Tag: Infertility, Miscarriage & Infant Loss Week

When Life Gives You Infertility, Make Your House Fly: Found Family in ‘UP’

Carl and Ellie in their home
This is a guest post written by Talia Liben Yarmush for our theme week on Infertility, Miscarriage, and Infant Loss.

Pixar’s UP begins with young Carl, an adventure-admiring, imaginative boy meeting his match in young Ellie. The two hit it off instantly with their shared interest in everything adventure, and the first eleven and a half minutes are an ode to their lifelong mutual devotion to each other. They become fast friends; they fall in love, marry, and build a life together. The only thing missing? After Ellie suffers a miscarriage, the two are immeasurably saddened by the loss of this baby. In an attempt to fill the void, Carl establishes an “Adventure Fund,” so that together they may one day be able to live what they always dreamed. However, with each passing year comes a new obstacle, requiring them to deplete their funds over and over again. Until one day, Ellie, old and weak, dies. And Carl is left alone with sadness and regret at not giving Ellie her big adventure. When I saw UP in the theater, I was sitting next to my husband, a man I met when I was 14, became best friends with, married, and was now going through infertility treatments with. So, this intro hit pretty close to home.

As I see it, the two infertility themes in this story are miscarriage and living childfree. Despite my vast experience with infertility, I am not personally familiar with either of these. I have, thankfully, never had a miscarriage (although during one very painful episode of endometrial bleeding, my husband and I were sure that I was in the midst of one), and thanks to IVF, I now have two sons. I can tell you that the first theme, miscarriage, is shown in only seconds, and it is a scene that will remain with you throughout the entire film. In thirty seconds, this animated family film is able to portray the loss in such a visceral way that even if you have never had an experience like it, you will be brought to tears. And I can tell you that the second theme, living childfree, is complicated and filled with mixed emotions. Carl, tormented by his inability to give his wife what she wanted, finally realizes by the end of the film that Ellie’s life with him was her adventure, and that she was happy with it. Many couples must make the difficult decision whether to keep trying, to continue fertility treatments, to hope that the next cycle works, that the next pregnancy sticks, to attempt adoption, or to somehow find a way to come to terms with a life without children. Some couples make this decision. But for some, the decision is made for them.

Carl and Ellie prepare the nursery for their baby
The question is what to do once that decision has been made. Once an infertile couple mourns the loss of a life without children and finds peace with their new reality, can the void ever be filled by something or someone else? Ellie, as we learn, was happy and satisfied with the life she lived with Carl. But once Ellie died, Carl was left alone. No children. Just memories and unfounded regret. Until he meets Russell. Russell reminds Carl of the boy he once was, and of the girl he married. He reminds him of the family he wanted with Ellie, and of the adventures they’d hoped to go on. Some view Russell as the child that Carl never had. In fact, we find out that Russell himself has an absent father, so Russell was searching for a father just as much as Carl was searching for a son. But I don’t see it in those terms. Russell is a friend, he is a companion, he is a playmate. Russell is Carl’s family. Because we don’t always get to live the life that we had planned. But we do get to choose a great many things. We can choose to keep on fighting for what we want. Or we can choose to make peace with the lives that we have. And, most importantly, we can choose our family, even if we can’t create them ourselves.
———-

Talia Liben Yarmush is a freelance writer and editor. She is also an infertile mother who writes her own blog, The Accidental Typist.

‘Away We Go’: Infertility and the Indie Film

Movie poster for Away We Go
This is a guest post by LD Anderson and appears as part of our theme week on Infertility, Miscarriage, and Infant Loss. 
Away We Go (2009) was part of a spate movies a few years ago that were marketed as “Indie”—with hand-drawn title cards and twee soundtracks—regardless of the film’s studio or budget or anything else. When I finally watched it on DVD, having missed it in the theater, I was disappointed. One of the main reasons was how it treated the issues of infertility and miscarriage, but I’ll get to that.
John Krasinski (The Office) and Maya Rudolph (Saturday Night Live) play Burt and Verona, a struggling thirty-something couple who unexpectedly find themselves pregnant. Verona’s parents are dead, so when Burt’s parents announce that they’re leaving the country, Burt and Verona hit the road to visit friends in search of a chosen family for their child. 
Burt and Verona
There are a few things that I like a lot about this movie, and I want to address those first. I liked the fact that Burt and Verona are an interracial couple. I appreciate the way that the movie takes the idea of chosen family so seriously. I liked the relationship between Burt and Verona, and the approach to parenting that they formulate, both informed by and different from everyone around them.
It’s everyone around them that bugs me.
In an early scene, Burt’s father—the one who’s about to bail on his first grandchild—talks to Verona about a sculpture he bought of a Native American woman. He’s not sure whether it’s Pocahontas or not, but he wants to honor indigenous people—even if he can’t pronounce “indigenous.” Later on, Burt and Verona spend time with Burt’s childhood friend, “LN,” and her husband, who practice Continuum parenting, which is a thinly veiled reference to Attachment Parenting. I’m not going to weigh in on Attachment Parenting here, but suffice it to say that it’s not portrayed positively in Away We Go. LN, however, also quotes from Alice Walker and Simone de Beauvoir. 
Roderick, LN, and Bailey
Between the two scenes, the message seems to be that only the ignorant, the insincere and the hopelessly flakey would take an interest in people of different cultures, or the words of women.
I understand that LN and her husband were meant to be a counterpoint to the comically crude couple visited before them, who were not involved enough with their children instead of too involved. For me, though, the most problematic moment came with the third family that Burt and Verona visited, which was supposed to be the most balanced.
Burt and Verona’s friends, Tom and Munch, seem to have it all—a happy, loving home with three adoptive kids. When the adults go out without the kids, they end up at amateur night at a local strip club. Munch, clad in a black dress, begins to dance for her husband to a slow song, and Tom confides to Burt that she had her fifth miscarriage earlier that week. He then waxes philosophical, wondering aloud if they’ve been “selfish” for waiting so long to start their family. 
Tom and Burt
There are so many problems with this scene, I don’t know where to begin. Whatever you believe about abortion, you can’t “owe” anything to someone who hasn’t been conceived yet. Also, women miscarry for many reasons not related to age. Infertile couples (meaning, for my purposes, couples who can’t carry a pregnancy to term as well as those who can’t conceive) suffer enough without movies telling them to second-guess themselves.
More importantly though, Tom and Munch already have a family. They are contributing the act of parenting to the world. But naturally, the subtext says, the three non-White and/or non-American kids they have at home are not enough to make them happy.
I found Tom and Munch to be hurtful caricatures of infertile couples. I understand that the desire to have children of one’s own loins is very natural, and that the inability to do so can be extremely painful. However, I would dare say that society’s insistence on considering adoption second-rate, and its complete failure to recognize childless couples as families, makes it far more painful than it has to be. 
Verona and Burt
I understand, too, that in the story, Munch’s pain was fresh, and she had another woman’s pregnant belly in her face. That only makes it more insulting that Tom barely watches her dirge-like dance, but is more engaged in whining to Burt. The message is, infertile women aren’t sexy. They’re sad.
In the end, Burt and Verona move into her childhood home, although they don’t have any chosen family nearby that I can recall. She faces the demons of her parents’ death. Whatever. By that point I didn’t even care. Burt and Verona were the only characters in the movie that I really liked. Users on IMDB described the others as “overwritten,” and the movie itself as pretentious, and I have to agree. The fail was the most memorable thing for me about Away We Go. When it comes to movies where a couple deals with infertility, I’d rather re-watch Juno. You know—the one that ends with an adoption.
———-
LD Anderson is a health insurance industry professional living in Nashville, Tennessee. She has been writing professionally about popular culture since high school and currently contributes to Popshifter.com. You can follow her (intermittently) on Twitter at @LDA_writes.

