Counter-Currents
1,764 words
Unplanned has recently made a name for itself as an effective anti-abortion movie which has achieved success and popularity despite being suppressed by the Leftist media. It is an overtly Christian movie, based on a true story, and in many ways delivers what one would expect from a Christian movie: the pious characters, the constant sermonizing, the moral quandaries, the heartrending drama, and the inevitable redemption. The plot, tried and true as it is, is as old as Paul the Apostle:
BEGINNING: Wicked Person does wicked things.
MIDDLE: Something triggers Wicked Person to renounce his wickedness.
END: Formerly wicked person enjoys redemption in the eyes of God.
In our story, Abby Johnson (played by Ashley Bratcher) volunteers as a counselor at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas. Despite being a Christian herself and facing open disapproval from her family, she believes in her work. Slowly, however, she learns what really goes on at Planned Parenthood, and it has nothing to do with championing women in crisis or making abortions safe and rare. Her Hispanic boss Sheryl (played by Robia Scott) is a villain known by her fading beauty, slick wardrobe, and poorly-applied makeup. She exhibits the kind of cold-blooded mission lust required to run a clinic which can kill dozens of fetuses in a day. She instructs Abby and other staff members to lie to patients and their families. She instructs her staff to call 911 to report protestors who are not violating the law. She encourages a pregnant Abby to get an abortion. Fearing bad press, she forbids Abby to call an ambulance when a patient nearly bleeds to death. It’s not long before this ghastly woman enters Cruela DeVille territory, minus all the cigarettes and cackling.
Most tellingly, after awarding Abby with Employee of the Year, Sheryl announces to the Planned Parenthood brass that their goal in the following year will be to increase abortions – as if this is a good thing. And when Abby objects, Sheryl formerly reprimands her.
Then, as indicated in the movie’s trailer, Abby finally sees what goes on during an abortion. She is so horrified she decides to quit Planned Parenthood forever. After this cathartic moment, Abby teams up with the anti-abortion protestors who’d been assembling outside of her office throughout the entire movie, and dedicates her life to fighting abortion. She spends the rest of the movie dealing with the guilt of having been complicit in twenty-two thousand abortions, as well as a lawsuit leveled against her by her former friends at Planned Parenthood.
Since Christianity in general, and the anti-abortion messaging of Unplanned, are highly unfashionable these days, the most skilled and/or well-known writers, producers, and actors will likely eschew a project like this one – and from a technical standpoint, the movie doesn’t exactly sparkle. Its performances range from wooden to competent. The actors are attractive, but lack charisma, making it hard to develop an interest in them. The writing is serviceable, but often heavy-handed, and lacks wit (“You did what you thought was right!” “Then why do I feel so ashamed?”). The pacing is fine, for the most part, but suffers during the middle, making a 110-minute feature seem rather long. The narrative is fairly tight, but becomes somewhat manipulative when it includes scenes meant to provoke a reaction rather than to further the story or develop the characters. The direction for the most part also lacks vision. From a technical standpoint, there isn’t much to find serious fault with in Unplanned, but there is little to praise in it, either.
Despite this, Unplanned has a lot going for it. For one, it has perhaps the most unsettling and terrifying opening scene in any movie I have ever seen. The climax, wherein Abby finally witnesses an abortion and renounces her career, happens not in the middle of the film, but in its first few minutes – which consigns most of the rest of the story to flashbacks. It’s not only Abby who witnesses the abortion; we witness it as well, all on ultrasound. I cried, and I never cry. I turned away, covered my eyes, and peered between my fingers whenever I thought it was safe. I know a reviewer shouldn’t resort to such personal and subjective impressions, but a scene so appalling makes objectivity impossible. It was entirely unwatchable – but in a good way. Directors Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman clearly wished to convey Abby’s horror when she witnesses an abortion up close. By utterly traumatizing their audience, they succeeded. This takes art to another level, and the directors deserve enormous credit for doing so. Too much would have had people fleeing the theaters, and not enough would have trivialized Abby’s reaction. I believe the directors hit it just right, and provided a truly unforgettable cinema experience in the opening minutes of Unplanned.
