Liveblog: The Pregnancy Pact

First things first, y'all: I'm in the final three to write for TVGasm.  Considering this was their biggest submission year ever, that's pretty cool.  So vote for me, why don't ya?  (If you're not registered in their forums, you'll have to do that, but it only takes a couple of minutes and will make me very happy.)

Now down to the postage: this week's Unpro comes courtesy of the latest in the Lifetime lady-shaming ouevre, The Pregnancy Pact.  I was so eager to watch this kinda-but-not-really based on a true story, that I decided to live-Tweet it and put the results on my blog(in chronological order) for you to enjoy.  All you need to know is that a couple of years ago, Time magazine did a story on a small Massachusetts town that was experiencing a spike in teen pregnancy.  This was allegedly because of a pact made by agroup of teenage girls, though that was never proven to be the case.

My viewing experience?  Um, interesting.  More than a little stabby.  Read on:

Haha, covering your ass with a disclaimer. Lifetime FTW.


SCARE TACTICS! News montage practically fetishizing girls' sexuality, followed by copious MAKING OUT!


High school girl is NOT pregnant, and disappointed. She kind of reminds me of an underage Charlotte from Sex and the City.


Beware kissing! It gets you PREGNANT!


Has Thora Birch had work done? There's something off about her face.


Wow, look at her cool office! Just like all online magazine journalists have! Just like I have...oh wait.


Camryn Manheim the School Nurse is concerned(TM).


Redhead protagonist hugs her boyfriend w/ Zac Efron hair. Because kissing gets you PREGNANT: at least, that's what they want us to believe.


Zac Efron Hair has a shlight lishp. And I'm an ash-hole for laughing at it.


The principal reminds me of the police officer in the SNL Lifetime skit--won't listen to Camryn Nurse because she's a woman.


I keep wanting Nancy Travis to have an English accent like she did in Three Men and a Baby. Was Mary born because of a pact? I wonder...


Zac Efron hair "couldn't imagine being married to anyone elsh."


Thora Birch is all EDGY with her videocam and her snappy snarkiness. Ugh. Um, no way is that gay dude her former boyfriend!


Zac Efron Hair's dad has a cell phone outside church and is therefore a jerk. Because only rich people have cell phones.


Thora Birch used to live in the small town but "went away suddenly." I wonder WHY? WHY? WHY?


Nancy Travis is all, "you kids and your blogs."


Why is redhead protagonist SO FOCUSED on getting married? It's weird. Zac Efron Hair, of course, just wants to have shex.


Redhead protagonist=deliberately pregnant. "OMG, I'm gonna have a baby!" Her friends swear secrecy on the pact. I need cheesecake, yo.


Seriously, are teenage girls really this stupid? I knew 2 girls who got pregnant at my high school in the same year. No talk of a pact.


During commercials: Should I get back into Project Runway? I dunno.


Disclaimer AGAIN? They must really be afraid of a lawsuit. Here's the contemplative guitar music and mirror-gazing. Condoms. They work!


High school Charlotte is kind of the badass rebel of the group. Huh.


Okay, Thora Birch lived in the crap small town for 2 years and therefore has NO right to complain about having no friends.


A video blog on teen issues? That's her full time job. O-kay.


Her ex is the gay-seeming guy who works at the school. Of course he knocked her up. Did he look at Honcho before doing the deed?


Obligatory Courtroom Scene, except I think it's more of a tribunal. Which I don't think would take place in a COURTROOM.


I know I'm asking a lot for a Lifetime movie to make sense, but why does pregnancy glamorizing=no birth control?


Conservative pro-abstinence Nancy Travis is SERVING Camryn Manheim with her scarves and silver jewelry.


High school Charlotte is wearing Jon Gosselin's patterned castoffs. Maybe he's the babydaddy.


Barfing! Nancy Travis Concerned Face. The Inevitable "Don't Be Mad," dad dragging daughter by arm, and Rich Asshole Zac Efron Hair Dad.


Commercial: Oh wow, a movie with fat suits that looks waaaaay more offensive than Shallow Hal.


Commercial: Am really sad. Was invited to 4 press screenings of "Dear John" and can't make ANY of them.


Why is there horror movie music over a pregnancy movie? Oh right, it's LIFETIME. I hate the whole "value yourself"=not have sex. God.


Actor who plays redhead's father. Have seen him somewhere and it's driving me crazy. I think he played a jerk. Using IMDb is cheating.


How is Zac Efron Hair "shupposed" to act? He should have figured out how to get "condomsh."


These are the girls who Oprah wants you to think have "rainbow parties." Even after that was proved to be a myth.


