Start Date
12-6-2011 9:30 AM
End Date
12-6-2011 12:00 PM
Subject Areas
activism, bodies, class, family, feminist, gender, motherhood, politics, race, reproduction, sexuality
Abstract
The representation of the abortion issue in American film has been deeply affected by the social and historical climate within which these representations are produced. However, this does not mean that representations will accurately, or even remotely, resemble the lived experience of people going through the struggle of abortion decisions at any given time. Rather, the representations created are more a reflection of political, social, medical and religious discourse at the time of the films’ productions. Drawing from Screening Choice: The Abortion Narrative in American Film 1900-2000 (Verlang 2009) and focused on Where Are My Children? (Lois Weber 1916) MacGibbon explores how these external discourses helped create early representations of several key figures in the story of abortion: Upper- Class American Women, Working- Class American Women and Lower- Class Immigrant Women. Examining the difference in representation at the turn of the last century – reveals how immigrant populations were used as justification for legalizing birth control, how White American women seeking to control their reproductive lives were demonized ,and how abortion became the straw man in this debate.
Keywords
Film, Sexuality, Class, Race, Representation, Abortion, Reproduction, Birth Control, American History, Politics, Religion, Feminism, Immigrants
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
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Reproduction, Nationalism, Class and Women: Lois Weber's Where are My Children? (1916)
The representation of the abortion issue in American film has been deeply affected by the social and historical climate within which these representations are produced. However, this does not mean that representations will accurately, or even remotely, resemble the lived experience of people going through the struggle of abortion decisions at any given time. Rather, the representations created are more a reflection of political, social, medical and religious discourse at the time of the films’ productions. Drawing from Screening Choice: The Abortion Narrative in American Film 1900-2000 (Verlang 2009) and focused on Where Are My Children? (Lois Weber 1916) MacGibbon explores how these external discourses helped create early representations of several key figures in the story of abortion: Upper- Class American Women, Working- Class American Women and Lower- Class Immigrant Women. Examining the difference in representation at the turn of the last century – reveals how immigrant populations were used as justification for legalizing birth control, how White American women seeking to control their reproductive lives were demonized ,and how abortion became the straw man in this debate.