How a ‘Flatliners’ Ad During a Movie Showing Made This Woman Walk Out

Myrna Waldron, my oldest daughter (a regular contributor to Bitch Flicks), baby Rhiannon Roxane Waldron, and the author, their mother, Pandora Diane MacMillan.
This is a guest post by Pandora Diane MacMillan and appears as part of our theme week on Infertility, Miscarriage, and Infant Loss.

It was March 1997. I was at a movie theatre revival showing of the Star Wars sequel, The Empire Strikes Back. This is, admittedly, a very dark film in the first place, the darkest of the Star Wars trilogy. It is the film where Luke finds out his true parentage, in a scene that has become notorious. I’m not going to get into that in any depth because I’m assuming you’re all more or less familiar with the plot of the original Star Wars trilogy.

I think this was one of the very first film showings that included a special, movie-only commercial meant to promote a new line of Levi’s jeans. The new line was apparently to be called “Flatliners,” yes, a promotional tie-in with that film, with the association that Flatliner Jeans would make the wearer look slim and “flat.” They also apparently thought it would be cute, hip, and hilarious to display the young male wearer of said jeans as DEAD and FLATLINED and to have someone jumpstart the person’s heart with defibrillators(!)

So I am part of a captive audience in the theatre at the time when this commercial comes on, in the intermission of The Empire Strikes Back showing. When I heard the flatline sound and saw the picture of the hospital monitor with the flatline showing on its screen, I stood right up and started swearing loudly. I didn’t even know where I was, I was so shattered. The tears were streaming down my face, and I didn’t even feel it. Once I finished swearing, my husband and daughter escorted me out to the lobby. They were equally upset and horrified by the commercial. They didn’t need to ask why I erupted like that.

Only the week before, I had buried my beloved one-month-old baby daughter Rhiannon Roxane, my second daughter. She stopped breathing in my arms when I was burping her, about 3:00 AM on March 4, 1997. It was diagnosed as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome – SIDS. Because my husband and I were awake and aware when little Rhiannon stopped breathing, we called 911, the paramedics came, and they resuscitated our baby. Then they rushed her to the hospital emergency.

I was in despair at the time but nursed a desperate hope. I knew she had probably stopped breathing for at least 5 minutes before I became aware she hadn’t fallen asleep against my shoulder. I had just taken the St John’s Ambulance course at my office so I could give first aid to my co-workers if needed. The course had taught me one important thing: if the brain is deprived of oxygen for more than 5 minutes, that person is likely brain dead. So I was crying and not hoping for very much as we joined the paramedics at the emergency ward.

They spent a long time at the hospital trying to revive my baby girl. I was sitting in a dazed, surreal state, looking down the hallway at the room where baby Rhiannon Roxane lay, our little Rhi-Rox. Then I saw the green line going level across the hospital monitor, no twitches in its movement, straight along, over and over. And I heard that long loud beeeeeeeeeeeep. The flatline sound. The sound of no hope at all when it’s someone you love who is hooked up to it. There will be no defibrillators hooked up to this baby. She is brain dead.

Soon we are called one by one to the telephone in the emergency department. It is the consultant pediatrician on the hotline from Sick Kids Hospital downtown. She has a request for each of us, my husband and me. “Do I have your permission to disconnect life support?” Her voice is cold, clipped, and empty of emotion. I say yes, with a heavy heart. She asks it again. This time she adds, “You do realize she will be a VEGETABLE if I leave her connected to life support?” Oh God, did she have to say that? Feeling punched in the stomach, I say yes again. She asks the question yet a third time. Yes.

I say to my husband, you talk to her. What I hoped for, I don’t know. Anything, but that merciless clinically cold voice. Does she make this call every day? I wondered. Is she dead to all feeling now? Then I hear my husband saying Yes, Yes, Yes three times, and I realize she has asked him the same terrible question.

Now they have official permission to pull the plug. There is nothing for the hospital staff to discuss anymore, except do we want an autopsy. We do. Then we follow the rest of the routine in these circumstances, of which I will spare you the details.

Back to the movie theatre. I am standing in the lobby next to the snack bar. I ask for the theatre manager, to complain about that heartless, insensitive jeans commercial we have just endured. The one where they think the sound and the appearance of a hospital monitor going flatline is terribly funny, and a great way to market a new line of jeans. Why bother with sex as a motivation for buying clothing when you can promise virtual resurrection from the dead if you just put on these “Flatliner” jeans!

