Hey Film Industry: "Abortion" is Not a Bad Word, Mmmkay?

Posted by Emily Farris

 

When we saw Knocked-Up last summer, we laughed a lot, sure, but we also got angry at times, because we kept thinking: this story does not end this way. Wouldn't the successful girl abort the stoner's baby after a sloppy one-night stand? But while Judd Apatow was beating around the bush, Romanian writer-director Christian Mungiu went there in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. We're guessing you know what that series represents...

The year is 1987, when Romania is still under the nightmarish police-state rule of Ceausescu and abortions are highly illegal. Nonetheless, college student Otillia (played by Anamaria Marinca) agrees to accompany her pregnant roommate, Gabita, to a man who will terminate her pregnancy. It’s a bleakly comic — but mostly bleak — journey that takes Otillia across a Bucharest ravaged by Communism, leading her to an utterly devastating decision about how far she’ll go to help a friend. Whatever your opinions about abortion, by the end of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, you’ll be grateful you live in a country where we can make such frothy movies (like Knocked Up and Juno) about such a serious subject.

 

[Via Very Short List]


Related:

Abortion Issue Heats Up... For The GOP

Send Flowers to Your Abortion Doctor

Abortion Rates are the Lowest They've Been in 30 Years and Nobody Knows Why?

Roe v. Wade 35 Years Later

Does Katherine Heigl Think Judd Apatow is "Sexist?" 


Comments

LydiaSarah said:

Sounds really interesting--but I disagree with your interpretation of Knocked Up. Why does the main character's choice to keep the fetus have to be interpreted as an attack on abortion rights? (although maybe I'm misunderstanding your objection.) And yeah, most 20-something women with goals might not be up for a stoner baby-daddy, including me, but there are those that would go through with it too, and they're not all picketing abortion clinics. I know some of them. Personally, I think it's nice to see a movie that deals with a road less taken without being anti-abortion. It's refreshing to see a point of view between the two that are generally available to us--those two being "Smart, liberated women must always terminate their unplanned pregnancies or otherwise they're just selling out to the patriarchal conservative norm" and "No woman must ever terminate a pregnancy EVER, otherwise she is a murderous jezebel!"

June 12, 2008 7:48 PM

cbroo said:

i'm an american living in germany. my roommate and i have a romanian friend who comes over about once a month for a movie night. he brings the movie. it's usually something romanian or eastern european and he doesn't tell us what the movie is about beforehand. for our last movie night, we watched "4 months 3 weeks and 2 days" -- brilliant movie, difficult for me to watch...because i had just had an abortion exactly a week before.

while it didn't make me feel grateful for "frothy movies", it most certainly made me feel really (reallyreallyreallyreeeeeallly) grateful that i'm currently living in a country where not only does the government give assistance to the people who want to keep the baby, but they also make pregnancy termination available, making both decisions (keep vs. abort) far less stigmatized (than in states, not to mention under the romanian dictatorship).

June 13, 2008 9:18 AM

ranbi said:

Nice post - but I'm pretty sure we've seen this one before about a year ago, back when this was relevant.

June 13, 2008 11:52 AM

About Emily Farris

Emily Farris writes about culture and food for numerous publications and websites you've probably never heard of, including her own blog eefers. Her first cookbook, "Casserole Crazy: Hot Stuff for Your Oven" was published in 2008. Emily recently escaped New York and now lives in a ridiculously large apartment in Kansas City, MO with her cat, but just one... so far.

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