Another directing triumph is the way Abby’s second abortion is treated, which happened before she began her career at Planned Parenthood. It was done using a pill, which the Planned Parenthood counselor had told her would gently empty out her uterus. That was a lie, and the directors treat us to the ramifications of that lie by showing poor Abby in agony, spilling blood all over her bathroom. Between the shaky camera, the creepy atonal score, and the stark red-on-white contrast in the visuals, we have a scene that rivals the shower scene in Pyscho for visceral impact. I am sure the directors had that in mind when they concluded it with the image of a bloody and unconscious Abby stretched out on the tiled floor.
There’s a nice twist at the end of the movie as well, and if you are not already familiar with Abby Johnson’s story, you might not see it coming.
Putting aside any political considerations, however, this review should end here. Unplanned is a B+ movie that depicts a heroic woman who underwent a remarkable transformation under trying circumstances and went on to inspire real-world change. It would have gotten a C+ from me if not for the scenes mentioned above, as well as a few moments of endearing sweetness and heart that’s impossible to fake. For example, the scenes in which a heartbroken Abby shows up the protestors’ office to confess, and when she is forced to deal with her guilt, were handled impeccably by both the cast and the directors. The Christian redemption motif resonates with so many people because there is truth in it. It’s always uplifting to watch someone overcome themselves for the sake of something higher, both in life and in art. Dostoevsky gives us such an ending in Crime and Punishment, so such a redemption doesn’t necessarily have to be religious. It is in Unplanned, but this can be considered a predictable yet necessary trope of its genre. Within this genre, the redemption offered by Abby Johnson, Cary Solomon, and Chuck Konzelman is about as good as it gets. By considering it outside the Christian movie genre, however, the movie’s weaknesses become apparent. Compare it to its secular analog, Erin Brockovich, which sparkles on every level, for a particularly striking example.
Taking partisan politics back into account, however, Unplanned suddenly becomes a lot more interesting. Abby Johnson is a former insider at Planned Parenthood who wrote the book on which the movie is based. For any conservative or Right-winger, the dirt she dishes out on her former employers is entertaining as hell. As a White Nationalist, I loved watching the Planned Parenthood leadership getting exposed for the anti-human ghouls that they are. And if the directors or Johnson herself exaggerated a bit in this depiction, I don’t care. As I have stated before, Planned Parenthood is a fundraising tool for the Democratic Party, and one of the stronger links in the Leftist chain that is slowly asphyxiating legacy America. To weaken it or break it, for whatever reason, would be a Good Thing, to say nothing of all the white fetuses such an act would save. Unplanned gives that chain a righteous rattle and should be praised to the skies for it. A few more movies like it and, who knows? Maybe the Right will get some breathing room in America after all.
Another perk in Unplanned is how white it is. Very little airtime is given to non-whites in this movie—except in two cases, where both are villains. It’s never stated explicitly, but Christianity and whiteness seem almost one and the same in Unplanned, and both are portrayed quite positively. In today’s racially-charged, #OscarsSoWhite cinema culture, an all-white good guy cast becomes nothing less than an iconoclastic statement for the Right. This may not have been Solomon and Konzelman’s intention, but Unplanned does little to block such a racial interpretation, if one chooses to have one.
At its core, Unplanned is more a political tract than a work of art. It sells Christianity and it sells prayer. It also demonizes the leadership of Planned Parenthood. That it does all these things well does not make it any less of a propaganda piece. The completely gratuitous image of the Planned Parenthood sign being pulled down in the end, like that statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad in 2003, should make this point clear enough. Unplanned also does more than merely entertain and inspire the pro-life crowd. During the end credits, the movie offers contact information for Planned Parenthood workers who wish to leave the abortion industry. It is, in effect, a brazen attempt to dishearten the Left in the culture wars by encouraging its foot soldiers to switch sides. In the credits, the movie claims it has already helped hundreds to do so. And this is despite an advertising ban on all but two cable television channels, a total embargo by Google, and a sudden unfollowing of the Unplanned Twitter account by thousands on the day of the movie’s release.[1]
Note
[1] In a recent Senate hearing before Senator Ted Cruz, co-director Konzelman complained about how the MPAA’s giving of an R rating to Unplanned hurt his movie’s chances at the box office. Since many Christians will not see R-rated movies on principle, Konzelman speculated that this was another dimension of the Left’s effort to suppress it. While he may be right about this, I find the rating appropriate. Given the graphic and unavoidably cruel nature of the opening scene, as well as the plethora of blood in other instances, and the scene in which a teenaged girl in stirrups nearly bleeds to death, no child should be allowed to watch this movie unsupervised.