But no manager is on duty right now. I’m reduced to talking to the only theatre staff member there, a young man who is sweeping the floor in the lobby. No one else is there, not even the snack bar staff. He is the target audience for this commercial, because he’s barely out of his teens. I talk to him about the commercial. In a sad, resigned voice, he replies, “I didn’t like it either.” His head is down and he looks nearly as bereft of hope that things will ever get better as I feel at that point. Nobody cares anymore. Not that pediatrician on the emergency department hotline. Certainly not the marketing department at Levi’s jeans, I could only conclude.

I give it some thought and realize I need to phone the head office of the jeans company and make a complaint there. I did so the next day. I couldn’t get hold of any top management there, but I was asked by their public relations guy to leave a voice mail for the CEO. I don’t remember everything I said, except that we had just lost our infant daughter the week before. “No one,” I said in my voice mail, “who had lost someone they loved while in hospital and heard again that awful flatline sound, would think that was funny.” But the Flatliners movie, replied the PR guy. Didn’t you see it? Didn’t you get the joke? No, I said. I was 100% certain that at this point I didn’t want to see that movie, ever. Finally, I said with a voice of rage that the commercial had offended me so deeply, that I felt the company had spat on my baby daughter’s grave!

All I wanted was for the commercial to stop, to stop right away, before some other bereaved family had to hear it, had to watch it. But apparently, when they played the voice mail for the Levi’s CEO, and he heard my remarks, he said, “That’s it. We pull the whole campaign. The Flatliners jeans line is cancelled as of now.” I wouldn’t have known about this, except the PR guy phoned me back and told me that this happened. Incidentally, Levi’s sent us two T-shirts by way of apology. I hadn’t expected they would decide to actually stop production of the jeans with that offensive name. I just hoped they would pull the commercial. Obviously, I am relieved that once I brought the issue to their attention, Levi’s immediately did the right thing.

So here’s a case study in how death as a concept was initially handled insensitively by the ad men (who may not even have been employed by Levi’s), and the outcome of that – with an outraged, bereaved mother: me. I can never bring my baby girl back. But I wanted to spare other families who’d lost someone they loved some small portion of the heartache that my family and I had gone through.

———-

Pandora Diane MacMillan holds a BA in English from York University in Toronto Canada. She retired in 2008 after more than 30 years working for the Ontario government in driver and vehicle licensing administration. Pandora has known she wanted to be a writer since Grade 2. She was fortunate enough to have writing as part of her job although it was writing related to licensing questions. She has also written some popular poetry and fan fiction for the Internet and continues to pursue writing as a hobby.

The Characterization of Bereaved Mothers: Are We Getting It Right?

This guest post by Angela Smith previously appeared at Smack in the Face and is cross-posted with permission. It appears as part of our theme week on Infertility, Miscarriage, and Infant Loss.
Tackling the sensitive issue of child loss isn’t easy. Some screenwriters excel at it, while others take the easy option of sending their central female character spiralling into the abyss of depression. In reality this is sometimes the case, but not all audiences are entirely comfortable witnessing a demented mother grieving in a way that’s more sensational than true to life.
Are these women ever portrayed correctly? Is there even a correct way to characterize women who have suffered miscarriage, stillbirth, or cot death (SIDS)? Are audiences brainwashed into thinking all bereaved mothers behave in a specific way?
It’s true there’s a need to educate people by showing such tragedies on screen, but are we getting it right? If so…how? If not…why?
Using British soap Eastenders as an example, there have been various storylines involving infant deaths, be they before or after birth. The grieving mothers have been portrayed in different ways, which is a good thing as no parent who has suffered child loss will react in exactly the same way as another.
Eastenders is set in a fictitious borough in East London called Walford, and the storylines focus on the inhabitants of a specific area called Albert Square. The soap has come under fire many times for its controversial storylines which are generally described as a constant stream of doom and gloom, punctuated by repetitive and predictable sub-plots.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a more bizarre representation of real life and, fairly recently, many soap addicts were up in arms about the tragic cot death of James, a newborn baby boy, and his frantic mother Ronnie’s deranged way of dealing with it.
Their anger was fueled by the sight of Ronnie taking her dead baby to the home of another couple and swapping him for their healthy newborn son, Tommy. This led Tommy’s parents to believe it was their baby who had died instead of Ronnie’s. The storyline was set to run for many months, but it was cut short to only four months due to constant criticism.

Ronnie holds her baby, James, for the last time before swapping him for Tommy

The problem with soaps is that they can run any storyline they want without worrying too much that their audiences will cease to watch. Sadly, this meant Eastenders failed miserably to portray the tragic plight of Ronnie (Samantha Janus) as she spent four hard months being branded a complete nutter by most of the other characters…including her own husband.
When considering young audience members alone, you have to ask yourself if their already limited understanding of the world could prompt them to not only conclude from Eastenders that all bereaved mothers are lunatics, but behave similarly toward them in future.
Many adults are also unaware of the actual implications of the real life loss of an infant, and any misconceptions they already have could easily be reinforced by an exaggerated storyline such as Ronnie’s.
Sadly, many mothers will resist talking about their losses to new acquaintances just to avoid such adverse pre-judgement or an opposite reaction of forced sympathy.
Samantha Janus is a well-respected actress in the UK whose character, Ronnie, was first portrayed as a shrewd, strong, witty, no-nonsense woman. So it’s very sad that she was forced to lead Ronnie into a succession of disasters, which ultimately led to her downfall. The writers ran riot with her character, crushing her personality to a point where it was unrecoverable.

Ronnie’s grasp of reality loosens as she becomes more mentally unstable

Ironically, script submissions are often invited by TV and film producers with the emphasis on creating strong female characters. However, soap writers seem all too eager to completely and utterly smash these women down to the point of no return. It’s one thing to cleverly show different sides to their personality, but to completely destroy a useful and inspirational character is unnecessary and sadistic.
Parallel to Ronnie’s breakdown was the devastation of Kat (Jessie Wallace), the mother of Tommy, the boy who was taken from his cot by Ronnie and swapped for James. So, not only did we have one grieving mother running around with a kidnapped baby, we also had another mother who had no idea her baby was still alive. She and her husband even buried Ronnie’s baby thinking he was theirs.
Thankfully, Kat was portrayed very differently. Her character had always been feisty and aggressive, and she didn’t hold back with her frustration during the four months her baby was thought to be dead. Of the two women, Kat’s behaviour was far more believable, and her determination to get through her ordeal was refreshing to see.

