Description

Abortion in Popular Culture: A Call to Action brings together scholars who examine depictions of abortion in film, television, literature, and social media. By examining texts ranging from classic television series such as Maude and Roseanne and recent films such as Never Rarely Sometimes Always and Unpregnant to dystopian novels and social-media campaigns, the essays analyze narrative styles, rhetorical strategies, and cinematic techniques, all of which shape cultural attitudes toward abortion. They also analyze cultural shifts, including the willingness or reluctance of networks, cable channels, and filmmakers to acknowledge changing trends in reproductive health such as medication abortion and the role that abortion plays in family planning. As a whole, however, the essays argue that popular culture can play a significant role in destigmatizing abortion by including a wider range of narratives and doing so with nuance and empathy. With reproductive rights under attack in the United States, each essay is a call to action for writers, producers, directors, showrunners, authors, and musicians to use their platforms to tell more positive and accurate stories about abortion.

Table of Contents

Part I: There's No Going Back

Chapter 1. “Is That a Test from the Supermarket?”: How the Home Pregnancy Test Changed the Representation of Abortion in American Television and Film
Karen Weingarten
Chapter 2. “Trust Me, I'm a Doctor”: Debating Reproductive Rights in 1960s Television Dramas
Caryn Murphy
Chapter 3. What Post-Roe America Can Learn from the Role of Social Media in the Repeal of Ireland's Eighth Amendment
Kelli Maloy

Part II: Creating Space for Alternative Narratives

Chapter 4. Abortion Politics and the Dystopic Imagination
Heather Latimer
Chapter 5. Performing Endurance: The Labors of Abortion Access
Jaime Leigh Gray
Chapter 6. “I'm Offended by All the Supposed-to's:” HBOs Pro-Choice Influence
Laura S. Witherington
Chapter 7. “I Gave Her Life”: Black Women, Abortion, and Healing in Brit Bennett's The Mothers
Patrick S. Allen

Part III: Call to Action

Chapter 8. When Stories Are All We Have: The Role of Television in a Future in Which Abortion is Illegal
Steph Herold

Product details

Published 30 Mar 2023
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 282
ISBN 9781666919844
Imprint Lexington Books
Dimensions 235 x 158 mm
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Brenda Boudreau

Anthology Editor

Kelli Maloy

Contributor

Brenda Boudreau

Contributor

Heather Latimer

Contributor

Jeannie Ludlow

Contributor

Kelli Maloy

Contributor

Caryn Murphy

Contributor

Gretchen Sisson

ONLINE RESOURCES

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This book is available on Bloomsbury Collections where your library has access.

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