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Solondz, women, and false relativism SPOILER WARNING

posted 18 years ago by comolaflores
23 replies | jump to latest

This started out as a reply to another thread, but I decided it deserves its own thread, instead, and it's somewhat more developed here. Spoilers are sprinkled throughout:

The "abortion --> hysterectomy" development is a major plot line in the film. However, because it's in keeping with movies' squeamishness with abortion (if a character has one, she has to "pay" for it in some way, by having emotional or physical anguish afterwards, even though the vast majority of women having abortions don't have those experiences) Solondz unfortunately has to play with reality in order to accomplish it.
The doctor is shown telling her parents that she had a hysterectomy done on her without her knowledge while she was under anesthesia from the abortion. She is shown waking up in the clinic, and her parents elect not to tell her, and as the movie progresses we see that she never finds out. But there are several reasons why this is impossible: 1) A hysterectomy is major surgery - the little storefront clinic Aviva is in would never have been able to perform it. She would have been transfered to a hospital. 2) Similarly, the recovery period for a hysterectomy is weeks long - Aviva would have been hospitalized for weeks, and there's no way she would not have noticed the pain she was in, or the surgical scar, or the fact that she was in a hospital. Yet in the movie she is shown walking out of the clinic the same day. 3) Even if you discount the first two reasons, Aviva would have noticed in the weeks and months afterwards that she was not getting her period, and therefore was incapable of getting pregnant. Yet we see her gamely trying to get pregnant with the trucker guy.

And yes, the film does play quite obviously with reality in other ways: chiefly the choosing of different actors and actresses to play Aviva at different stages. But the way abortion is portrayed is not on that realm: he's trying to say that this *is* the experience of abortion, and then with that as a foundation,(which has to be real in order for his argument to work), he then introduces other elements of the plot, and other fantastical elements, like Mama Sunshine and her kids, and the different actors.

So, even though the kind of complications of abortion as portrayed in the film are extremely rare (much more rare than complications of actual birth, by the way, especially for a 12-year-old like Aviva), Solondz chose to use this as his arc. Why? Is it fair to criticize him for distorting this complex phenomenon to its worst-case and most-rare scenario? Other people on this board would say no: that this is simply an artistic choice he's making, and it's done all the time in movies: movie psychiatrists are always twisted or tormented individuals, in movies, characters in labor always push out babies in record-breaking time, and have a much higher likelihood of having to be driven across the city by some nervous panicky driver, causing comic highjinks. So, is it fair to say that Solondz is being, himself, unfair, for employing a similar distortion here?

Yes. And here's why: the question of abortion is pretty damned central to women's status as human beings, and to their very survival: every country in which abortion is illegal has much higher maternal death rates, and all you have to do is check out stats by the World Health Organization to confirm this. It's a right women have fought long and hard to be able to gain, and in this country it's being attacked from all sides (and the movie did explore the way this is attacked, in the callous murder of abortion doctors -- although I wonder what Solondz is trying to say when the true tragedy is **SPOILER WARNING** that the bullet hits the child instead, implying that the real problem with murdering doctors is mainly that you might not succeed in killing your intended target?)

Anyway, I digress. Why do I say that it's unfair of Solondz to join on the bandwagon of how nearly every single movie, song, or TV show treats abortion? Abortion is treated, in these art forms, as either a) unspeakable, meaning, literally, the option is never mentioned even when the pregant woman is too young, too unstable, too selfish, etc, to have a baby; b) okay, you're allowed to say it's a woman's right, but only as long as you don't exercise it (see Sex and the City, Good in Bed, etc) or c) on the rare, rare occasion that a character has one, it has to leave her with emotional scars (Six Feet Under, Nine Lives) or physical scars (21 Grams) or destroy her fertility altogether (Palindromes). And yet, if women didn't have the right to have abortion, without fear or shame, it would be reducing them to slaves of their own bodies. This is a right that's fiercely under attack from people who don't even think women have the right to birth control. (Find me an anti-abortion organization that supports birth control, and I'll eat my hat. Not even "Feminists" for "Life" supports it.) And yet look how it gets eroded and attacked in the cultural sphere! To make my point, imagine if, in 1973, divorce had finally been made legal, and women's right to live with a husband of their choosing, rather than being forced by the government to remain married when they no longer wanted to be, had only just been granted. Now imagine that every movie that ever touched on the subject of divorce portrayed it as unspeakable, or a right that should never ever actually be exercised, or as something that will always scar a woman physically or emotionally! Not one movie in which a woman finally gets the courage to leave a stifling or abusive marriage and for whom divorce is a liberating thing.

