Abortion is one of the most controversial subjects in our society right now. Is it allowed? When? What kind? There are so many different elements to this debate. One factor in all of the elements is the scientific accuracy of the information being debated. Because abortion is first and foremost a medical procedure, it must be discussed as such. However, much of the media about abortion is biased and incorrect. The abortion scenes in the movie Blonde are medically inaccurate and emotionally biased, and they act as anti-abortion propaganda at a time when abortion is an important political issue.
Blonde uses medically inaccurate images to distort the audience’s view of the fetus, and therefore abortion itself. The film never claims to be a medical authority, but nevertheless, it has an air of credibility because of the images it shows (Hartouni 60). Images are shown of doctors, medical tools, and the fetus itself. The fetus is shown floating in amniotic fluid, overall very normal and scientific, except for one thing: it is fully developed. It has facial features, hands, and even nails. According to the Cleveland Clinic, these features don’t begin to appear until weeks 13-16 of pregnancy, but a pregnancy starts to “show” around 12 weeks. Marilyn Monroe is not visibly pregnant at any point during Blonde, so we can assume that the depiction of the fetus as fully formed, a child in all but name, is a conscious choice indicative of the movie’s negative opinion on abortion. As Valerie Hartouni asserts,
“[t]he fetus floats free, a discrete and separate entity, outside of, unconnected to, and, by virtue of its ostensible or visual independence, in an adversarial relationship with the body and life upon which it is nevertheless inextricably dependent. It tells its own story, is an effect of power or a figure of speech that has been both authored and authorized in the courts, clinics, and culture at large and that cannot be silenced or appropriated in the same way that women’s stories and struggles are in its presence.” (66)
Representing the fetus as a fully formed baby gives it an air of independence. It is in an “adversarial” relationship with Marilyn, making the abortive procedure appear that much more violent. Marilyn Monroe’s life, thoughts, and humanity are pushed aside in the presence of the baby. The abortion becomes solely about saving the child, completely ignoring Marilyn’s personal story.
Specific language is used regarding both the fetus and the procedure. The language has a very distinct negative connotation and thus portrays abortion in a very negative light. In Hannah Armitage’s discussion of how the term “partial-birth” changed the abortion debate, she explains that language is essential to the framing of an issue. According to her theory, language has no universal meaning but is a fluid concept shaped by the circumstances in which it is used. This concept is especially important in the abortion debate because the connotation of different phrases related to abortion can severely skew the conversation. When talking to her mother, who chose not to have an abortion, Marilyn says she did “the right thing”. This is a very explicit attack on abortion, as it claims that abortion is “the wrong thing”. A more subtle linguistic attack on abortion is the use of the word “baby” rather than “fetus”. Simon and Xenos proved that using the word “baby” when referring to abortion increases support for abortion bans, meaning it decreases support for abortion itself. By choosing to use right/wrong definitions and the term “baby”, the movie creates a subconscious negative connotation of abortion before it is even shown on screen. When abortion is then shown very graphically, the preconceived negative notion created by the language further distorts the audience’s perception of abortion.
The overall graphic nature of the abortion shown on-screen is common to the wider anti-abortion movement and is intended to be emotionally manipulative to viewers. Firstly, the procedure is shown from the perspective of the cervix, with the vaginal walls visible as the speculum is inserted. This explicit image is unexpected and shocking to viewers, making them recoil from the screen, and by extension the broader idea of abortion being depicted on it. The anti-abortion movement is infamous for its use of graphic images as shock value to alter the perception of abortion. One such use is the “bucket shot” that protesters carried during demonstrations in the 1960s. The picture showed a late-term aborted fetus in a metal bucket (Hall 128). The image must have been horrifying, but it was orchestrated to be so. The fetus was removed from the proper disposal site in a hospital lab and arranged to look discarded like garbage (Hall 128) to portray abortion as a violent and inhumane process resulting in the disposal of a baby when that is not at all accurate. After the abortion scene in Blonde has begun, Marilyn begins to hallucinate. She runs through the hallways of the hospital before suddenly ending up in a burning house, claimed earlier in the film to be the fire in her childhood home, though I could find no evidence of such a fire ever occurring. The choice to use fire in the context of abortion is incredibly telling. Abortion is often called a sin, with pregnant people seeking abortions being told that they are “going to hell” (Lace, paragraph 14). The house fire Marilyn burns in represents the Christian version of hell she is relegated to because of her abortion. Marilyn is violently and graphically punished because of her choice to get an abortion.
