Last week I moderated a panel on abortion and popular culture at the National Abortion Federation annual meeting. It was amazing and humbling to be in a place with people who put themselves on the line each and every day when they go to work because they believe in preserving a woman’s right to her own autonomy.
Some people had to leave early and couldn’t attend the panel and asked me to post my remarks. Keep in mind that we showed a bunch of clips from TV shows and movies that deal with the issue. (I’m not posting them due to permissions issues.)
Here is my introduction to the panel:
The objective of this panel is to leave you with some thoughts about popular culture because popular culture is the way that most people outside of this room are exposed to abortion. Those images reflect choices that are made and values that are formed whether we want to believe it or not.
One of the big questions I wrestle with about pop culture is whether it affects the cultural conversation or reflects it. As a person who spends a lot of time absorbing pop culture, particularly TV and film, I would venture to say the answer is both. There are times when pop culture – particularly TV- effects behavior, values and sets an agenda. Examples I like to use are the 1984 film There’s Something About Amelia that dealt with incest, An Early Frost from 1985 that dealt with AIDS or the 1992’s Doing Time on Maple Drive about a gay teen who tried to commit suicide. Keep in mind that these examples are from a time when network TV movies were more dominant. Also think about the cultural conversation that the film Thelma and Louise started several months before the Anita Hill hearing. It touched a raw nerve and helped create a potent conversation.
The culture has softened and shifted on issues that were taboo only a short time ago and the best example is sexuality. Until recently gay people were pretty much invisible, and if they were seen they were alone and silent. But things have shifted on this issue as more people – particularly young people, a much desired demographic in the entertainment business – have grown more comfortable. While there are very few – if any- shows with gay leads, gay people are interwoven into many shows. A great example of that is Brothers and Sisters which I call the gayest show on TV. The gay rights movement has been very smart in how they have used the culture and the pro-choice movement could learn from them.
But abortion is different. And as you can tell from the clips you just saw (with film clips to come later in our discussion) we started at the top of the mountain with Maude. I just want to acknowledge Bea Arthur as Maude and Dorothy from the Golden Girls who died this past weekend for her groundbreaking characters. Maude aired on November 14, 1972 several months before the passage of Roe v Wade. CBS was not happy at all that it was taking on abortion in its first season, but Norman Lear threatened to pull the show and the network was forced to air the episodes. 65 million people watched it. (Remember that there was no cable then and very few channels)
Here’s a recent homage to the show from Entertainment Weekly on the occasion of the DVD release:
“On those rare occasions when TV dares to deal with the volatile issue of abortion, it would be unthinkable to play the subject for laughs. But then, to paraphrase the All in the Family spin-off’s theme song, there was Maude. In its second month on the air, Maude grabbed headlines as the first sitcom that dared to deal with the subject, setting a caustic, politically charged tone for the CBS series that would endure throughout its six-year run. Creator Norman Lear denies his motivation was political. ”We weren’t trying to make a statement,” he insists today. ”(At first) we asked, what’s a good, funny story and pregnancy was a great comedic idea.…”
When the show was rerun in the summer of 73, 39 of CBS’ 198 affiliates refused to air it and it ran with no ads. I can pretty much guarantee that Maude as it was written in 1972 would not make it on the air today.
Continue reading ‘Presentation from Panel on Abortion in Popular Culture’
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