If that were the case with movies about divorce, you would reasonably be able to draw several conclusions: 1) the movies were being dishonest, because that's not the actual experience of divorce in this country, and while divorce can be painful and terribly sad, it sometimes is exactly what is needed, especially when a one partner wants to control or even abuse the other partner; and 2) you'd also conclude that the question of women's liberation from bad marriages was not being treated fairly in films. You'd say: why is divorce always being shown as a horror, when it's shown at all? Are filmmakers trying to say that it's bad to be able to choose whether you stay married or not? And you'd, rightly, be pretty pissed. Well, that's what the situation is with abortion in movies and songs and TV -- the actual experience is distorted and twisted, and the sum total ends up saying some things about abortion that simply aren't true.

Back to Palindromes: The main tragedy in Aviva's life, as portrayed in the film, is not that she's a 12-year-old girl who has no other ambitions in life but to be a mother -- something which, societally, is a major, major problem. No, this is lost in the wave of horror Solondz gives her. The main problem isn't that he callously manipulated facts about biology to do it, although that's a sign that he's got an agenda. The main problem is this: Solondz wanted to make a film in which abortion, even when it's clearly the right choice (this girl is in no way mature enough to be a mother, and carrying the pregnancy to term is risky for a 12-year-old) is terribly harmful and turns the girl into a runaway, a murderer, a lost soul. She has a desire which is a sign of how young girls are devalued in this society -- again, think of how from a very young age she thinks that her only validation is to be a mother -- and yet, when she is saved from having her terrible wish fulfilled, that destroys her. Given the terrible things that happen to her as (Solondz argues) are a result of her abortion, it would've been better to have become a mother at age 12. Waaaait a minute -- what kind of a *beep*ing argument is that to make? Either a) Solondz agrees with that, which would cast a pretty bad light on whether he thinks women should aspire to be anything other than mothers, or b) what's more likely, he thinks both paths are equally *beep*ed up, and there's simply no hope at all for young girls like Aviva. Well, Solondz, abortion is not, in actual fact, worse than becoming a mother at age 12 because you think motherhood is your only value and you're tragically impatient to get there, because you think nothing else you could do with your young life is as good as that. (How many 12-year-old boys exist in the world who think that their only real value is as fathers? How many 12-year-old boys in the world sit making lists of their potential babies' names?)

It's not, as some reviewers and posters have said, that the film portrays "both sides" as equal. On closer look, here's what he says about the anti-abortion side: They are portrayed as people who, at their heart, have pretty good ideas, about caring for every child, no matter how disabled (look at Mama Sunshine and her array of children, and how loving and warm she is portrayed), and giving every fertilized egg a chance to become a baby. They are portrayed as people who would be good, if they weren't also hypocritical (meaning, not living up to an ideal that they should live up to) -- they judge Aviva as a "whore", and they are so misguidedly zealous in their desire to protect all zygotes that they kill doctors in the process. But, overall, they are portrayed as people whose moral core is basically good, and the tragedy is that they have strayed from it.
And the pro-choice side? Their only portrayal is Ellen Barkin, shown as being materialistic (it's as if there is no moral argument for not having a child when you don't want to, and the only arguments Solondz allows her to make are callous, shallow materialistic ones). And the ultimate effect of abortion is shown as being terrible. I'm sorry, but this is not only *not* even-handed, but Solondz ends up siding with, and portraying as morally superior, people who think women's role in society is principally to produce children!

And so, in what turned out to be a longer post than I meant, ultimately this movie is making a pretty backward argument about women, and hopes for any kind of liberating vision, and a pretty retrograde argument about abortion. He probably meant well, but he makes a fatal assumption to start with: he thinks that, since there are two sides to this argument, they both must be equally wrong and equally right. Not always, Solondz -- there are "two sides" to the debate over whether Black people are intellectually inferior, and there are "two sides" to the debate over whether global warming exists or it's just some strange invention by thousands upon thousands of scientists. But those "two sides" are ... right, and wrong. It's the same here.

