This event has come, shamefully late, to my attention. I will be volunteering / donating and so should you! 

http://www.girlsrockuk.org

The importance of these kind of events cannot be overstated. I sometimes think that there is a wealth of available ‘fests’ and organizations catering for the needs of grown up feminists but the upcoming young ones often get passed by. Occasions like Girls Rock are laying the foundations for real progressive potential by reaching out to the future of feminism and direct action, and giving intelligent young wimmin the tools to deal with the daily media assaults on their burgeoning identities. They should be supported wherever and whenever possible, independently run events can so easily drop off the radar. 

In the last 2 months the entertainment ‘blogosphere’ and review section of almost every national newspaper (U.K and U.S) has been heavy with unplanned pregnancy. The spark can be traced to the recent release of the film Juno, billed as a “whip-smart”, “off-beat” teen comedy about a sixteen year old girl who discovers she is pregnant after a first time sexual experience with her best friend. To entertainment journo’s Juno immediately called to mind the apparent plethora of recent films dealing with a similar subject. Knocked Up and Waitress appear to be the two reigning examples of Hollywood’s inability to think of a new plot for their cutesy ‘indie’ (grossing $115 million in the first months) pictures, both of which end with the birth of a beautiful bouncing baby, and have identical moments of bonding with the unborn foetus at the ultrasound scan (as does Juno). All three of these films follow a similar narrative: young woman discovers she is pregnant, decides to keep the baby, baby is born, everything turns out for the best - however only in Juno is there any even oblique motions toward the possibility of an abortion. The quote taken as title for this entry is from the scene in Knocked Up that has palpably rung alarm bells in the minds of so many American journalists. Why, some 35 years post Roe v. Wade, can Hollywood still not utter the A word?

In the first, most basic order, it is problematic that these films all resolve in the decision to keep the baby. Attenuation of actuality in these mainstream youth orientated comedies is indubitably common, but even with that in mind, it is grossly misrepresenting the majority to suggest unplanned pregnancies more often than not end in the cuddly birth/heart wrenching yet morally astute adoption process. Clearly there is still, in an industry that gives us horrific sexual assaults, deaths, perversions and terrorism all in the name of entertainment, a simple rooted fear of becoming a bastion for pro-choice liberalism. Feminists in the media brought similar ideas to the fore when Sex and the city was at its peak. In one series a character gets pregnant unexpectedly and there is no serious suggestion of abortion being a viable option, even though she is a highly successful lawyer and famed for her free and single lifestyle. This from a television show that pioneered the prime time graphic sex scenes and unabashed use of the feared C word.

I find it disquieting how manifest it has become that, for Hollywood, abortion appears to be the last taboo. Even more disturbing is the fact that the young girls attracted to these films by the quirky soundtracks and sixteen prestigious award nominations are being lied to about the realities of this potentially devastating situation. If Juno is to be believed then everything will work out just fine, not only will a private closed adoption take place immediately upon your bidding but the virile and supportive young man who helped get you pregnant will turn out to be the love of your life. If Knocked Up is the very mainstay of verisimilitude then you can look forward to the male giving up his job and best friend’s approval to be with you and the child. Generally you can be assured that, although there may be hardship along the way, bringing the unwanted child into the world is the surest way to safeguard a happy ending. Of course it is patronizing and reductive to suggest that all teenage girls will take what Hollywood tells them as representative of real life or the pantheon of moral judgement, but the sheer imbalance of represented ‘sides’ here encourages the further naturalizing of an essentially Christian belief system, when surely we want young people to face an impartial conspectus and be able to make autonomous decisions.

The two main arguments that have risen around this matter are incontrovertibly rooted in either pro-choice or pro-life camps. The consensus amongst socially conservative journalists seems to be that Hollywood is perpetuating this baby boom for the necessity of generating plot. Woman falls pregnant, gets a legal, hassle-free termination a few weeks later and then gets on with her life is apparently not enough fodder for a blockbuster. Interestingly it often transpires in their review or column that said author is pro-life, whereas more liberal pro-choice writers seem to be championing the idea that showing abortion as a cogent and feasible option would upset and alienate half of America, essentially the argument I too am attempting to make here. In reading around journalists having shown an interest in this subject I came across an article by Gerard Baker in Times Online, in which he calls the alienation theory “a bit flimsy. The big studios are happy to churn out films that promote wild conspiracy theories about evil cliques of conservatives.” This may well be the case but what he neglects to ruminate on is how far “wild conspiracy theories” could affect a real life choice made by a cinema goer, and the reasons therefore why conservative Americans are happy to digest that sort of plot but would doubtless revolt if a woman was shown to make an informed decision to abort her own foetus. Baker goes on in the article to become down right fatuous and abuse his journalistic plinth as a quasi-religious high horse:

“The reality is that few people - whatever their political views - want to go and see a film where a woman chooses to have an abortion. We go to the cinema to be reminded that there are some people, on screen at least, who do the good and moral and honourable thing. And confronted with the awful trauma of an unwanted pregnancy, almost all of the time choosing to have the baby is the good and moral and honourable thing to do. Of course admitting this would be problematic for the “pro-choice” crowd. It would involve admitting that the “choice” they vehemently defend is not really a moral choice at all.”

I find his pompous suggestions of “the good and moral and honourable thing to do” too impossibly vague and incontestably steeped in religious fog to even comment on, but here is evidence of Hollywood’s target audience in full voiced ignorant throttle. If we desired even more proof that American cinema’s subtle shuffle to the right is taking herds of well meaning entertainment consumers with it we need only to see Baker’s comments (and many more identical across the online news and review community) regarding the benefits of such light hearted ‘shmashmortion’ fare: “Gone are the searing indictments of US policy in the Middle East and the moving stories about the misery of being gay in the Far West. Instead, Americans are flocking to see a succession of movies - many of which not only make you feel good, but actually are rather good.” Quite.

Clearly the embittered, and at times personal, battles surrounding this topic in the media are only abetting the vituperative mythologies surrounding the abortion debate. I am loathed to give him the virtual air-time but Baker goes on further in his article to cite such preposterously right-wing and racist ideas in support of banning abortion that I can scarcely believe he was allowed to publish it. Here he is on the similarities between abortion and slavery:

” I’m convinced that we will some day come to view it in the way we now view slavery, a moral abomination that generations simply became inured to by usage and practice. The big difference, of course, is that abortion is worse than slavery. Not just in the obvious sense that it involves the taking of life rather than liberty, but because our current debate suggests that deep down most of us really know there’s something quite wrong with abortion.”

[Emphasis mine] The “current debate” he refers to is the same as we are engaging with here, why ‘liberal Hollywood’ (as he calls it) shies away from abortion. This is a tenuous argument at best. How, in any sound analytical way, does questioning why Hollywood refuses to admit to a common and medically respected practice, prove that we “know something is wrong with abortion”? Surely the thing we identify as wrong is the right to chose being given an unfair representation in the media. In these wooly and vacuous gambits Baker only serves to further exemplify the type of conservative audience whom Hollywood is so afraid of upsetting.

I am continually referring to an American audience here as we seem to have a somewhat less blatantly anti-choice approach to abortion in European cinema. Films such as Vera Drake (grossing over $12 million) and the Romanian film 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days, which premiered in the States this week and Britain mid way through January, were both widely received as balanced and realistic portrayals of the context surrounding abortion in two very different eras (Vera Drake takes place in 1950s England and 4 months… is set in 1980’s Romania). Evidence of companies outside of Hollywood producing huge, award winning and well respected films that not only dare to mention the word ‘abortion’ but ostensibly use their plots to suggest it should not be vilified, quite blows Baker et al’s argument right out of the holy water. If European companies can do it, why not Hollywood?

I find it interesting how American audiences are going to react to 4 months… this week, having so recently enjoyed Juno. 4 months… portrays a young woman’s desperate attempts to get a late term abortion in a time and country when any sort of termination was still illegal. Compare this to the fast paced sickly saccharine dialogue and bright colours of Juno, and it is evident which film will do best at the box office. Perhaps it is a simple case that people do want cinema to be escapist, but Hollywood’s continual refusal to admit that abortion happens ensures that babies and happy adoptions will always be the escape, and abortion forever associated with the grey, dingy, ‘gritty’ detritus of modern existence. Of course an abortion can be an horrific experience, but so too can pregnancy and the wrenching surrender of a child, the lifelong battles between biological and adoptive parents, the bribery and exchanges of money, the 9 months of shame and justification, the terror of being abandoned by partners and friends whilst heavy with child. Films like 4 months… are important in that they bring the horrors of the illegal abortion process to the fore and encourage young people who do not associate coat hangers and back street clinics with terminations to be in support of legal and safe abortions as the preferable option. I still would like, for once though, to see a Kimya Dawson soundtrack and a witty cast in a film about a young woman who discovers she is pregnant, weighs up her options and decides that an abortion is best. Perhaps even a secondary character or sub plot would do if there is not enough plot potential in a happy, fluffy “well that was easy” abortion to support a whole film. What is vital here is that a well realised, accurate representation of the highs and lows of every such potentially life changing decision is played out on our screens, so that the young people who may be in these situations (not the hipster 30-somethings who write pages of their embarrassingly unconvincing dialogue) do not continue to view abortion as the desperate and shameful last resort.

