Posted on 07/25/2019 8:27:48 PM PDT by DoodleBob
In an age when Roe v. Wade is under attack and sweeping, severe anti-abortion laws and bills are being passed in Alabama, Georgia, and Missouri, it’s interesting to look back on the pro-choice subplot of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which caused little stir in 1982. Sitting at Yahoo Entertainment with David Crosby to promote his latest film project, the documentary David Crosby: Remember My Name, Cameron Crowe — whose book about his experience as an undercover reporter at a Southern California high school inspired the classic teen comedy — acknowledges that those scenes would be received very differently today.
“It would be outrageously controversial, and it would be protested, and there would be a mess over it,” Crowe assets.
In the movie, which was directed by Amy Heckerling, 15-year-old sophomore Stacy, a virgin at the start of the school year, has sex with creepy Damone, who cruelly ghosts her afterwards. Stacy later finds out she’s pregnant and gets an abortion, but her decision and its aftermath are treated very plainly, with absolutely zero moral judgment. Fast Times was Heckerling’s first feature film, at a time when few female directors were helming major projects, and Crowe remains appreciative of the bravery and unflinching attitude with which she tackled the realistic storyline.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
I always saw the Stacy character as being very traumatized by her abortion. She becomes a completely different, withdrawn girl thereafter, chiefly from the moment Brad shocks her and picks her up from the clinic. THAT spoke volumes.
Good point. It was not glamorized then and likely would be today. And no one would watch it...
So... what's your point?
People were less politicized back then.
They also didn't argue about who could go to what bathroom, or whether seven- and eight-year-olds should be taught homosexuality, or whether transsexuals should be able to perform in front of preschoolers, as well as a host of other matters that now can cause people to trigger into a public meltdown.
Abortion storylines are fairly common in film and TV now.
I’ve known women that were basket cases for good after their abortions.
2 of them.
Severe depression. One turned to cutting.
I was really crazy about one of the girls so I told her you gotta ask God’s forgiveness and do right from now on.
She was Jewish so I told her to see a Rabbi. I told her talking to priests has helped me a few times in the past.
I also suggested marriage but I guess she had a hard enough life as it was.
As she was cutting already, it may have been a very hard life for me...
It’s a horrible crime against humanity and it DESTROYS anyone with a heart who made a VERY BAD decision that they must live with until their last breath.
Those are the worst kinds.
I didn’t like the movie because of it. The main bone of contention was that Damone didn’t want to pay for the abortion. Similar to The Last American Virgin where Gary was such a great guy for paying for the abortion and then the girl goes off with the guy who knocked her up. Gary, you cuck.
But, nothing can take away from the greatest movie scene of the ‘80s. That’s more down to Phoebe (and the Cars) than Crowe or Heckerling.
I don't have one favorite scene. There are too many good ones...when Hamilton uses profanity on the customer, every scene with Mr Hand, "the attitude" speech, wrecking the car/"I can fix it", the cadaver scene, the dream scene with Spicoli, and the attempted robbery.
It was handled like most girls would have handled it at that time.
Interestingly, Fast Times at Ridgememont High featured as many eventual Best Actor Academy Award winners as The Godfather and The Godfather II.
I suspect being granted absolution helps but I cannot fathom how crippling are the aftershocks. I imagine it’s like a drunk driver sobering up and realizing to his horror that he killed someone.
Some might jump on you for that comparison but I think it’s a GREAT one.
It would be easy to categorize every woman who has an abortion as an evil monster but it’s just not true.
Pressure comes from everywhere to have an abortion...boyfriend, sometimes family, society..it will ruin your future!!!!
Some are too weak to fight all of that off.
But if they were monsters, they wouldn’t be falling to pieces afterwards and making cuts up and down their legs.
The act WAS EVIL.
And you are right about crippling.
Because though I have compassion for those who are truly sorry, they still killed THEIR OWN BABY and have to live with that for life.
And when you are truly horrified by what you did, that’s a brutal life sentence
None of those teen 80s sex comedies can be made today.
I guess Diane Keaton doesn’t count as a Best Actress winner, which would give the Godfather movies the edge.
This was slipped into what would have been a great comedy for social engineering, nothing more. It sold recently-legalized abortion to a new generation of Americans with a sob story.
I am sure there are some women who've have multiple abortions are are proud of it. That's the type of 'spirit' they'd inject into Stacy today. The Stacy character in Fast Times had no pride and she sure came across more like the damaged class we described. While some people think that subplot promoted abortion as an option (and they may be right there) it sure wasn't presented as a costless option.
Great post.
And I agree about that movie. She was incredibly insecure and used and seemed like the kind of girl it would affect the rest of her life
Fast Times is one of my favorite movies of all time. I used to be able to do all the dialogue lines when I watched it.
The movie came out the summer before my freshman year of college. There are so many great lines from that movie that we all used and still get used all the time. My buddy called me about a week ago and asked what I was doing? “Learnin about Cuba and having some food”. And a while back when another friend was a little buzzed and dropped and broke his cell phone, my other buddy chimes in “Relax all right? My old man is a television repairman. He’s got the ultimate set of tools. I can fix it.” Classic. I miss the crap out of the eighties.
I was shocked when I watched the movie again around 2002.
Now I know that the movie is inappropriate for a kid.
Ditto for the back seat rape in Saturday Night Fever.
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