On a societal level, the two visions for women are *not* equal. Taking away a woman's right to abortion is the forceful reassertion of male domination -- this is not "moral"!! This vision of women's role in society states that women should not have the right to birth control and abortion, which can only mean that whenever they engage in sex, they do so with the fear that they will again get pregnant. (For those who dismiss what a real tragedy this is, check out this link, to a blog of someone who is trying to reconcile Christian views on birth control with their desire to not have any more painful and problematic pregnancies. http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2007/02/18/a-christian-man-considers-contraception/

What view of women is expressed in not allowing women to prevent pregnancy? )

The other side thinks that women should have the right to decide when they have sex, with whom, and that when they do engage in sex, they have the right to have birth control, because they have the right to enjoy sex without paying for it with pregnancy. It also says that once women do become pregnant, it would be wrong to force them to remain so, because that would be violating the autonomy of their bodies.

It would have been a far better film if, rather than sticking to stereotypes, on all sides, and false claims of moral equivalency, he would have had the courage to go deeper. What if he had focused on the question: why is it that a young woman is willing to risk her life, her future, her whole selfhood, for the sake of having a baby? What kind of world is this, if this is what goes on? Who in society thinks that's just as it should be, and who in society wants to change it? Is it possible to change this? Why or why not?

Thoughts?

[–] IDinProgress 17 years ago

If that were the case with movies about divorce, you would reasonably be able to draw several conclusions: 1) the movies were being dishonest, because that's not the actual experience of divorce in this country, and while divorce can be painful and terribly sad, it sometimes is exactly what is needed, especially when a one partner wants to control or even abuse the other partner; and 2) you'd also conclude that the question of women's liberation from bad marriages was not being treated fairly in films. You'd say: why is divorce always being shown as a horror, when it's shown at all? Are filmmakers trying to say that it's bad to be able to choose whether you stay married or not?

Movies show the tragedy of divorce all the time. That said, I can't think of any movie where it's suggested that women should stay with abusive husbands (or that men should stay with abusive wives, for that matter). A piece of fiction is not obligated to address all possible sides of an issue. If a movie is about a man and a woman who divorce and how tragic that is, the filmmaker is not obligated to step in and say "By the way, even though in this case, the divorce might be tragic, if Mrs. Divorcee was being abused by her husband, then divorce would be the best thing for her because nobody deserves to stay in a rotten marriage". If that's the way movies and books were to work from now on, I'd not bother with them at all. They teach you that kind of thing in a debate club, not in film school. And there's nothing worse than a book or movie that confirms your beliefs and pats you on the back, saying "You're a good person". Movies are supposed to make you think, but also to make you feel. And the writers make what movies they want to make, not what movies they think are the most socially responsible. If a writer wants to write about an abusive marriage, he or she can, but not all writers who write about divorce will want to handle such a situation and that's their right. People don't write to be socially responsible, they write because they have stories to tell. And if a couple divorces because they simply fell out of love, it's up to the audience to realize that not all divorces are a result of this. And of course I hope the point of the movie isn't just to condemn divorce because that would be horrible as well. I hope the point is to show the lives of the characters and to have the audience think about what they've just seen.

By the way, I can think of two books where a woman gets an abortion and nothing too terrible happens as a result.

Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen. An abused wife gets an abortion. She isn't totally unaffected by the procedure, but it doesn't ruin her life and it's portrayed as the best possible choice she could have made, from what I remember. But maybe I'm remembering wrong.

The Good Mother by Sue Miller. A woman has an abortion and that's that. I don't think it's ever mentioned again in the book. Furthermore, she was kinda pressured into having the abortion by her boyfriend, but she claimed she didn't really want the baby either, from what I remember. And she ended up breaking up with the boyfriend too, but not as a result of the abortion.

Then there's The Cider House Rules, which came across as very pro-choice to me (I saw the movie). And I know for a fact that the author is vehemently pro-choice. I don't think that anywhere in the movie a woman or girl was punished, psychologically or physically, for having an abortion. Except for the girl who went to a back alley butcher, but that was just to further promote the pro-choice message.

This sucks worse than I Heart Huckabees ----Stewie Griffin

[–] comolaflores 17 years ago

Wow, I'd assumed nobody would revive this thread again, since it'd been silent for so long. There are a lot of good, thoughtful posts on here, and hopefully I'll have some more time to join back in later.

As one point to chew on, however, re: Aviva's mother forcing her daughter to get an abortion: if Aviva were addicted to drugs or alcohol, or if she were hanging out with a really dangerous crowd, and her mother forced her to go to treatment, or forced her to change schools or neighborhoods so that she were away from the bad influences, would you view that in the same way as forcing her to get an abortion? What if Aviva were trying to get married at age 12 (which in some states you can do with parental permission) or drop out of junior high school?

