"If These Walls Could Talk" is a pro-choice propaganda film.
It's very good propaganda, but it's propaganda nonetheless.The made-for-HBO movie, which debuts Sunday at 10 p.m., is actually a trio of tales about abortion. Set in the same house in three different decades, it deals with three women and their decisions about whether to end their pregnancies:
- In 1952, a young widow (Demi Moore) finds herself pregnant after a one-night encounter with her brother-in-law when both were mourning the death of her husband. She's humiliated and desperate to keep her supportive in-laws from finding out. And, in the 1950s, abortions are illegal.
- In 1974, a happily married mother for four (Sissy Spacek) discovers that she's pregnant. Another baby would interrupt her education once again and put a strain on the family in many ways. Abortion is now legal, but is this wife and mother ready to exercise that option?
- In 1996, a college student (Anne Heche) who has always personally opposed abortion considers her options when her married boyfriend (Craig T. Nelson) drops her - and leaves her confused and pregnant. Abortions are legal, but she must fight her way through a crowd of protesters just to make it to the clinic.
Each of these tales is well-written, emotional and involving. You may disagree strongly with the decisions these women make, but you can empathize with their situations.
Those involved in making the movie - Moore is one of the executive producers - make no bones about their own pro-choice stands. But they insist that their political views are not part of the production.
"I felt kind of a very personal responsibility and passion to deal with this particular issue, more so as a non-political issue," Moore said. "And (it's) much more about the personal emotional issue of the difficulty of any woman facing an unwanted pregnancy."
"I think that the three pieces are intended to dramatize and illustrate the very personal experience that each woman goes through," said executive producer Suzanne Todd, who is Moore's partner. "And so I think in terms of taking a stand on any side of the issue, as far as we're concerned it's about looking at what a woman goes through and what that experience is."
Those are noble statements, but disingenuous. Yes, these are indeed the personal stories of three women. And, yes, one of them actually decides not to have an abortion.
But the entire tenor of all three stories comes down strongly on the side those favoring abortion rights.
As is so often the case on television - in everything from daytime soaps to made-for-TV movies to daytime talk shows - people who are pro-choice are portrayed as intelligent, caring and enlightened.
But the vast majority of the characters in "If These Walls Could Talk" who oppose abortion are portrayed as uncaring and unfeeling. They're feeble-minded religious zealots. They're screaming, snarling ideologues. They're murderers.
Which is not to say that there aren't pro-lifers who are all of those things. But there are pro-choicers who possess equally unattractive qualities, and they're not on view here.
And a calm, rational, caring, intelligent pro-lifer has no place within "These Walls." And very little place on television in general.
The cable film also pulls out the most horrific abortion tales, from unlicensed butchers of the '50s to the most extreme anti-abortion tactics imaginable to make its point. (Some of the scenes in the movie are horrifically bloody and disturbing.) Again, it's not that these sorts of thing didn't - and don't - happen, but to portray them and then call this a balanced, non-political product is a bald-faced lie.
Not that Moore seems to much care.
"It's out of our control how it's perceived," Moore said. "All we can try to do is put as much of our emotion and our feeling behind our point of view of this. And in the end, when we're saying it's non-political, my personal view is that it doesn't belong in the political arena. It belongs with the individual. . . . My womb, and every other woman's, does not belong in politics."
The irony of the fact that she insisted that she's not espousing a political view and then espousing one in the same breath seems to have escaped Moore.
"Speaking for myself, I'm not trying to deliver a message," said Cher, who makes her directorial debut in the third segment of the cable movie and also has a small role as a doctor. "I'm just trying to deliver a story. And whatever the person who's watching the story takes away from that, it's not a message that I'm showing, it's a personalized story."
But, again, that's disingenuous. Yes, each segment of "If These Walls Could Talk" is a personal story - but it's a personal story with a definite point of view.
FOXY MOVES: Fourth-place Fox, suffering through a big drop in its ratings this season, is bringing back one show, canceling another, moving a third, and delaying a fourth.
On Nov. 9, "The New America's Most Wanted: America Fights Back" returns to the Saturday at 8 p.m. time slot "AMW" occupied last season.
To make room, Fox has axed "Love and Marriage" (it had its last airing last week) and is returning "Married . . . With Children" to Sundays on Nov. 10.
"MWC" will air at both 6 and 6:30 p.m. until further notice. (Which means until Fox can find something else to run on Sundays.)
And the season premiere of "Ned and Stacey" has been delayed from Oct. 27 to Sunday, Nov. 17, at 7:30 p.m.
UNBELIEVABLE: Mr. T is going to guest star on the Oct. 17 episode of "Suddenly Susan."
Word is that NBC searched high and low for an actor who could make Brooke Shields and Judd Nelson seem talented by comparison.