Kat and husband, Alfie, believe they are burying their own son, Tommy

Jessie Wallace played her part with incredible plausibility, and Samantha Janus, regardless of her personal disapproval of the plot, did an amazing job as well. However, I’m without a single doubt that the storyline as a whole should never have been written in the first place.
As much as I appreciate that soaps want to shock and surprise us, using infant loss and the pain of a grieving mother as part of a badly-conceived storyline does nothing but trivialize the emotions and obstacles that would be faced by her in reality.
As a mother who has suffered three stillbirths and several miscarriages, I welcome storylines involving infant loss, and just because I can’t relate to the extreme behaviour that some women present doesn’t mean their story shouldn’t be told.
However, I’m very disappointed in the way a lot of writers will either reduce their character to a quivering mess or send them completely round the twist. If you’re broadcasting to millions of adults and children alike, there really has to be some kind of responsibility taken for the sort of messages being repeatedly sent out.
The creators of Eastenders defended the storyline by arguing that Ronnie would have behaved as she did given the knock-on effect of previous traumas she’d suffered. They also said they were in no way suggesting all grieving mothers would behave similarly. However, the insinuation was there for all to see. Let’s face it…since when did intentions have any bearing on what is ultimately perceived? Perception is a personal thing, unique to every individual.
I hope fewer writers will be tempted to infer that a mother’s loss invokes the need to possess another woman’s child. Knowing she will never hold her own child again is hard enough to deal with. Being portrayed as a psychopath on screen is just adding insult to injury.
Also, suggesting that grieving fathers are better able to muster the strength to support their wives or girlfriends, further implies that women are generally less mentally equipped.
Hopelessness and depression are often paths along which a writer will take a grief-stricken mother. So imagine my joy when I came across Marc Forster’s very thought-provoking film, Everything Put Together. Even thirteen years on, it’s still as poignant as it was when he first directed it in 2000.
In this film, Angie (Radha Mitchell) and two of her friends, Barbie and Judith, are expecting babies. At the beginning of the film, we see Angie help Judith deliver a healthy baby boy, and many of the first few scenes show Angie being embraced by what appears to be a very tight network of friends. Angie is even asked to be Godmother to Judith’s baby.

Initially, Angie appears to be surrounded by a close network of friends

Sadly, Angie’s own baby, Gabriel, is born perfectly healthy but dies as a result of SIDS while they are both still in hospital. Unbelievably, and without Angie’s permission, her friends immediately go to her house to help pack away the nursery furniture and clothing. We see them loading it all into a lorry in the black of night as if it’s something to be ashamed of and get rid of as soon as possible.
Not only do Angie and her husband lose their baby, their friends begin to desert them. Angie is even more alone because she’s not very close to her own mother and cannot even bring herself to reveal the sad news of Gabriel’s death during a phone call.
Angie is still eager to make a fuss of Judith’s baby, but Judith recoils at her advances, and when Angie visits Judith and finds her way to her baby’s bedroom, she shares a very special moment with him. However, Judith is openly alarmed and throws her out of the house.

Angie shares a special private moment with Judith’s newborn son

Similarly, when a heavily pregnant Barbie spots Angie shopping in a baby store, she’s very unresponsive, especially when one of her little boys asks about Gabriel. Angie is happy to show him a picture and talk about him, but Barbie sends her children out of the shop and apologizes to Angie for the questions.

Angie is more than happy to discuss Gabriel with Barbie’s children

Yet another example of the breakdown of Angie’s friendships is when Judith throws away Angie’s invitation to her baby’s Christening. However, the maid finds it in the bin and sends it anyway. It’s very sad to watch Angie walk alone towards the altar after the Godparents are asked to step forward only to realize she’s no longer needed.

Angie has no idea she is no longer Godmother to Judith’s baby

What I love about this film is, unlike some other stories of infant death, we’re not forced to watch a long scene after the death occurs. Straight away, Angie is trying to carry on with her life. She’s obviously torn apart by the death of her baby, but she tries to hold it together in an attempt to retain her identity as the person she was before he died.
I’m so glad the writers afforded her the strength to do this because, in reality, a recently bereaved mother will often behave in such a way that nobody around her would even know what she’s suffered. This is highlighted in the film when a mother at the local park is happy for Angie to hold her baby boy while she attends to another of her children. Angie is glad of the opportunity to feel “normal” in someone else’s eyes.
Some may find it disturbing to watch Angie ask to see her son’s body before calmly announcing to the morgue attendant, “That’s not my baby.” However, I’m completely satisfied with this; it shows us how much she wants her son to still be alive. That’s not disturbing…it’s just very sad.

On seeing Gabriel at the morgue, Angie denies he is her baby

This film also doesn’t waste time on a lengthy funeral scene with lamenting on-lookers or over-the-top wailing. What we witness is a very quiet minute’s worth of an almost silhouetted couple waiting to bury their child. No dialogue and no gratuitous crying…just a scene I myself can completely identify with.
Gradually, we see Angie and her husband appreciating that they still have each other and accepting that their so-called friends are more concerned with how Gabriel’s death might affect their own perfect lives than being the supportive friends we first thought them to be.
Finally, we see Angie surprised by a phone call from Judith, who quickly and bluntly admits she misdialled while trying to phone Barbie. This is bad enough, but then Angie feels she needs to tell Judith and Barbie she’s pregnant again before they will allow her back into their lives.
Angie lies to them both, amid congratulations during a three-way call, and we’re in no doubt she now realizes how shallow and untrustworthy they are. The closing shot of her face tells us Angie has learned a harsh lesson about friendship–one she will never forget.