Parenting a teenager whose body has developed the ability to do dangerous or potentially dangerous things -- have unprotected sex, snort cocaine, get drunk, etc -- before their brain has caught up in terms of judgment and impulse control, is really very hard. You are constantly trying to evaluate when to let the kids make their own mistakes, much as you might disagree; when you would like to try and rescue them but know it won't work, much as they might need rescuing; when to forcibly rescue them from themselves whether it will work or not because the consequences of not doing so are unacceptable. Aviva isn't using -- and isn't really capable, at 12, of using -- any decent judgment and is treating the permanent and life-altering decision of motherhood as a childish game, all cute and flowery with names like "Wendi" (with a little circle over the "i") and is swallowing a really *beep*-up notion that in motherhood she's fulfilling her destiny. Hopefully with time she'll outgrow those things, but her mother, in forcing her daughter to get an abortion, is trying to rescue her daughter from a fate that would *far, far* outlast her 12-year-old's naivete and temporary insanity. As a parent, she has that right and that responsibility, and I think she uses it wisely.

Thoughts?

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] IDinProgress 16 years ago

Aviva isn't using -- and isn't really capable, at 12, of using -- any decent judgment and is treating the permanent and life-altering decision of motherhood as a childish game, all cute and flowery with names like "Wendi" (with a little circle over the "i") and is swallowing a really *beep*-up notion that in motherhood she's fulfilling her destiny. Hopefully with time she'll outgrow those things, but her mother, in forcing her daughter to get an abortion, is trying to rescue her daughter from a fate that would *far, far* outlast her 12-year-old's naivete and temporary insanity. As a parent, she has that right and that responsibility, and I think she uses it wisely.

The mother doesn't help her daughter at all. She gets her an abortion and that's the extent to which she goes to help her. She doesn't try to understand what it was that made her daughter want a baby in the first place. She doesn't even tell her daughter that she's sterile---so now the daughter not only doesn't know something important about her own body, she's free to go on having sex in the hopes of getting pregnant again. She's not been saved at all. The mother took care of the surface problem but the number one issue wasn't dealt with at all. I think far too many people treat abortion as if it's a quick fix.

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"Pike isn't a name. It's a fish."

[–] pricilla-ann-cox 16 years ago

A lot of what you said makes me sad, and I will send good thoughts your way, but what made me most sad was that you think a woman whose ambition is to be a mother is a problem. I'm glad women aren't forced to be stay-at-home mothers anymore, but for the women who want to, for the women that find strength and happiness in that, why is that wrong? I hope to someday be a stay-at-home mom and housewife (it's sad that finding a man who thinks that is good is hard to do) and I can not think of one thing more empowering than creating and raising a child, and creating a home. I mean, we're molding lives here! I'm sad that so many people see motherhood like you do. It makes it hard for me and others who feel the same. I hope somewhere along the line, you begin to see how wonderful being a women in. Your body will never enslave you... even without the right to "choose" and birth control. Your body will set you free.

[–] Jezabella 16 years ago

I think you missed the point that this film was trying to make. Women have been fighting for the right to safe, legal abortion; to have control over their own reproduction. Here is a (fictional) situation where someone is fighting to be able to have a baby, not to keep from having one. The whole "Pro-Choice" argument is being able having the option of safe abortion so a woman has a choice in their reproduction. The girl in this movie had that choice taken away from her. I see it as showing how important options are, and being forced into having or not having a child is the same backwards and forwards. It takes away freedom. Maybe the movie is saying the girl is as just as much a victim as a girl being forced into having a child she doesn't want.

"And cut! Print. We're moving on. That was perfect."

-Ed Wood

[–] winston441984 16 years ago

The stay in a hospital for a hysterectomy is usually 3 days.

[–] Cashie101 16 years ago

Your criticism is an absolute execution of pettiness and the selective collection of evidence, as well as among the most common misinterpretations of Solondz' that stems from predetermined biases and presumptions on Solondz' character, morality, and intentions. None of which (and this is not directed specifically to you) are misanthropic or partisan-oriented, but simply objective, dissonant descriptions of situations that cannot be classified as black and white, even though this is the most common, comfortable, and terrible way in which humans enact their judgments of others.

He is not siding with anyone. Abortion is likely the "best" "choice" in Aviva's case, because she is so young. It is practical, and it often is. But this does not make it any less horrifying. Whether or not you think abortion should be executed is not the issue. It is the fact that it so often is and, perhaps, has to be. Abortion is an example of human tragedy, the fact that clumps of cells and nonexistence are so commonly the only possibility. Even when life is desired, reality does not allow it to thrive. That is beautifully tragic. There is nothing political about it.

