Ok, where to begin… And to be clear it’s possible that I’m just overanalyzing and seeing racism and anti-Semitism that could just be explained away as “lazy storytelling”, but given the intended audience for this film, probably not.
The anti-semitism –
The role of Dr. Barnard Nathanson (“acted” by the film’s director Nick Loeb) manages to hit all the typical Evil Jew tropes. He is portrayed as scheming, obsessed with money, proudly manipulating the media, and revels in giving abortions. In scene after scene he gleefully recounts the things he does. In the climax at the end of the film, he’s giving an abortion assisted with ultrasound and when he hears the heartbeat he melodramatically has a breakdown right there in the OR. Cut to the next scene of him converting to Catholicism thus being “redeemed”.
Noted Jewish feminist Betty Friedan is one-dimensionally portrayed as an ignorant, cynical, and callous opportunist who is only acting as a Pied Piper to bring women into the fold for publicity. (See a trend here?)
The racism –
In a flashback, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger is shown giving a super racist speech complete with multiple uses of the N word at a KKK women’s rally – in front of a burning cross. And, just in case you forgot about this, in the epilogue the exact same scene is shown again in its entirety except with a title card saying how she actually opposed abortion. On further reflection I’m not sure what this is trying to prove – Sanger had some terrible views but she was ok because she opposed abortion? I’m really not sure what this is intended to prove other than trying to smear Planned Parenthood (a common theme throughout the film).
The only Black person with any speaking parts in the film was Dr. Mildred Jefferson (portrayed by outspoken Trump supporter and terrible person Stacey Dash). Dash hits all the expected “Angry Black Woman” tropes and overacts them to the point of self-parody. In one scene that defied ridiculousness, she was with her mother (portrayed by MLK’s niece and noted right-wing activist Alveda King) in the kitchen talking about the Evil Jewish Doctor. The scene was intercut with close-ups of her mother nodding contemplatively. Inexplicably, the infamous abortion episode of Maude is on TV and when Maude’s daughter says, “it’s like going to the dentist”, the mother swoons – dropping a casserole dish on the floor. It’s the Evil Jewish Doctor who has given tens of thousands of dollars to Hollywood to further his agenda, explains Jefferson to her distraught mother.
The misogyny –
I mean, how could there not be? Women are given practically no agency in the film – without any exceptions (including the “heroic” Dr. Mildred Jefferson), women are portrayed as scheming and self-serving go-getters, angry pro-life protesters inexplicably following the main characters around like some kind of thralls, or are on operating tables with their legs open. The lawyers on the Roe side are portrayed as incompetent and conniving liars. It’s implied that the only reason that Roe succeeded in Texas was because Sarah Weddington had clerked for one of the judges. Norma McCorvey is portrayed as an ignorant bumpkin who’s sole purpose is to get tricked by the evil woman lawyers.
The other things –
The SCOTUS judges are portrayed as corrupt, weak, and ineffectual, easily swayed by the opinions of their families and pressure from the evil liberal media.
Multiple “shock” scenes of abortions including heroic police taking away buckets of viscera from illegal abortions were occurring in a Chicago hotel. (Naturally, rabbis had been providing referrals to these places.) A scene comparing pulling toppings off a pizza to removing a fetus. A scene of a dismembered fetus that looked more like a dismantled doll. A terribly done CG scene of a fetus in the womb audibly screaming as it’s about to be removed. Of course these scenes were so ham-fisted they were more eye roll inducing versus shocking.
Trump supporter Joey Lawrence plays a constitutional law professor who has little to do throughout the film other than spew conservative bumper sticker quotes in every scene (seriously, basically every scene has dialog like, “<insert quote here> - <name>”) and generally be a smug dick to his students in random classroom scenes.
I mentioned the color grading before, but I’ll do it again. It was so absolutely awful and unpleasant. Here’s a picture from an actual scene:
Every single scene looks piss soaked like this, and I just don’t understand it.
In any event, yeah – I can’t believe I’ve spent so much time writing about such a terrible film but it just pissed me off so much. It’s filled with easily debunkable lies, “fake news”, and lazy tropes – but more than anything, it’s just a poorly done film. I’m ashamed that I inadvertently placed any money into the pockets of the people behind this farce.