A three-way call with Judith and Barbie reinforces Angie’s opinion of them

It’s not uncommon for women to feel empowered to make drastic changes after losing a child. They may, understandably, become far less tolerant of others due to the realization nobody at all can break them down any further than they’ve already been broken.
Fortunately for soap and serial drama producers, they already have the luxury of knowing millions of people will tune in to watch, no matter what is presented during each half-hourly or hourly slot. However, a filmmaker has only a short space of time to create something believable and watchable. Also, a film is not automatically guaranteed a loyal audience and relies heavily on its credibility as an individual piece.
Researching personal stories of loss is important, but I wonder how much is ignored because it would be too difficult to translate to film or television. It’s not easy to expose the darker, hidden thoughts that can really bring a broken heart to the surface–and to the screen–and writers often make the mistake of allowing their characters to disclose their heartbreak at every opportunity through unnecessary dialogue.
In reality a mother is likely to want to keep her darker or more painful thoughts to herself so she can at least feel in control of what she does and doesn’t share. Your innermost feelings are a very strong reminder of your love for your baby, so it’s comforting to hold them close and keep them safe for as long as possible.
When some writers get it wrong…it’s often due to their inability to get it totally right given the limitations. I, therefore, applaud the writers who strive to get it as right as they possibly can and trust in an actress’s ability to give her role the depth of emotion it merits and, in so doing, the credibility it will bring to her character.
———-
Angela Smith is a 45-year-old mother living in Kent, UK with her partner and four lovely children. She enjoys writing plays, short stories, TV/film reviews, and articles for satirical web sites.

Vanessa Loring: Pathetic or Plausible? A Matter of Perception

Juno meets Vanessa and Mark Loring
This guest post by Talia Liben Yarmush previously appeared at The Accidental Typist and is cross-posted with permission. It appears as part of our theme week on Infertility, Miscarriage, and Infant Loss. 

The first few times that I saw Juno, I was unaware of any of my fertility problems. It wasn’t until April 2010, in between IVF cycles and laparoscopies, that I re-watched the film with some friends, and I viewed it through a new lens. It is a strange phenomenon how a changed circumstance in life can create an entirely different vision of the world. Or, more simply, of a film. The obvious themes of teen pregnancy – the ease and cavalier nature of it, so unplanned, so unexpected, so unwanted – resonated with me again while re-watching Juno. But I felt oddly that the characters were treated with respect. It was acknowledged that however intelligent a typical teenaged girl thinks she is; however witty and wise; however smart-assed and independent; she is never quite as smart as she thinks she is. There is still a big world, and she’s just one small person. And in this movie, at least the title character is wise enough to know that while she may not be ready to be a mother, there are those out there who would suffer unimaginable things to trade positions with her. 

What really hit me was Jennifer Garner’s character, Vanessa. In past viewings of the movie, the hopeful adoptive mother seemed somewhat desperate. Her overly enthusiastic smile. The fact that Juno’s snarky remarks would fly past her with barely any recognition. Her obsessive questioning and controlling perfectionism. When saying goodbye after meeting for the first time, Vanessa asks Juno how likely she is to go through with the adoption, and Juno says, nonchalantly, that she is going to do it. “How sure would you say you are? Like, would you say you’re 80% sure, or 90% sure?” Vanessa pushes. She was more than desperate, really. She was pathetic. She seemed to be written for the purpose of added comic relief. But as my friends laughed at her on screen, I felt sad, and angry. Maybe she is desperate, but anyone who has even considered adoption knows that it goes wrong far more often than it goes right. That Vanessa’s pushing wasn’t pathetic, but rather telling the story of a woman who had already been hurt so much. And wouldn’t you be desperate if you dreamed of being a mother your whole life, and then after trying for years to conceive were finally told that it was an impossibility? If you came so close to adopting a child, only for the birth mother to change her mind? 
Vanessa touches Juno’s stomach
Earlier in the same scene, when Juno first meets Vanessa, Juno expresses that she’s concerned about when she will have to add elastics to her pants. Vanessa says, “I think pregnancy is beautiful.” And Juno responds, “You’re lucky it’s not you.” And I twinged right along with Vanessa. I knew exactly how she felt – we would take elastic pants for the rest of our lives in exchange for that pregnancy. I knew completely this character and suddenly wondered if she was written to be laughed at, or if the writer too had a deep understanding of the heartbreak of infertility. This character was written beautifully – because she was real. Perhaps she was written so the audience would have these two vastly different interpretations. One for those who don’t understand, and one for those who do. 
Well, that last time around, I felt her heartbreak. I knew what it was like to alter my personality in an attempt to deal with my new reality. To dream and have those dreams crushed. But to keep on dreaming anyway. I understood. I only wish my pre-infertile self – the naïve and happy, baby-dreaming me – would also have known Vanessa for who she was, and not have seen her as a pathetic and comical character.
———-
Talia Liben Yarmush is a freelance writer and editor. She is also an infertile mother who writes her own blog, The Accidental Typist.

The Exploitation of Women in Alfonso Cuarón’s ‘Children of Men’

Movie poster for Children of Men
I like Alfonso Cuarón’s bleak, dystopian cinematic interpretation of Children of Men (based on the PD James novel) wherein the world collapses after an infertility pandemic strikes, causing there to be no human births for over 18 years. It poses remarkable questions like, “What do we value about life?” and “What do children mean to humanity’s sense of longevity and continuity?” and “Does the future exist if humans won’t be around for it?” Though this film appeals to my sci-fi post-apocalyptic proclivities, its treatment of women, children, and reproduction leaves much to be desired.

Children of Men immediately draws critical attention to this futuristic declining world’s tendency to turn women and children into symbols. The opening scene shows droves of people mourning the death of the youngest person in much the same way that celebrity deaths are mourned, setting up the 18-year-old man as a symbol of youth and a reminder of humanity’s impending extinction. The activist immigrant rights group, the Fishes, sees young pregnant Kee (portrayed by Clare-Hope Ashitey) as a symbol. She is not only a West African immigrant, but also the only woman to become pregnant in 18 years. She is a symbol of the humanity of immigrants, the salvation of the human race itself, and of a coming revolution. It is also made clear that women are forced to submit to fertility tests or face imprisonment, rendering these survivors little more than failed symbols of reproduction and shamed symbols of infertility. Though the film overtly critiques this desire to turn human beings into symbols, it indulges in it quite a bit.

The scene in the abandoned school is pregnant (pun intended) with symbolism.

