Set in the 1960s, the drama sees a working-class girl named Penny (Cynthia Rhodes) left in immense pain after a botched back-alley abortion: “The guy had a dirty knife and a folding table,” her friend bitterly recalls. But at the heart of Eleanor Bergstein’s script is a clear and unapologetic argument for reproductive choice.
Whether they’re downbeat, melodramatic, harrowing or tinged with comedy, these movies’ intelligence and sensitivity deepen our understanding of women’s experience.Ĭynthia Rhodes and Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing Vestron Pictures/courtesy Everett Collectionĭirty Dancing‘s cultural legacy may be most strongly associated with Johnny and Baby’s sizzling chemistry and sweet dance moves. Here, THR critics look at 12 films that explore reproductive choice as a crucial aspect of women’s lives.
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With generally greater artistic license on the big screen, abortion has been a perennial subject for filmmakers around the world. Frequently, American television falls back on abortion being a thing characters talk about on-camera, do off-camera and then never speak of again, which makes Shonda Rhimes’ Scandal and Grey’s Anatomy, and the way the procedure impacted Olivia Pope and Cristina Yang, respectively, so important, contextualizing and complicating the choice made by those strong characters.
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It’s still incredibly rare to find TV comedies dealing with actual abortions (see: GLOWand The Handmaid’s Tale), though shows like Girls and Sex and the City used it as a conversation piece. It’s been 49 years since the two-part “Maude’s Dilemma” - written by future Golden Girls and Soap creator Susan Harris - premiered, but the choice faced by Bea Arthur’s title character, finding herself pregnant at 47, and the determination of Norman Lear’s show to discuss that choice in depth, and engage in a nuanced debate, would be provocative in an American broadcast sitcom today.
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