Let’s face it: television is influential. As much as you may claim that advertising doesn’t affect you, or that you know characters on TV shows are fictional, Your “Rachel” haircut back in ’96 says you’re full of crap. If TV shows didn’t at least partially shape the way we live our lives, why would the government have offered networks millions of dollars to work anti-drug storylines into their programs? TV is powerful. The question is, is it true that with great power comes great responsibility?
I’ve always been vocal about TV not being responsible for raising your kids; that they should learn about sex from parents and school — not teen dramas. However, 90210‘s recent storyline dealing with Adrianna’s pregnancy has me wondering if shows do in fact have a responsibility: to give accurate information.
I wrote in my review last week how pissed off I was that Adrianna claimed that she couldn’t have an abortion because it was “illegal.” She wasn’t even showing, yet according to her, California law prevented her from terminating her pregnancy. The fact is, that’s just not true. According to actual California law, you can terminate a pregnancy up until you are about five or six months along. Teens don’t even need parental permission in that state.
Do I think that 90210 should have had Adrianna get an abortion? Truthfully, I don’t really care. I don’t necessarily think it’s realistic that every teen on the television landscape who ends up with an unwanted pregnancy chooses to see said pregnancy to term, but whatever. 90210, and Secret Life of an American Teenager, and any other show that deals with teen pregnancy has the right to write their storylines however they want.
What I do believe is that 90210 should have gotten their facts straight. Abortion is obviously a controversial issue, so I understand why they may have wanted to gloss over it, and while I don’t think that they should have gotten into the minutia of California law, they could have handled this better.
Either they could have made Adrianna further along, or just had her get to the clinic and pull a Juno. What they should not have done is arm teenagers watching this show at home who may currently be in a similar situation or may find themselves in one, with disinformation.
If a girl is three months pregnant and confides in a friend, do we really want that friend to say, “Oh sweetie, what are you going to do? You have to keep the baby; you’re too far along for an abortion,” because she heard that somewhere, not even remembering 90210 as the source? People obviously shouldn’t run around getting abortions willy-nilly, but people need to be armed with the facts of a situation so they can make an informed decision.
90210 can say abortion is wrong, say it is evil, say it’s only for slutty girls and heathens. That’s opinion, and that’s fine. Just don’t say it’s illegal.
Clacked by Kona Gallagher 
on Feb 05, 2009 @ 16:00 EST5EDT
I think the glossing is a load of crap. I do not understand the complete disconnect between Hollywood and abortion. A left leaning liberal community that takes on any ole issue. The only issue they continually dismiss is abortion. I honestly don’t think there has been an HONEST depiction of pregnancy or abortion since Maude, for craps sake!
If anyone knows why this is, I would love to know. It doesn’t exactly help the cause for women’s rights when every pregnant woman in a fictional Hollyweird role either has the baby or loses it by accident. Or, in the case of All My Children, has an abortion 20 years ago and then the baby pops up a grown man. Seriously – WTF?
To Kona’s specific gripe about misinformation – I guess no one will ever know whether it was lazy writing or something else.
Modwild- I don’t know how honest Hollywood can be regarding abortion or anything else for that matter. It’s Hollywood after all. Fiction.
50 million abortions, 50 million human beings murdered. Maybe that’s why Hollywood treads softly around this issue. It’s about advertising/movie dollars after all, and there’s still enough people around that find horror in that number. Just my opinion.
Even though bsgfan2003 has his/her facts horribly wrong regarding the “murder” or “human beings” (I don’t want this to turn into a flame war, but you’re the one that worded it in that highly-biased way), he/she is right about it being one reason that Hollywood tip-toes around the issue. First of all, they don’t want to deal with the angry fundamentalists. However, another reason is that there often isn’t a story line if the woman gets an abortion, the movie Juno wouldn’t have existed without the pregnancy.
Actually, a story about the struggle to make a decision about abortion and what happens to the character afterward would make a hell of a tv episode or an incredible movie. I guess in order to see it, I’ll have to write it myself.
As to the other issue, liberal hollyweird has no problem offending fundamentalist Christians in a myriad of other ways, so I don’t understand the big barrier with this particular topic. Maybe they’ll jump out from under the covers with Obama to protect them.
Sorry Lisa, the facts are the facts – 50 million since Roe VS. Wade. I don’t want to argue either, but I am passionate about life. All life.
“The figure comes from analysis from the National Right to Life Committee, based on data from the Alan Guttmacher Institute. AGI, a research group affiliated with Planned Parenthood, compiles what both sides on abortion believe are the most accurate abortion statistics.”
I’m passionate about life too, but a bunch of cells without awareness or consciousness is not life anymore then that chicken that you ate for dinner was. We can say that there have been 50 million abortions, but not murders or human lives. So, I think you misunderstood.
However, I’m willing to let this go if you are so the thread can be what it’s about, which is Hollywood’s approach to the abortion issue, not our disagreement. ;)
Lisa, we can’t really say that bsgfan2003 misunderstood, since your initial post stated his or her facts were wrong, when what you were actually objecting to was the specific language used.
On any divisive issue such as this, each side will attempt to couch the dialogue in its own favorable terms in order to control the argument. Even an earlier comment in this thread narrows down the philosophies and religions opposed to abortions to, not only merely Christians, but specifically fundamentalist Christians. This makes the group seem both smaller and more extreme, so we may more easily dismiss their viewpoint. I can’t fault bsgfan2003 for his or her linguistic framework.
Lastly, I’m uncertain as to the point of your analogy. Was the chicken never alive, or is this a free-range, quality of life thing?
Lisa – I don’t see the chicken to human baby comparison. Would it be ok for a person to walk into labor and delivery and ask to eat the 12 week old baby that a mother just miscarried? No, Why not? Because this is a human being baby we are talking about.
Rationalizing cannot create one blade of grass from nothing. Please consider that when you compare the complex lifeform of a human baby with a piece of chicken or use cold antiseptic language like tissue.
One of us is headed for for a correction.
Although I would love to explore where we could find common ground, I can agree to disagree, all the best to you.
Ryan, I’m not so sure that bsgfan2003 didn’t misunderstand my initial point, because what he/she replied with didn’t address my point at all, rather pointing out the number of abortions that he/she mentioned was correct when really I was objecting to their framing of the issue.
My point with the chicken thing was that we’re generally ok with killing things when we believe they are lower forms of life and not really cognizant of their existence, such as I believe about a fetus before the third trimester. I didn’t really phrase it correctly, my apologies.
Bsgfan2003, I’m sure one area that we agree is that it would be great if there were less abortions, and we could prevent women who don’t want children from becoming pregnant in the first place. I just don’t think that an internet forum is the greatest place for bridging gaps when so many things are left up to interpretation and misunderstanding.
Also, not all Christians object to abortion, hence my choice of language.
I think that bsgfan2003 misunderstood originally because his or her rebuttal to your objection sourced the 50 million figure, rather than addressing the language. I felt that your use of the term “facts” with regard to the framing confused him or her. Regardless, I’m sure we’re all on the same page now.
I see your point regarding lower (or perhaps non-intelligent) forms of life, but am also aware that not all people agree on that distinction concerning fetuses (although it doesn’t affect my view on the issue one way or another).
Sorry! I thought that Modwild had interjected “fundamentalist Christians” out of the blue. I missed that you had raised the term first in your initial post.
By any chance are we going to get an actual episode review about the Ep from 2/3/09? Cause there are other storylines as opposed to just the abortion one.
This is why Hollywood needs to take a hint from Canadian TV. But then, the two countries have different value systems, or so they reflect on TV and on film.