“As the sound of the playgrounds faded, the despair set in.” – Miriam

As the young Kee sits alone on a rickety swing set, the camera pans the dilapidated building and Miriam recounts her experiences as a medical midwife at the beginning of the pandemic. The scene mourns imaginary children who never existed along with an imaginary future that proves likewise illusory. The empty school reinforces the crushing absence of children, which in turn represents the absence of a future.

The film apparently resists turning pregnant Kee into a symbol by showing that the only sane response to her pregnancy is that of Theo’s overwhelming desire to get her to a doctor so that she can receive necessary medical attention. However, when Kee reveals the fullness of her pregnant stomach to Theo, it is nothing but indulgent symbolism. She takes her shirt off in the middle of a barn full of cows, her posture of one hand covering her breasts and the other cupping her belly simultaneously one of modesty and fecundity. 

Kee is dehumanized and symbolized

This image of the pregnant black woman amongst livestock paired with the swelling music that evokes apotheosis is particularly offensive to me. Her humanity is transcended into grotesque female-coded symbols like earth, goddess, fertility, and nature. Her blackness is racistly used to reinforce the nature symbolism as well as the birth and beginning of mankind. The deliberateness of these symbols is even more apparent when the original PD James text The Children of Men is considered in which Julian (played by middle-aged white Julianne Moore) was the character with the mystical pregnancy. Though it is impossible to not read some symbolism into Kee’s pregnancy, her “revelation” scene is exploitative and is done dramatically and specifically to benefit the male viewer in the form of Theo.

Which leads us to the next issue I had with Children of Men: Most of the female characters are peripheral or marginalized. The midwife Miriam is portrayed as a religious nutcase who does some kind of spiritual Tai Chi, chants over Kee’s pregnant belly instead of using the hard science she learned in medical school, and believes in UFOs. Janice, the wife of Jasper (played by Michael Caine) is catatonic. Marichka is a Romanian woman who doesn’t speak English, babbles a lot, and has a bizarre relationship with her dog.

The unsavory Marichka driving Theo & Kee to a filthy room for the night

Julian, though a strong woman, is too often shown from Theo’s perspective as the beautiful, unattainable bitter ex-wife and forever mourning ex-mother. Not only that, but she dies suddenly very early on in the film. Her death itself is the most important thing about her because it’s an inside job, showing that the so-called immigrant rights activist group has questionable morality and can be trusted no more than the oppressive government regime. Therefore, Julian’s death is highly symbolic and paradigm shifting.

The Fishes scorn Julian’s non-violent methodology and murder her in order to exploit Kee’s baby as a symbol for revolution.

Not only were there few representations of non-symbolic women, but the entire film, a film about fertility, motherhood, and childbirth, is told from the perspective of a man. The most flagrant example of a marginalized female character is Kee. She is a child herself with no true agency, who knows nothing of pregnancy and motherhood, who must rely on the experience and protection of Theo. Kee’s lack of agency and complete reliance on Theo set up yet another patriarchal iteration of genesis wherein the rebirth of the human race isn’t due to Kee and her baby girl, Dylan; it’s due to the perseverance of a lone man whose ideals may be jaded, but he feels compelled to “do the right thing”  no matter what noble sacrifices it might require.

Theo sacrifices his own life to protect Kee and her baby, ensuring they make it to safety first

Not only is Theo the martyr and savior of this film, but he knows more about motherhood than Kee does. He delivers the baby, coaching Kee on how to breathe and push, motivating her when she is overcome. He then delivers Kee and her baby to the so-called safety of The Human Project (a secretive group purporting to be searching for an infertility cure). 

I ask you, why is this story told from Theo’s perspective? Why isn’t Kee our heroine? She’s the one with messianic qualities and an epic quest who undergoes a mystical pregnancy, sneaks her way out of West Africa only to become a hunted “fugee” in Britain, before traversing war-torn areas only to give birth in a filthy flophouse before escaping via rowboat to the elusive, mythical Human Project. Why is her tale told once removed in the form of Theo? Her femaleness along with her Otherness as a black woman and her status (in our current day culture) as a pregnant woman apparently give Cuarón license to strip her of real humanity and complexity. Her lack of agency in her own story and the way that she’s relegated to supporting-character land make it easy to inscribe meaning upon her, to turn her into a symbol in a way that Theo and his friend Jasper aren’t really because they’re men…children of men. 
Kee’s pregnant body is turned into an icon.
In the novel version, it is the male sperm that becomes nonviable, causing the infertility pandemic. In the movie version, it’s the women who are suddenly infertile after repeated miscarriages. This puts the blame on women for the pandemic while identifying men (i.e. Theo) as the solution to the problem. It even makes me wonder if the way that the film depicts infertility as full of despair (as if civilization must collapse if we can’t make babies) is some sort of derailment of a masculine ideal, wherein reproduction and the passing on of one’s genes is a vital component of manhood. Yes, it would suck if humanity’s extinction was imminent, but the implosion of cultures and societies does not necessarily logically follow. Even now, we destroy our environment and use up our resources at an unsustainable rate, and first world countries do not fail because of it. The slow march toward extinction is one we’re increasingly familiar with as war over oil spreads across the globe and our climate Hades-heats up.  

Children of Men‘s depiction of women as props, tools, symbols, or cardboard underscores the notion that women’s true purpose is reproduction, and when women can’t reproduce, they’re not only useless, but society itself collapses under the burden of their neglect of duty. Despite many of the intriguing themes this film explores (including a scathing denouncement of the treatment of immigrants), Children of Men ends up falling in line with its mainstream contemporaries to assert that women are merely bodies, that a woman’s value lies in her ability to reproduce, and that she has and should have no control over that body or that ability to reproduce.

The “Plague” of Infertility in Alfonso Cuarón’s ‘Children of Men’

Dire times in Children of Men as “The World Has Collapsed”

Guest post written by Carleen Tibbetts for our theme week on Infertility, Miscarriage, and Infant Loss.