Of course, art is subjective. It is entirely possible that the creators of Blonde were not making a political commentary on abortion at all, but were simply making an artistic choice. However, whether or not the director was attempting to make a political statement, abortion is so relevant in our current social and political climate that any mention of abortion is a political statement. Mulligan and Habel proved in their study “An Experimental Test of the Effects of Fictional Framing on Attitudes” that the message of a film does affect the views of the audience. They studied a film that showed abortion in a positive light, and after watching it viewers had a more positive opinion of abortion. This would likely be the same in terms of the negative perspectives of both films and audiences. To put it simply, the media we consume affects how we view the world. So regardless of the artist’s intentions, they are impacting peoples’ opinions and should recognize that when creating art. At a time when abortion rights are at such high risk and such a large topic of debate, the creators of Blonde made a political statement by discussing abortion at all, and the statement was made more drastic because of the biased way abortion was presented in the film.
In Blonde, abortion is attacked from all angles. The fetus is presented in a medically inaccurate way, specific language is used to create a subconscious negative connotation in the minds of audiences, and the nature of the scene is incredibly graphic. In this political climate where abortion rights are under attack, media like this, whether it intends to make a political statement or not, negatively affects public opinion and could lead to life-threatening legislative changes. If inaccurate and biased media like this continues to be mass-produced, public opinion will easily be swayed and we will lose the opportunity to create our own opinions and beliefs. While art doesn’t need to avoid political subjects altogether, it at least needs to be scientifically accurate enough to allow viewers to make their own opinions without bias.
Works Cited
Armitage, Hannah. “Political Language, Uses and Abuses: How the Term ‘Partial Birth’ Changed the Abortion Debate in the United States.” Australasian Journal of American Studies, vol. 29, no. 1, 2010, pp. 15–35. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41054184. Accessed 8 Nov. 2022.
This is a discussion of the effect of linguistics on the abortion debate in the United States. Armitage uses discourse theory to analyze the use of the term “partial-birth” in protests, news, and legislation. She also analyzes how the term was used, particularly to relate the fetus to the mother, and how this (objectively more violent) form of abortion was debated the most to persuade the public to view all abortive procedures as violent.
This source helped me understand how the linguistics of the film affect the statement it is making, as well as how linguistics relate to the wider anti-abortion movement. It also helped me raise the stakes of my argument as it discussed how small details like language can contribute to national legislation.
“Fetal Development: Month-by-Month Stages of Pregnancy.” Cleveland Clinic, https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/7247-fetal-development-stages-of-growth.
This source provides medical information about the development of an embryo throughout pregnancy. I used it very sparingly, only to confirm my suspicions that the fetus shown in Blonde is not medically accurate when compared with the rest of the information we are shown.
Hall, Simon. “The Anti-Abortion Movement.” American Patriotism, American Protest: Social Movements Since the Sixties, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011, pp. 117–39. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt3fj25t.9. Accessed 7 Nov. 2022.
This chapter of Hall’s book provides an overview of the anti-abortion movement from the 1960s to the 1990s. Most of the chapter is devoted to the tactics used during protests in the 1960s and how they relate to the tactics used during protests for other movements. The 1960s had many different activist movements and Hall very effectively juxtaposes the methods that were used by many of them. In general, the anti-abortion movement favored nonviolent direct action but some individuals or small groups were violent towards abortion providers and women. Graphic imagery and “street theater” were also widely used during protests.