The conservatives in this movie are not portrayed as more intelligent, they are just sympathized with. Their intentions are good. But their logic is compared to that of a naive thirteen year old girl who wants to keep a baby. You over-passionate dolt.

Here is an explicit quote from him that should clear it up:

"It is true that the movie is perhaps my most politically-charged. The story is thrust into motion by the idea of what do you do when your 13 year old daughter comes home pregnant. And not only is she pregnant, but she wants to keep the baby. It's kind of an impossible dilemma. For many a lose-lose proposition. The movie is not dogmatic. It's not out to advocate a position pro-choice or pro-life for that matter. But rather to explore some of the moral dimension of what it means to take on certain kinds of convictions. Trying to force the audience in some sense to re-assess, re-evaluate some of the pre-conceptions and myths that we live with."

Everyone who misunderstands Solondz has made the mistake of entering it with the desire for some kind of resolve or. Along with Park Chan-Wook, he's among the directors that unknowing critics, who have transcended nothing and live in detached forms of reality based entirely on words, symbols, and formal education in lieu of actual experience, should keep their pretentious, pseudo-insightful, political, simplistic thought processes away from.

Get over your silly little morals and politics. There's beauty in these films that is more than all of that tripe.

[–] blacknyellowsquid 15 years ago

It is practical, and it often is. But this does not make it any less horrifying. Whether or not you think abortion should be executed is not the issue. It is the fact that it so often is and, perhaps, has to be. Abortion is an example of human tragedy, the fact that clumps of cells and nonexistence are so commonly the only possibility. Even when life is desired, reality does not allow it to thrive. That is beautifully tragic.

Aw, Cashie! That's one of the sadder little statements I've come across about abortion, if not somewhat unusual (which is not a bad thing). The way you worded it does make it seem all sad in a poetic way and not the more literal political/biological/religious way people look at it. Poor little clump of unrealized cells.

[–] tnesla 15 years ago

Alright, I realize this is a rather old thread that's also been inactive for a while but a project of mine revived my interest in this movie I first saw a couple of years ago.

@comolaflores who wrote:

"It would have been a far better film if, rather than sticking to stereotypes, on all sides, and false claims of moral equivalency, he would have had the courage to go deeper. What if he had focused on the question: why is it that a young woman is willing to risk her life, her future, her whole selfhood, for the sake of having a baby? What kind of world is this, if this is what goes on? Who in society thinks that's just as it should be, and who in society wants to change it? Is it possible to change this? Why or why not? "

First off, saying that a film would have been better if focused on x rather than y, is like saying an omelet would have been better if it had bread in it instead of ham. It'd be a French toast if it had bread in it! It makes far more sense to critique the choices and story-telling of a film with respect to the ingredients of its own narrative universe. Otherwise it'd be as absurd as standing in front of a painting and saying "hmm, this part needed more egg white, not yellow".

Secondly, seeing that you chose to treat the abortion issue as if the major theme of Palindromes, thus employ it as your vehicle to critique the film, I'm not surprised that you seem to have missed all the questions Solondz implied in disturbing yet beautiful ambivalence and left to the viewer to ponder on. Questions about self-sacrifice, martyrdom complex, giving-taking, Christian notion of love, fundamentalism, different kinds of child abuse, family as an uncanny institution, the morbid quality of humanism etc. Some of these issues already relate to the questions you wrote you'd rather see having dealt in the movie, so why expecting the director to finger your eyes or mine? Is it because you were too occupied over-reading Solondz' take on abortion that you missed how the film itself communicated these?

Personally I'm fed up with seeing judgmental and resentful commentary of feminist kind every time a brilliant director like Solondz or Von Trier makes hard-to-digest movies devoid of political correctness. I'm not afraid to call myself a feminist and have no problem taking issues with misogynistic representation when I see one, but there are far more tangible issues out there which need a more authentic, active and urgent feminist critique than going on and on and on about 'justification of male-dominant ideology of body-politics and Solondz' pseudo-relativist portrayal of abortion in Palindromes'. I don't mean to offend anybody- but I listened and read enough of such formulaic feminist film critique of cultural studies/ comp lit. grad school kind.

Nevertheless, thank you for the original post. It did provoke quite some thought and dialogue, looking at the responses.