Women can’t get pregnant anymore and nobody knows why. This the central lamentation in Alfonso Cuaron’s 2006 dystopian film Children of Men, based on P.D. James’s novel. Set in England in the year 2027, this is the story of the human race entering its final phase. Cuaron brings us into Orwellian territory in which nations worldwide have fallen as a result of war, disease, and famine. Britain remains a sort of lucrative last bastion in these end times and people across the globe are scrambling to get in. Foreign immigrants are referred to as “fugees,” and, borrowing from Hitler’s playbook, the British government rounds them up, cages them, and sends them to zoned and policed ghettos and camps. To hire, sell to, or even feed fugees is a crime. Avoiding fertility tests when the human race is dying out is also a crime. There are no more sounds of children laughing. There are sirens. There are bombs. There is gunfire. There are government-provided suicide kits. There is the wailing and gnashing of teeth, especially since an eighteen year old, the youngest human on the planet, has just died.
The film opens with the main character, Theo (Clive Owen), getting coffee at a local café. Café patrons look on inconsolably as the news program on the café’s TV breaks the story that “Baby Diego,” the world’s youngest person, was shot because he refused to sign an autograph. The title of “world’s youngest person” now passes to a woman older than Diego by a matter of months. Theo exits the coffee shop and within seconds, it blows up. He makes his way to his government job though, ears ringing, completely accustomed to daily violence at this level.
All the workers in Theo’s office are glued to their computer screens, weeping as Diego “in memoriam” slideshows are played. Theo plays the grief card to skip out on work and visit his longtime liberal activist friend, Jasper (Michael Caine), and his wife, who MI-5 tortured into a state of catatonia for her radical photojournalism. It is here we learn that Theo is a former radical who was married to another radical, Julian (Julianne Moore), yet the death of their young son years ago wedged them apart.

Theo, his former spouse, Julian, and their son.

Jasper begins telling Theo about “The Human Project,” a seemingly mythic organization aimed at getting to the root problem of the infertility pandemic. Theo remains apathetic and unmoved by Jasper’s enthusiasm for this cause. He’s unconvinced they exist and claims that even if they do find a cure for infertility, it’s too late, because the world “went to shit” already. There is always blame associated with infertility, and it’s usually placed on the woman, as if somehow she is not doing her part, as if her “defunct” biology renders her useless, as if her sole purpose is procreation. These future scientists don’t know if it’s due to pollution, radiation, pesticides, global warming, or even low-sperm count (lest we forget that men are not always completely virile), and the fanatical religious right element views the infertility pandemic as a righteous punishment handed down from God. For them, it’s just another pit stop on the road to Armageddon.

Julian has her activists kidnap Theo and she persuades him to use his governmental connections to sneak a fugee past checkpoints and out of the country. It’s obvious that he’s still in love with her, and although she’s keeping him in the dark as to her motives, he agrees to do it. Theo asks Julian how she got over their son’s death so quickly, to which she abruptly and angrily replies, “You don’t have a monopoly on grief,” and that Dylan’s death is something that haunts her on a daily basis. They meet up with fellow activists, including former gynecologic nurse, Miriam (Pam Ferris) to transport Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) past British borders and into the hands of The Human Project. En route to a supposedly safe location, they are accosted, and Julian is killed. Miriam, Theo, and Kee stay the night in a remote English farmhouse with the other activists who have rallied to ensure Kee’s safe departure. 
Theo has absolutely no idea what’s going on. He doesn’t completely trust these people and wonders why everyone is risking their lives for this young woman. Sensing Theo needs convincing, Kee disrobes and we see that she is extremely pregnant. Now Theo has a purpose. Something to live for. Now the entire human race has something to live for. Once skeptical about The Human Project, he realizes what’s at stake, playing a sort of Joseph figure to Kee’s Mary. Although this isn’t his baby, it’s sort of everyone’s baby. Kee admits she doesn’t know who got her pregnant, but she’s definitely portrayed in a pure sort of light. The scene where she reveals her pregnancy to Theo takes place in a barn surrounded by hay and cows—heavy with Biblical overtones.

Kee reveals her pregnancy
Kee wants to have the baby at the farm, but Theo overhears the radicals plotting to execute him as soon as he gets Kee past the checkpoints, and he realizes they want to use her baby as a political bargaining chip to advocate for illegal immigrants’ rights. Theo, Miriam, and Kee escape to Jasper’s, where he tells them his old friend in the army can get them into a refugee camp. Once inside, they can get a boat out to sea where The Human Project ship, The Tomorrow, will take Kee to safety. 
Kee had never seen a pregnant woman, had no idea what was happening to her, and felt “like a freak” when she saw her body change. When she felt the baby kick, she knew it was alive, and that she was, too. Jasper tells Kee about Dylan’s death, and that Theo’s fate lost out to chance. But isn’t this what conception is all about? Chance? Isn’t life itself a game of chance? Is parenthood an obligation? A choice? Is a child a blessing or a burden? With all the atrocities we’ve carried out and all the violence we’ve enacted on one another, do we deserve to exist? Do we need to bring new life into this mess? And suppose Kee had not wanted this baby?
Other than being presented with where she would like to have her baby, nobody asks Kee if she wanted any of this to begin with. Perhaps the fate of the human race resting on Kee’s shoulders, or, more appropriately, in her uterus, and perhaps the key to fertility being something unique to her genetic makeup is motivation enough for her to unquestioningly continue her pregnancy. Jasper’s fate vs. chance statement brings up a great deal of unanswered existential questions, not only as they pertain to the film’s characters, but for us living in a world where, for example, China has a one-child-per family limit, or where a friend jokingly told me that I’d get a better income tax refund if I got knocked up. 
Theo, Kee, and Miriam escape Jasper’s just as the authorities arrive and kill him. The three of them plan to rendezvous with Jasper’s military connection at one of many now-defunct elementary schools —how bizarrely apropos! A In a haunting scene, Theo walks the school’s hallways and a lone deer runs down a corridor. Earlier in the movie, there were dogs all over the farmhouse property. Kee stood in pen of young cows when she showed Theo her stomach. Animals are able to procreate, so why is infertility only affecting the human population? This isn’t brought up at any point during the film. Shouldn’t all species be on their last legs? Miriam says, “As the sounds of the playground faded, the despair set in.” She reminisces how women at her clinic were miscarrying sooner and sooner until pregnancies just stopped occurring altogether.
Jasper’s connection “arrests” them for being “foreigners” (how can anyone mistake Clive Owen for anything other than British????), and on the bus ride into the camp, Kee’s water breaks. In order to avoid the authorities catching on to Kee’s labor pains, Miriam distracts them and the guards remove her from the bus and execute her.

