it shows in clear and compelling detail how real-world conversations are reflected in our popular culture. Which, in turn, has the potential to influence public thinking and even actual legislation on particular issues, such as Will & Grace impact.

Like how Dirty dancing He taught the generation that came after him Roe What would they lose if those rights were abolished, by smuggling a back-alley abortion story into an irresistible teenage love story? Or, on the other hand, what a particularly bad episode Law and order The film inspired by George Teller later helped justify his murder, by turning the fictional version of him into the specter of every pro-life enthusiast’s nightmares.

Even during its limited run, the film allows for one nuance: the same Dirty dancing Clips that served as necessary reminders of a uglier past resurfaced in another segment discussing how the repeated portrayal of abortion as physically and emotionally painful helped portray it as something evil.

Hollywood does abortionThe biggest problem with this book, insofar as it can fairly be described as one, is simply its overabundance of worthwhile topics. The filmmakers’ ambition is admirable, as they address everything from the way the male characters in these stories are portrayed (who are often angry about not being allowed more to say) to the types of stories that remain underrepresented (basically anything that isn’t about a beautiful young white woman getting a medical procedure) to Hollywood’s favorite con plots (like Christina’s ectopic pregnancy in… Gray’s Anatomyas a result of ABC’s refusal to allow Shonda Rhimes to film her having an abortion).

However, the wide view of the document also means that touching things is all he has time to do. Although entire articles could be written about some of the individual storylines mentioned here (actually, List Critic Dana Stevens wrote one about it I knockedHer “shmashmortion” approach should reiterate some of her points here), the vast majority of shows and movies referenced only appear as out-of-context clips, and even those that are subject to more extensive discussion are only allowed a few minutes at most.

But such restraint is more a virtue than a flaw in the film, which works precisely because it is so wise to recognize what fits within its scope and what doesn’t. It’s plugged-in enough to feature commercial wives’ content on TikTok, for example — a very recent form of pop culture — but smart enough to realize that’s another discussion for another day. He shows enough clips of conservative commentators making hate speech or prominent politicians like J.D. Vance demanding “more kids” to spark justifiable outrage, but he leaves the hard-core history lessons for other books or documents to deal with.

Very consciously, Hollywood does abortion It positions itself as part of a larger discussion rather than the entirety. And while it can be devastatingly frank about the horror of the times we live in, it presents itself as a call to action rather than an admission of defeat.