Now when someone says "sexually active," I think of Juno. It's a very strange term when you think about it.


Oh God, I'm getting a hipster Elizabeth Wakefield vibe from Thora Birch. All that's missing is the black-fingernailed shoulder pat.


Gay Ex in his checkered shirt is Concerned. He is way too natty to have knocked up a girl. Unless it was via turkey baster.


This movie was so clearly written by a 45-year-old trying to be hip but still afraid of the interwebs.


And who believes in rainbow parties.


Gay Ex is soooo in denial. You know his hot wife is either really Christian or goes to New York and swings on the weekends.


Commercial: Skinny Marie Osmond looks like a cross-eyed Barbie. It's not a good look for her. At all.


"Plus, all the girls in the olden days were married." Thanks, Thora Bitch, from all the single moms of America.


Gas stations sell condoms by the STRIP? I've never seen that ever.


Zac Efron Hair: "misherable." Perhapsh shome shpeech therapy would be of asshishtansh.


She's doing the Sarah Marshall pulling-his-face-to-her-face.


A Catholic mom is fundraising for the daycare? The Catholic moms I knew wouldn't have done that. Too deep in denial.


AGH, now I empathize with Thora Birch. Adoption is okay.


Sepia flashback: "let's all get pregnant and raise our babies together!" Big smiles. Now I understand all the disclaimers: that was a LIE.


Nancy Travis Status Update: I am haggard.


Yes, confide in a reporter. God, was I ever that stupid?


"So this is what it feels like to be Jamie Lynn Spears"???? What are they, at a coed boarding school for tweens?


Zoey 101 reference FTW!


Zac Efron Hair: "Did you get pregnant on purposh?" I wish he'd say porpoish. He is shorry for his accushation.


Oooh, "peer pressure." It's like a time travel machine to DARE 1988!


Is Camryn Manheim going to swoop in with magic condoms and save the day? Please make it so!


Aw, here's the lawyer! Combined with the rich asshole dad spouting cliches and screaming.


I doubt even my Catholic mother would refer to teenage me's out-of-wedlock baby as a "precious gift from God." At my gyno appointment.

That tabloid reporter looks like Pee Wee Herman. And Redhead's Dad is kicking his ass. Oh noes, Zac Efron Hair got arreshted!

By the way, teenage me did not have an out of wedlock baby. Partly because pregnancy scared the shit out of me. Still does.

Commercial: Did you know that there's a gay love story in "Valentine's Day"? Right, 'cause it's not in any preview. Hollywood, I hate you.

Thora Birch is being all JOURNALIST-Y. For her very famous blog that makes her enough to live in NYC.

Also, aren't teen pregnancy rates actually down from previous years?

Now we're talking Paternity Test (TM)! I really can't wait to see Lifetime Wow's take on this.

Oooh, now Nancy Travis is being kicked off the PTA council thingy. Her eyeshadow is very unhappy about this.

The timeline is all messed up. I'm not sure how pregnant Redhead is, or how long Thora's been in town.

Thora Birch totally went to the Elizabeth Wakefield School of Sanctimony. You heard it here first.

Ten bucks that Redhead conveniently miscarries.

Way to go, editors. That baby in an incubator is totally stock footage. They didn't even try. My shit laptop coulda done better.

I think Gay Ex and Thora Birch need to call a truce and head out to Musical Theatre Monday for cocktails and showtunes.

Ohhhh, I think Thora Birch had a shmashmortion.

"Was there a pact or wasn't there?" The reporters are confuuuuuused!

The moment of truth: there was a pact!!!!! Way to dishappoint your babydaddy, Redhead.

Commercial: Aaaand a Precious wannabe. They turned that around quick.

Underage Charlotte has determined her babydaddy. Heartfelt mother-daughter confession in car GO!

Mom said "butt!" Oprah fans everywhere are scandalized.

Redhead's dad said, "we're a little numb down here." Tell me the screenwriter didn't put that in on purpose.

Redhead just made a confession that ups her dumb quotient. I wouldn't trust my kid either if she were open about wanting a baby at 15.

It's a party! With teenage drinking shenanigans. And probably fornicating.

Hold up, is Redhead wearing a SCRUNCHIE?! And I'm pulling a Carrie Bradshaw: any iota of believability? Out the window!

Oh crap, Redhead just took a DRINK! Noooooooo! Also, there was roughing up, aka Miscarriage Foreshadowing. You know it's coming.

Now Thora Birch is telling Nancy Travis how to parent. Somewhere Liz Wakefield is smiling gently and patting her own shoulder.

Kristy Thomas is probably pretty proud of herself too.