Theo delivers baby Dylan

Once in the camp, Theo and Kee find sheltered room. Kee lies on a squalid mattress and Theo pours alcohol on his hands to deliver her daughter in a matter of minutes. The slightly premature (and horribly CGI-enhanced) baby Dylan (named after Theo and Julian’s son) is presumably healthy. Like most birth scenes, this one is completely ludicrous. Why do most directors hold back when depicting birth scenes? We see so much senseless violence (and this film is violent from beginning to end) and so much life leaving the world, so what’s wrong with showing the realistic way in which life enters the world? Kee is surprisingly light on her feet when she and Theo find out they have to evacuate STAT because the government is planning to wipe that camp off the map. Granted, her legs are caked in blood and afterbirth from the delivery. That was believable. Although it’s hard to nurse in a war-torn ghetto, there are no shots of Kee feeding Dylan—kind of central to the baby’s survival and mother-child bonding. 

A mortally wounded Theo manages to escort Kee and Dylan to safety, and as Dylan begins to cry amid all the rockets and gunfire, everything comes to a halt. Angelic music begins to play. Other fugees break into tears at the sight of the baby and reach out to try to touch her. Soldiers who had entered the tenement housing with guns aimed at all the fugees immediately lower their weapons, drop to their knees, and make the sign of the cross. Theo and Kee get into their boat and make it to sea right before the camp is obliterated. Adrift on the open water, the dying Theo shows Kee how to hold Dylan to soothe her and stop her crying. He bleeds out and slumps over just as The Tomorrow sails toward them. The Human Project does exist. Yet, what is in store for Kee, Dylan, and the human race remains a mystery as the screen abruptly goes black.

Kee and baby Dylan

I did not read James’s novel, and therefore, don’t know how closely Cuaron’s version followed the book. Perhaps the book delved into more of the science or other global issues that occurred at the onset of the mass infertility. One of the main issues for me was that it was unclear whether women were unable to get pregnant, whether men were unable to get them pregnant, or if there was just complete reproductive failure for both sexes. The fact that infertility was limited strictly to humans also didn’t make sense. The fact that outspoken female activists like Julian and Jasper’s wife were brutally hunted and tortured for their resistance was sort of glossed over, as was the strain that Dylan’s death had on Julian and her marriage to Theo. I’d have liked more backstory there.

When I sat down to write this review, I vowed not to use the words “belly,” “bump,” “baby bump,” “preggo,” or “preggers.” I only used “knocked up” because I was quoting a friend of mine when she made the joke about children as tax deductions. I’ve just entered my thirties, and the majority of the women I went to high school with are mothers now. I shouldn’t internalize that there’s something wrong with me because I’m not a mother, but every time I see a picture of a pregnant stomach or a sonogram on Facebook, a little twinge goes through me. Should I want this? Why? Why does fertility turn into yet another unhealthy competition for women? Nobody should be “blamed” for infertility, regardless of gender. It does not make anyone less a woman or a man if they cannot make babies. Instead of obsessing over own biological clocks running down (yes, there are even iPhone apps for that!) or our “completeness” via parenthood, we should focus on shaping the kind of world we want to bring children into.
Carleen Tibbetts lives in Oakland. Her poems and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Word Riot, Metazen, Monkeybicycle, Coconut, H_NGM_N, The Rumpus, and other journals.

Call for Writers: Infertility, Miscarriage and Infant Loss in Film & Television Week

When we talk about motherhood and pregnancy in film and television, images of nurseries, strollers and rosy-cheeked cherubic newborns just might spring to mind. We may not think of the devastation of infertility, miscarriage or infant loss. Yet many people struggle with these hardships on their path to parenthood. 

It’s not that the media doesn’t depict infertility. They do. But too often laden with tropes such as the “Convenient Miscarriage” (so as not to have to depict the supposed controversy of abortion) or the “Law of Inverse Fertility” (that a couple’s fertility is relative to how badly they want a child). Infertility should be incorporated into films and television because it’s a painful reality many women face, not merely as a plot device or punishment or perpetuation of gender stereotypes. In our fertility obsessed culture, tabloids frequently report on female celebs’ baby bumps, reinforcing the notion that a woman’s worth is linked to her fertility. Society seems to view infertility and miscarriage as private and taboo. But the media should portray the full spectrum of reproductive choices and experiences.

So for our next theme week, we’re looking for analyses of Infertility, Miscarriage and Infant Loss in Film and Television. For more, check out:

What Really Happens After a Miscarriage via XO Jane

Inconceivable: Black Infertility via Crunk Feminist Collective

TV Parents and the Problem of Infertility via Acculturated

Here are some suggestions of films and TV series — but feel free to propose your own ideas!

Downton Abbey
Juno
Sex and the City
Baby Mama
Friends
Mother and Child
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Grey’s Anatomy
Prometheus
Children of Men
Gone with the Wind
Diary of a Mad Black Woman
The Other Woman
Mad Men
Julie & Julia
Secrets and Lies
Raising Arizona
The Help
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marley & Me
Country Strong
For Colored Girls
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
Desperate Housewives
All in the Family
Orphan
Marley & Me
21 Grams
House, M.D.
The Tudors
Six Feet Under
The Handmaid’s Tale
American Horror Story
Brothers & Sisters
Away We Go 
Boardwalk Empire
The Odd Life of Timothy Green
Out of Africa
Up
Rabbit Hole

Here are some basic guidelines for guest writers:
–Pieces should be between 700 and 2,000 words.
–Include images (with captions) and links in your piece, along with a title for your article.
–Send your piece in the text of an email, attaching all images, no later than Friday, April 19th.
–Include a 2-3 sentence bio for placement at the end of your piece.

Email us at btchflcks(at)gmail(dot)com if you’d like to contribute a review. We accept original pieces or cross-posts. 
We look forward to reading your submissions!