52 Films by Women Vol 7. 14. CALL JANE (Director: Phyllis Nagy)
Lately, I’ve been sensitised to a new genre, ‘abortion porn’ - films that focus on women’s distress as they attempt to rid themselves of unwanted pregnancies. Andrew Dominik’s recent Marilyn Monroe drama, Blonde , took this to sickening effect. Other films that attract this descriptor include Audrey Diwan’s L’ É v é nement and Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always . The phrase ‘unwanted pregnancies’ strikes me as too polite, likening the process of neutralizing the aftermath of rape to exchanging a pair of shoes. I propose the term, ‘invasive pregnancies’ – pregnancies resulting from enforced sex or that could seriously harm the life of the mother. An accepted change of terminology could, over time, change people’s minds over the issue, in the year that the ‘Roe vs Wade’ judgment has been overturned. The 1960s set drama, Call Jane , directed by Phyllis Nagy from a screenplay by Hayley Schore and Roshan Sethi (writers on the medical series, The Resident ), is only partly ‘...