Spencer J. Quinn is a frequent contributor to Counter-Currents and the author of the novel White Like You.
16 comments
The one fact that is overlooked in every battle over abortion is that if a woman does not want to have a baby, does not want to be a mother, she will find a way to have an abortion. It is better to have a reasonably safe alternative like Planned Parenthood, rather than a risky back-office or ‘back-alley’ abortion. I know this sounds like a cliché, but it is simply true, and always has been. I realize that “making it simple and safe” perhaps encourages more abortions, but I don’t see any other way around the dilemma. As for the racial aspect, I certainly want more white women to marry and have a lovely family with 3 or 4 children — that’s an ideal which I hope we can obtain. But banning abortion is not the way to achieve it. Counter Currents. on the other hand, has published marvelous essays on how ‘Feminism’ encourages women to work at careers rather than remaining at home with husband and children. This is a wonderful counter-measure to society’s attempt to push women out of their biological role. I hope that these arguments against modern ‘careerism’ will help women see a better path in life, which might help cut down abortions greatly. Having a secure home with a husband with a secure job is also a big help toward avoiding the choice for abortion. So, continuing on this line of reasoning, to me, should be our continued focus. Security is a big concern of women — many have abortions because they cannot see a ‘secure path in the future’ for themselves or their baby, and that’s why they choose abortion. We need to keep this in mind. Keep up the writings on this subject. No “National Homeland” can be created without women on board.
Why is making sure blood-thirsty women have access to a supposedly safe death delivering procedure a matter of your concern? If they want to kill their children, they should face the risk. Stop white knighting.
Right, more bastard children born of women with poor impulse control is the way to go.
No, it’s not that. Abortion should return to the back alleys, where it rightly belongs. Not outlawed, just restricted to the back alley. If the “procedure” goes bad, well, that’s life in the big city. You pays yer money and you takes yer chances.
Not to mention the eugenics aspect of it. In a Spartan white ethnostate, Down syndrome mongoloids or those with inheritable genetic defects who wish not to procreate should have access to safe ways to prevent pregnancies.
I don’t get too hung up on abortion like others in the Alt-Right. I’m not a big fan of late term abortion or post-abortion caugh caugh infanticide as well. For every “Aryan Princess” aborting a white child there are ten more who will never even conceive a child because they are too focused on their precious careers and traveling. Having said that, there are no “accidental pregnancies”. Might as well say people accidentally kill themselves playing Russian Roulette.
The problem I have with any piece of fiction that contains right-wing ideology is that it’s almost never good. But it’s a bit murky as to whether or not I perceive it to be good or bad not because of its own merits as fiction, or if it’s because it’s simply very rare for right-wing ideology to be present in fiction. Can’t remember ever really enjoying or thinking that a piece of right-wing fiction was especially great.
Right-wing fiction seems to almost completely lack subtlety, though. I can say that much with confidence.
Hi Matthew,
May I (ahem) recommend a novel called White Like You which might tempt you to revise your opinion on right wing fiction?
https://counter-currents.com/product/white-like-you/
Directors have interesting (((surnames))). Any info about that?
Hi Ralf. No wiki pages for the directors that I could see. Cruz referred to them both as Christians in the Senate hearing. If they are conversos I have no idea. But I will say that white people are portrayed *very* positively in this movie, both in an absolute sense and vis-a-vis non whites. Even the girls working at Planned Parenthood were portrayed as perfectly nice (there was one black PP counselor, but she had almost no lines). Yes, one white male protestor is a bit obnoxious, and the white male OBGYN doctor came across as callous (especially while saving a girl’s life)–but *all* whites in the movie are honest, competent, and motivated people.
In general, so positive were these portrayals that I believe Jewishness or non-Jewishness of the directors at least as far as Unplanned goes, becomes entirely irrelevant.
I believe that all non-white women should be encouraged to have abortions; I also believe that all white women should be prohibited from having abortions unless the mother is in danger, the father is a non-white, or the fetus is deformed.