Amongst my clutter of childhood memories there is a vague recollection of nine or ten year old me sitting in an English class listening to my teacher speak at length about something called “the passive voice”. The example he used to elucidate this scary new linguistic concept has stayed with me for years: “The road was crossed by the chicken”, of course the passive form of that well known chicken crossing the road. As a class we understood it instantly, and enthused, the teacher went on to deliver a stirring argument against the use of a passive voice in any form of journalistic writing, particularly news stories. I have it on good authority that this teaching is both a basic principal of Language and perhaps the foremost tenet of any journalism course, reiterated constantly to ranks of fresh faced wannabe reporters the world over.

For this reason I find myself bemused and disgusted to repeatedly discover news stories using the passive voice when reporting crimes that have a female victim, particularly instances of rape or abuse involving a male perpetrator. A basic linguistic rule that is taught to children is regularly ignored by journalists and used as an underhand tool in the subtle subjugation of vulnerable women. Take for instance these excerpts from a variety of national news websites from the last 24 hours alone, all found by entering “woman” into an MSN search engine:

(1) “Police today made an appeal for witnesses after a young teenage girl was sexually assaulted and robbed at knife point by a man in Whittlesey.”

(2) “A new mother was unlawfully killed when an epidural drug was fed into her arm via an intravenous drip, an inquest jury found.” 

(3) “Model Sally Anne Bowman was killed by a ”homicidal maniac” with a history of sexual violence in a perverted sex attack, the Old Bailey heard.”

(4) “Sabia Rani, 19, was killed by Shazad Khan. He was jailed for life for her murder in January 2007.”

These 4 sentences are prime evidence that a passive voice suggests the subject of a verb is undergoing, not executing, an action or process, often re-codifying the agency of the subjects and objects within a sentence to the detriment of the victim. Indeed the very problem with the passive voice is that it makes it possible for the subject to be removed entirely from the sentence (and ergo the situation). For example: “Model Sally Anne Bowman was killed in a perverted sex attack, the Old Bailey heard”, and it is as though the ”homicidal maniac with a history of sexual violence” had nothing at all to do with the murder. Even worse, we see in example (1) that authorities are often cited as the subject alongside an ostensibly heroic verb, whilst the real “action” (that of a brutal sexual attack on a young girl) follows meekly, with the real subject (the violent and perverse attacker) becoming a mere sideline to the event. 

The use of a passive voice in these news reports erroneously lead the reader to believe it is a story about “a woman who got attacked”, rather than about “a man attacking a woman”. At first this may seem simply to be an arbitrary grammatical issue, but in the recounting of these abhorrent crimes removing the perpetrator from the action serves to paint the picture that men don’t attack women, women simply go around getting themselves attacked. It is of concern to me that this grammatical anomaly routinely appears in stories about individual women, whilst reports of crimes committed against men or groups of people are nearly always constructed with the aggressor as the shameful subject, as well they should be. 

By situating the woman at the centre of the ‘event’ this common practice is perpetuating, however subconsciously, a sense that women are somehow to blame for the problem of gender specific crimes. In a similar way it is widespread knowledge that many women who have been raped are accused of “asking for it” by daring to wear a short skirt, appeals for protection by desperately afraid women and girls are thrown out of court because it has been proved that they engage in flirtation with men, and were therefore somehow complicit in a savage sexual assault. No less harmful than these fatal injustices, and reaffirming outdated hegemonic values, the passive voice is a huge and insidious player in the subtle attempts of trusted media outlets to continually intimidate women and portray them as accountable for the crimes of others. Clearly then Journalism classes and primary school English teachers can never reiterate the anti-passive rubric enough, as it would appear misogyny continues to permeate even the most grammatically pedantic editor’s conscious.