[–] elephantoats 15 years ago

It's hard to point to a concrete view of women in this movie. That kind of analysis can be made when you look at an entire genre or period of film where the same models of women are reproduced over and over. That is the task of theory. You are obviously knee deep in theory, but you seem to be using this movie as a foil to discuss your political views rather than fully investigating its themes.

I don't believe that the "vast majority" of women have no emotional or physical consequences after an abortion. Where are you getting this information? I've heard a lot of abortion stories, and there is always some level of trauma-- maybe not crippling or severe, but it does register emotionally. Pro-choice activists who've had abortions stress to the opposition that it's not a selfish, perfunctory process that you just breeze through-- there is a lot of deep thought and a lot of anguish, it's not a decision or experience a woman enjoys, etc.

As for all the stuff about how Aviva would have been hospitalized, it's the most rare scenario, etc. Who cares? It's a movie, a fable. Nothing in the movie is realistic. The acting isn't serious. The editing is weird. The whole movie is distorted. Get real. You are right, this isn't the most typical abortion, but I agree with the other poster who said that a routine, uncomplicated abortion doesn't make for as interesting a narrative. There really is no good reason for a filmmaker to go with the most common situation. Plus, a twelve year old girl getting knocked up by a sixteen year old boy after spending just five minutes with him is extremely rare too. The whole story is implausible, so why should any part follow average events.

Also, why does Aviva's outcome have to represent a statement about the fate of girls who get abortions, her "punishment" and everything? I don't believe this is how filmmakers (or audiences) think anymore. That has more to do with hays code hollywood of the past.. where certain behaviors had to have particular consequences.. murderers weren't allowed to get off, etc. In this movie, I don't know, a bunch of F'd up stuff happens, and then some other stuff happens. It's postmodern. There is no symbolic order. Observations are made, cognitive dissonance is administered, a little humor, some perversion, and some experimenting. It doesn't ask to be taken so literally or seriously.

Anyway, I don't think this movie is primarily about abortion. You say Solondz suggests his abortion story 'is' the experience of abortion. That doesn't make any sense. There isn't one experience of abortion, and nobody can lay claim to the definitive telling of any experience. Solondz especially doesn't do this if you bothered to even read any of his actual ideas that you didn't make up.

"What if he had focused on the question: why is it that a young woman is willing to risk her life, her future, her whole selfhood, for the sake of having a baby? What kind of world is this, if this is what goes on? Who in society thinks that's just as it should be, and who in society wants to change it? Is it possible to change this? Why or why not?"

He did focus on those questions. Those questions came to you because of the movie, and similar questions came to me. The movie raises a lot more questions than it answers, which is why I have a problem with your reading. You keep listing all the claims made in the movie, but you don't explain how they are made. Where are the claims of moral relativity? Just because opposing views are presented doesn't mean they are presented as equal.

"...he thinks that, since there are two sides to this argument, they both must be equally wrong and equally right."

What? Where are you getting this? How do you know what he thinks? Is it even possible to hold two contradicting opinions at once? This makes no sense. Oh, but then you eventually decide that his sympathies lie with the pro-life movement. Well, I didn't get the idea he was siding with the god squad family whatsoever. They are shown as totally ridiculous people. Yes, mamma sunshine is portrayed as warm and loving, but that is just how these christians actually are. They seem warm and loving, but they are also doing a lot of damage. I think this movie shows that. Disabled people are coddled, which is problematic because it reinforces the idea that there is something wrong with them rather than with the society that doesn't include them, a society where they have to sometimes submit to a zealous ideology in order to receive care.

[–] usernumber655321 15 years ago

Thank you elephantoats and UserY for saving me a lot of time.

The OP's posts are indeed a perfect representation of one of this film's themes;
The human tendency to deeply fear our own moral inadequacy, as though the presumption of morals themselves isn't a coping device to deal with the absurdity of existence and the feared lack of an individual identity. Someone so entrenched as the OP is in their own moral superiority has no chance whatsoever to have the slightest clue as to Solondz' existential themes. Given the OP's moral superiority specific to 'abortions', this is certainly not a film intended for her. It is clear that from the outset, she was trapped just by the fact that a character in the film has to deal in any way with abortion. As soon as that happened, her own moral priorities assumed flight and disassembled the movie incorrectly and completely from there. Not only could she not see the forest, but she didn't even notice any trees.

Solondz, women, and false relativism *SPOILER WARNING*

Solondz, women, and false relativism SPOILER WARNING