Thora Birch's confession: she DIDN'T have the a-word. Because God forbid anyone in a Lifetime movie take that option and not, you know, die.

Redhead: passed out! Why do I want to sing "Pants on the Ground"?

Her pants are intact, FYI.

Someone had to say it: kids, don't drink and drive.

Wow, baby survived. Maybe the alcohol will have the reverse effect and she'll be smarter than her dumbass mom.

Wow, Nancy Travis is a hypocrite. But her daughter's mistakes. Were way worse.  (That's how. The line was said.)

This really is Full House: Now With Even Less Birth Control. It's a weird hybrid of Slut Shaming and Consequence-Free Teen Pregnancy.

I know all kids make mistakes, but Thora Birch didn't grow up in that town. She REALLY wouldn't have hunted down condoms?

Aaaand the abstinence message STILL prevails. Even though Nancy Travis herself didn't abstain before marriage.

Thora Birch admits that her "knee jerk liberal" mind has been changed by Nancy Travis' Magic Speech of Abstinence. And I go kill myself.

Color me shocked: Zac Efron Hair got a girlfriend who washn't knocked up.

Closing shot: stupid Redhead cuddling her baby and Thora Birch saying "congratulations." Brought to you by Sarah Palin.

Camryn Manheim says over the credits: "talk to your teens about sex." Start with the mixed messages of this movie.

GARRRRR. This movie wasn't as fun to snark as I thought. It just made me stabby. And it made me want to buy condoms, and I'm not even 15.

So later, when I bitched about this horrible movie, a friend of mine asked why I watched it in the first place. I mean, a Lifetime movie about teen pregnancy is most likely NOT going to be the most sex-positive thing around, so it's a valid question.  I guess my answer is this: I thought it would be eminently funny and snarkable like so many of its counterparts (Co-Ed Call Girl, anyone?).  Maybe it was that way for other people, but it turned out not to be the case for me.

Why?  It's an issue way closer to my heart than co-ed call girls or cheating wives.

Unpro Steps Up on a Very Brief Soapbox

Here's the thing: teen pregnancy isn't good.  I have no doubt that there ARE girls out there who are so uninformed and sheltered that they think getting pregnant before you graduate high school is, in fact, great. With The Pregnancy Pact, Lifetime had a real opportunity to warn against teen pregnancy, while promoting alternatives that are indeed positive: birth control, effective parental communication, and most of all, things that teens can do (together, or by themselves) that aren't intercourse but are still fun and healthy and normal. Because making birth control available won't turn teenagers into sexmongers (well, any more than they already are)--it will just make them more informed and safer.  Also, not every teen is ready to have sex, but there are other ways to feel good that don't carry the risk of pregnancy and STD's.

But no.  Lifetime took those opportunities and shot them STRAIGHT TO HELL.  Because who needs education, information and excitation when you have the ever-effective abstinence?

GRRRRRRR.

*end rant*

Just a quick heads-up: next week, I will be heading out of town for the two-week writing residency I mentioned in my last post.  During that time, you'll get two amazing pop culture-related guest posts: one from Etiquette Bitch and one from Nikki of Are You There Youth?  It's Me, Nikki.  Should be fun!

See ya in a few weeks, and as always, thanks a mil for reading.

Remember the Time: Now and Then

This week, I conclude my Teen Girl Trifecta with a coming of age story rooted in nostalgia but quietly resonant nonetheless.

I can remember seeing Now and Then in the theatres with so much clarity it's a little scary.  I was probably wearing my favorite plaid shirt, to camouflage the boobs that I despised (like Christina Ricci's Roberta).  My mom drove us because we were a year away from our own licenses.  It was a Friday night and we had to wait in line, because our town was tiny and what else was there to do?  And most of all, I remember who I was with: my best friend Addie.  We were so excited for a girl-centric friendship movie, because we considered ourselves the only feminists in our Catholic high school.  And naturally, we adored Now and Then: for the rest of the year when things got rough, we'd remind each other, "It's normal for things to be shitty."

For a film that, as I recall, received very little marketing, there were a lot of interesting women involved.  Real '90's power players, young and old.  Not only does the pre-fembot Demi Moore show up onscreen as adult Samantha (her sultry voice carrying a lovely weight in the film's narration), she also executive produced the film with her oft-partner Suzanne Todd.  The director, Leslie Linka Glatter, has helmed several episodes of excellent television series such as Six Feet Under and most recently Mad Men.  And the 99% female cast is fantastic: Moore, Melanie Griffith (before she got all pufferfish scary), Rosie O'Donnell (before she got all militant), and Rita Wilson as the adult versions of their equally strong younger counterparts: Gaby Hoffmann, Thora Birch (recovered from the Macaulay Culkin mushmouth she had as a tot in All I Want for Christmas), Christina Ricci, and an unknown Canadian named Ashleigh Aston Moore (who died of respiratory failure in late 2007).  Plus, Janeane Garofalo, Bonnie Hunt and Cloris Leachman pop up in fun cameo roles (not to mention Demi Moore's own daughter, Rumer Willis).