My sentiments exactly, but I didn’t have the courage to say that when I first saw this post. It’s wonderful now to have a place to express my real opinions. Overpopulation in the Third-World is one of the most serious problems we face, and I believe it is at least 75% responsible for looming climate change If we didn’t have the ‘growing demand’ continually for more cars, more houses, more cropland carved out of rain forests, etc., we could have a much nicer planet within a century, I believe. So stopping overpopulation ASAP seems the most logical response, and that would have to include abortion as well as pills and long-term birth-control injections, and vasectomies, etc. Abortion is still needed because Third-World women might forget to take pills. (Gee, I could never say that on FB!) Also, we would need to find a way to encourage white women to have more children That is every bit as difficult as stopping Third-World women from having too many. And all this has to be said out loud, where it would be viciously attacked as “racism”. It’s a monumental task, but I am glad to have found a group where at least some members agree with me, and can discuss the issue intelligently.
In reality, we should make abortion totally free. But not for whites because they are too privileged. Lol
Whether I am for or against abortion depends on the abortion. I’m pro-white.
Abortion was imposed on all the states by judicial fiat right when a demographic bulge of white women was reaching peak fertility. Now that America has been flooded with tens of millions of non-whites, there is talk of repealing Roe V Wade to turn those non-whites into fast-breed bio-weapons of white genocide. The precise moment repealing Roe V Wade will hurt white people because it leads to more non-white births than white births is the precise moment you will see the anti-white establishment, those champions of women’s rights, push for repeal. For them, anti-whitism trumps everything.
In 1967, the Supreme Court handed down Loving V Virginia which struck down state anti-miscegenation laws supposedly under the 14th amendment. All but one of the states which ratified the 14th Amendment had and enforced anti-miscegenation laws at the time of ratification. Religious leaders and conservatives praised this unconstitutional judicial overreach.
Then in 1971 the same authority handed down Roe V Wade and the same people who praised judicial overreach in 1967 now condemned judicial overreach. “Where did the Supreme Court get this power?!” You gave it to them in 1967. You can whine about Roe V Wade on moral grounds, but no one who supported Loving V Virginia can whine about Roe V Wade on LEGAL grounds, nor can they ever claim they are constitutional strict constructionists.
Anti-abortionists are perfectly happy with a world that is brown, poor and tyrannical. Saving white people is more important than arguing about abortion.
I agree that no rightist resources should be wasted fighting abortion (at least in current USA), though it must be acknowledged that any implicitly pro-White candidate (no explicit pro-Whites can run and win at this time) MUST run as nominally pro-life. He could not win without doing so.
Even for Christians, there is no requirement that one be an anti-abortion zealot; only that one not oneself obtain or perform abortions. When the West is under demographic siege-warfare, it is silly – and perhaps even immoral – to focus on secondary issues like abortion. No one is forced to have an abortion (not that I personally would care in many cases, but one could see how a great many Christians would be upset by coercive abortions).
You are correct that Loving was erroneously decided. But who were the “conservative” leaders supporting and juridically justifying that decision? I can’t recall any from my own general reading.
Also, Roe was 1973. And in what sense did Loving pave the way for Roe? I once knew this (and could Google), but it was really Griswold v CT and some others I forget which laid the “foundation” for Roe (which was grossly incorrectly decided, even if I think America would be an even bigger shithole had Roe not been in effect for the past 45+ years).
Shocking that I had not heard of this film.
Ditto the shock that in a nation 90% Christian one never sees a serious or sensitive cinematic portrayal of the Christian life. Clearly if it weren’t for the deranged self-flagellating fundamentalist there would be no room for Christianity in movieland.
Only on network tv it seems has it occasionally been useful to have 90% America touched by a diversity angel or texted by a diversity God, i.e., only if Jesus can be a trojan for the coming POCalypse.
Hey sleepy Christians this is what happens when you allow your entire media corp to be run by your sworn enemies. Are you too busy funding Zionism to bother?
There was a movie about 10 years ago, an indie film, that shocked me in its positive portrayal of the religio-abortion issue: ‘Bella’ . Of course it slid past the censors b/c the family was not lily white; they were latino, Mexican-American mestizos i think. It’s worth checking out.
*Roe v Wade, correct me if i’m wrong, obviated or rather evaded the ethical question of abortion by assigning it to the realm of privacy..this at the very peak of that moment when the most ferocious promoters of baby snatching were arguing that privacy was their avowed enemy was the sum of all evil was the very engine of the patriarchy etc.. no?
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