I went to see “The Business of Being Born” on Sunday at UMC.
It was a surprisingly full house. I expected that the movie would elicit a strong reaction from me–though I wasn’t sure of what nature. What I wasn’t prepared for was the feel of the crowd.
At first I was so excited to see the auditorium nearly full of people, mostly women, and lots of babies. The anticipation was palpable. The presenters apologized in advance for presenting the screening in a hospital–or perhaps they didn’t apologize, but they acknowledged the potential irony of the situation.
I went to the screening hoping to learn more about birth in America–the choices women have, the choices women make, and the reasons behind our options and decisions. I ended up feeling somewhat defensive–maybe unnecessarily, but there you have it.
The movie itself presents a mostly black and white view–hospital/home birth, doctor/midwife, NICU/bathtub, cold/warm. Or at least that’s how it felt. There was footage of the gruesomeness involved in “twilight birthing” popular in the mid-early 20th century, and of the bias against midwifery and homebirthing that emerged around the same time. And we saw beautiful, peaceful homebirths, attending by caring, supportive midwives. As with any documentary, the director makes choices about what images and footage to include, and all good movies tell a story, make a point.
What kept the movie from feeling completely black and white was the [spoiler here, if you don't want to read it] director’s medically necessary hospital birth at the end. It provided a balance, on one hand. On the other, it felt like it cemented the point that home birth is good/warm, hospital birth is bad/cold–yes, she had a healthy baby, and felt lucky in some ways. But she and her son had a difficult time nursing, and the final moments showed her giving him a bottle and admitting they had a hard time bonding.
That is my short and immediate reaction to the movie (oh, and Ricki Lake looks surprisingly good in a cowboy hat). But my feeling in the crowd, my thoughts about the panel discussion–it felt more politicized and less cohesive than I hoped. I hoped that the movie would be about women having choices, and (perhaps misguidedly) I hoped that the audience would be interested in learning about and supporting those choices. But it didn’t feel that way.
Which is okay. I’m glad that the movie made it to Tucson–thanks again to Melissa and Renee–and I’m happy that there are so many people advocating for women’s health. I just wish that there was more interest in discussing/creating a middle ground between homebirth and the super-creepy experiences some people have with hospital births.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Amy // Jan 22, 2008 at 9:01 pm
I hear you there. A lot of the audience seemed to want to talk only about how interventions and hospitals are bad. I felt that way before giving birth, but ended up having a hospital experience that I was very thankful for. Especially towards the end it seemed as though the vocal audience members were only interested in the home birth/midwife attended birth scenario, rather than talking about how to empower women overall.
I’m still glad I went, and I’m very thankful there was a forum for the movie here in Tucson.
2 Cassandra B // Jan 23, 2008 at 4:43 pm
I, too, was hoping for a more positive panel discussion. However helpful her input might have been, I felt like the presence of a legal voice in the body of the JD politicized the room much more than needed. I honestly couldn’t care less about most of the things she talked about but it derailed most conversation about how to turn birth into a more positive, choice-driven, educated process. Like, how do we get the insurance companies to stop being so idiotic? How does one get a doctor to treat the person rather than the label, or the clock? What can we do to help our friends and children have a better experience, whether that be at home or in a hospital?
It did occur to me that this film, and more depictions of such births, are a step in the right direction towards putting such a possibility in women’s minds. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen terrible, dramatic, painful, horrible births on film - ER was the worst! But I’ve probably only seen positive, non-screaming, non-medicated births on screen in THIS film. It makes sense. We are country that is afraid of sex and birth and most of all, of our children having sex and giving birth. What better way to curtail your sixteen year old’s sex-life than to show terrible pain and drama and say, “See? Look at that. Do you really want THAT happening to you? That’s what will happen if you have sex!”. It’s the puritanical pax on the female sex - make ‘em fear it so they don’t do it, and then make them feel guilty when they don’t or can’t give birth naturally.
But maybe I’m just cynical.
3 “The Business of Being Born” returns to Tucson // Aug 28, 2008 at 8:03 pm
[...] you missed the screening at UMC earlier this year, next week you’ll have another chance to see Abby Epstein and Ricki Lake’s documentary [...]
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