Like I said, the film wasn't marketed much.  I remember previews and ads MAYBE a week before the release date.  It was one of those movies which the studio clearly had no idea what to do with.  (This is starting to become true for Whip It as well.)  Probably all the estrogen.  Scaaaaaaaary!  A film with that many cool girls and women couldn't POSSIBLY have anything to say to the public.  Right?

Wrong.

Among the many inequities in pop culture is this glaring annoyance: a film such as Stand By Me is lauded and praised for its sepia-toned illusion-shattering but lesson-learning portrayal of the child-teen brink.  Now and Then, on the other hand, while plenty loved by many women I know, gets written off as a "chick flick."  Don't get me wrong, I love Stand By Me.  However, Now and Then not only has many similar elements--sexual confusion, broken families, and a supernatural element, related largely in flashback form--but is just as well-acted and affecting without being manipulative.  Only it's about chicks, so it's not seen as universal.  Bull. Shit.

The plot is simple and straightforward: four far-flung childhood pals reunite in their old Indiana suburb and recall an eventful summer of their youth.  Samantha (Moore/Hoffmann), now a hardboiled sci-fi writer, remembers her parents' divorce, a neighborhood first.  Roberta (O'Donnell/Ricci), a sardonic doctor, was then a tough tomboy who taped down her tits while secretly mourning her mother's death.  Teeny (Griffith/Birch), now a sexpot actress, stuffed her chest with pudding-filled balloons and watched drive-in movies from her rooftop.  And Chrissy (Wilson/Aston Moore), an expectant mom, was intolerant of naughty words and obsessed with gardening, thanks to a metaphor-heavy sex talk from her well-meaning but misguided mother.  In the summer of 1970, they are twelve years old and have two goals: raise money for a fantastic treehouse (essentially a room of their own), and solve the mystery of a long-ago local death involving a boy their age known only as Dear Johnny.  All set to a background of pastels and love beads, and a groovy 70's soundtrack featuring not one but two Jackson 5 songs (yay!).

Most people use the term "tearjerker" to describe an emotional film.  I prefer "noseprickler."  As in, my nose gets all prickly the way it does before I get all choked up.  Now and Then has plenty of noseprickling moments.  After all, Roberta and Samantha are dealing with absent parents, carefully choosing what they do and don't reveal to their friends.  All four girls encounter lost souls such as a Purple Heart winner-turned-drifter (Brendan Fraser) and a lonely old man who's not as creepy as he seems, both of which alter their worldviews in ways that aren't always welcome.  Samantha in particular learns that "things happen beyond our control, but that's no reason to shut out the world"--revealing as an adult that it's taken her decades to fully process that advice.  And at the conclusion of the summer, the girls have met both their summer goals, but with very different results than they planned: mainly, the inevitability of their growing apart.

Don't get me wrong, there is as much hilarity.  Not only do the four younger actresses present believable relationship dynamics, but they really bring the funny.  The girls may squabble, tease and form alliances within their quartet, but they band together with a vengeance against the common enemy: boys, especially the Wormer brothers (adult Samantha dryly notes, "everyone in the neighborhood felt sorry for their mother").  Also, a sexist softball-game spectator who orders Roberta to "go home and play with your dolls" earns a well-deserved physical and verbal beatdown.

Less than a year after we watched Now and Then, like the girls in the film, Addie and I gained independence from each other.  We definitely stayed close and had more sleepovers.  However, we started seriously pursuing our passions: music for her and theatre for me.  She started dating the next semester; that summer, I fell in love.  Thanks to Facebook, we've very recently reconnected.  She's moved back to our old stomping grounds and has a husband and child, I'm a single gal in the city.  But like lovers always have Paris, Addie and I always have Now and Then.

Sadly, I have to wonder if a film like Now and Then could even be made today.  The story, while important and universal, isn't the sort of box-office and/or Oscar bait that studios crave these days.  On the other side of the coin, it's not quirky enough to be an indie.  Plus, the fact that there are boys' naked butts automatically disqualifies it from Disney.  However, I'm really not sure that today's young actresses could carry almost an entire film as subtly and skillfully as Ricci, Hoffmann, Birch and Aston Moore.  So maybe, even though it never got the mainstream attention it deserved, Now and Then was in fact, in the right place at the right time.