Much of the content of this source, while very interesting, does not directly relate to my topic. However, there are a few brief paragraphs discussing the use of graphic imagery and street theater in the anti-abortion movement. Despite being short, these paragraphs are very helpful in that they are very clear and give several examples that I can look into further. This source doesn’t give me much information beyond a general background, but it provides citations that I can use to work backward and get more specific information.
Hartouni, Valerie. “Fetal Exposures: Abortion Politics and the Optics of Allusion.” Cultural Conceptions: On Reproductive Technologies and the Remaking of Life, NED-New edition, University of Minnesota Press, 1997, pp. 51–67. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctttth3v.7. Accessed 9 Nov. 2022.
This source analyzes a short film about abortion entitled S’Aline’s Solution, clearly describing most of the video. Hartouni ultimately decides that the video is pro-choice despite the graphic images. S’Aline’s Solution shows a fetus at an unnatural state of development, which Hartouni reads as a way to give the fetus an air of independence.
I used this source as support in my analysis of the abortion scenes in Blonde because it was a clear example of abortions on-screen. Much of the imagery in S’Aline’s Solution and Blonde is very similar even though they ultimately argue different points. Much of Hartouni’s analysis is about how the fetus relates to the woman, which I used to explain why a fetus would be shown as fully mature when that is not medically accurate.
Lace, Candi. “Abortion and Obscenity: Anti-Choice Group Makes Hideous Connections.” Off Our Backs, vol. 31, no. 1, 2001, pp. 5–5. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20836768. Accessed 10 Nov. 2022.
This source is an article describing the anti-abortion efforts of the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) on a college campus. It describes the graphic images (most unrelated to abortion as a medical procedure) that the GAP displayed and how people reacted to them. It also mentions how anti-abortion protestors used religion as a fear tactic against women seeking abortions.
This source was useful because I was looking for examples of how religion is used to punish people for getting abortions. It also provides more background information on the explicit nature of the anti-abortion movement.
Mulligan, Kenneth, and Philip Habel. “An Experimental Test of the Effects of Fictional Framing on Attitudes.” Social Science Quarterly, vol. 92, no. 1, 2011, pp. 79–99. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42956475. Accessed 9 Nov. 2022.
This is a scientific paper reporting on an experiment that tested how media affects the opinions of viewers. Subjects watched a movie that featured abortion as a result of incest in a favorable light, and then the subjects reported a more favorable opinion of abortion as a result of incest. The results of the experiment as well as other examples mentioned prove that the way the media presents an issue directly alters our opinion to be more similar to that of the media.
Although this source discusses a positive representation of abortion, it is still relevant to my paper because it proves that media people engage with changes their opinion on things represented in that media. I can use this to prove that the negative framing of abortion in Blonde is a political statement because it changes public opinion on abortion during a time when abortion is a huge political debate.
Simon, Adam F., and Michael Xenos. “Dimensional Reduction of Word-Frequency Data as a Substitute for Intersubjective Content Analysis.” Political Analysis, vol. 12, no. 1, 2004, pp. 63–75. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25791754. Accessed 10 Nov. 2022.
This is a report detailing an experiment on how opinions towards partial-birth abortion are affected by the language used to describe them. Simon and Xenos took news articles about the partial-birth abortion debate and replaced the word “fetus” with “baby”. In one version, they replaced all appearances of “fetus”, in another they replaced every other appearance, and in a third version, it was left unchanged. They determined that the use of the word “baby” increased support for a ban on partial-birth abortion. In short, they proved that using the word “baby” alters opinions on abortion to be more negative.
This source was very useful to me. The language used in the film is the same as the language used in the experiment (“baby” instead of “fetus”) so this report could be applied directly. It shows that the film’s wording has an effect on the audience’s view of abortion, whether or not the creators or audience are conscious of it.
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