{"id":18293,"date":"2022-07-13T00:40:15","date_gmt":"2022-07-13T00:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=18293"},"modified":"2022-07-13T15:39:30","modified_gmt":"2022-07-13T15:39:30","slug":"now-playing-at-a-supreme-court-near-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2022\/07\/13\/now-playing-at-a-supreme-court-near-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Now Playing at a Supreme Court Near You"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ken Stokes<\/em><\/p>\n

Dobbs v. Jackson. If that doesn\u2019t sound familiar, let\u2019s try this: the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that reversed the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision regarding a woman\u2019s right to privacy and personal health decisions. If you didn\u2019t see this coming, then you\u2019ve blinded yourself to the somber realities of contemporary American politics. And you\u2019ve probably also been remiss at keeping up with some of the best contemporary films and TV shows. Awkward segue? Not really. Let me suggest one TV series and five films\u2014all excellent and the tip of the iceberg regarding the extremely individual and complex issue of abortion\u2014that you may have missed and which clearly demonstrate that life imitates art.<\/p>\n

The Handmaid\u2019s Tale (Hulu 2017-present, based on the Margaret Atwood novel) <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Of course this was going to show up on the list, and not simply because of the bleak dystopian vision and the enslavement of fertile women. Trump Supreme Court appointee and darling of the evangelical Christian movement Amy Coney Barrett\u2019s interviews and C.V. certainly indicate she shares some of the aspirations and traits of two of the most reprehensible female villains to appear in literature and on film\u2014monstrous enforcer Aunt Lydia and the cruel, fanatical and very politically-motivated Serena Waterford. From what I\u2019ve seen I have little doubt that, if it served her purposes, ACB would happily watch her husband …, oh I don\u2019t want to be a spoiler. If only ACB\u2019s opinions to-date were even remotely as well-considered and articulate as Atwood\u2019s prose.<\/span><\/p>\n

Django Unchained (2012, Quentin Tarantino dir.) <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking of slavery … Everybody seems to know about Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin<\/i>, but how many people have actually read it? Uncle Tom has somewhat undeservedly evolved in the collective consciousness as a \u2018tool\u2019 of the barbarous slave owner Simon Legree. For the real deal, Tarantino gives us Calvin Candie and his fawning slave Stephen, played to the hilt by Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson, respectively. It\u2019s quite something to behold if you can stomach it. It\u2019s also been quite something to behold Clarence Thomas\u2019 fervent embrace of an agenda set by people who, in the 1950s, would have had no qualms serving Thomas Uncle Tom\u2019s fate. Thomas\u2019 concurring opinion in Dobbs, containing an interesting cherry-picking of rulings he\u2019d like to see reversed, curiously fails to include 1967\u2019s Loving v. Virginia regarding interracial marriage. That the white woman to whom he is married left an electronic trail implicating her in the attempted reversal of a free and fair presidential election, \u2026 well, gotta love those family values.<\/span><\/p>\n

Promising Young Woman (2020, Emerald Fennell dir.) <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

My personal favorite of the 2020 Oscar contenders (sorry Nomadland<\/i>), Fennell\u2019s Oscar-winning screenplay sits comfortably with Medea, Titus Andronicus and The Count of Monte Cristo as pillars in the revenge genre. In this case, the revenge is sought against an unrepentant \u2018good guy\u2019 with an unsavory past who is to the manor born and will say anything to get ahead. Calling Brett Kavanaugh!<\/span><\/p>\n

Citizen Ruth (1996, Alexander Payne dir.) <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Funny how polite society has a way of ignoring its \u2018dregs\u2019 until it is politically convenient to act otherwise. \u2018Pro-choice\u2019 and \u2018pro-life\u2019 activists go to war over the fetus carried by a selfish, unrepentant \u2018huffer\u2019 (a person who gets high sniffing spray paint) who proves herself quite adept at manipulating both factions to her own advantage. Payne\u2019s writing and Laura Dern\u2019s performance as the woman-in-the-headlines clearly foretell their eventual Oscar triumphs. This is an absolutely hilarious telling of a very sad and sadly very common tale.<\/span><\/p>\n

Juno (2007, Jason Reitman dir.) <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Adoption is a one-size-fits-all solution to unwanted or unexpected pregnancy, or so the anti-abortion movement would have us believe. Diablo Cody\u2019s Oscar-winning first screenplay\u2014a dazzling dramedy noted principally for its very specific and quirky teen jargon\u2014is their fairy tale, complete with a healthy, thoughtful, well-adjusted teenaged mother-to-be, understanding and fully-supportive father and parents, and carefully considered adoptive parents who can provide the child every possible advantage imaginable. And then the bottom drops out. Once again, we return to the havoc a selfish, unrepentant man without responsibility can wreak upon any person. If only the protagonists had seen it coming. .<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking of \u2018if only they\u2019d seen it coming\u2019… <\/span><\/p>\n

RBG (2018, Betsy West\/Julie Cohen dir.)<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Last, and easily the most important, is\u00a0 <\/span>the documentary surveying the extraordinary personal and professional life of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. The film does an excellent job in chronicling RBG\u2019s ceaseless efforts to protect the rights of women and the disenfranchised. It also glaringly points out two facts which were either ignored, not internalized or foolishly overlooked by those who could have cemented her legacy: her age at appointment and her health issues thereafter. That the Obama administration failed to orchestrate RBG\u2019s retirement early in its first term is unforgivable. A so-called \u2018liberal\u2019 (and there is no shame in that term) seat could have been secured for decades and the Merrick Garland debacle cut off at the pass or the fallout greatly diffused.<\/span><\/p>\n

We see what we want to see until reality sets us straight. The pro-choice movement was woefully outmaneuvered and the pro-life movement has rendered the country woefully unprepared to address the ramifications of its success. The realities that will be served up as a result of the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling will be somber indeed, but people with no real skin in the game will no doubt remain blind, and I fear that people intent on restoring Roe V. Wade will continue to fumble around in the dark.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ken Stokes Dobbs v. Jackson. If that doesn\u2019t sound familiar, let\u2019s try this: the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that reversed the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision regarding a woman\u2019s right to privacy and personal health decisions. If you didn\u2019t see this coming, then you\u2019ve blinded yourself to the somber realities of contemporary American […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18293"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18341,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18293\/revisions\/18341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}