(2024 Nellie Wong Magic of Movies Essay Contest)
Many of the films I watched inspired me in various ways. There was incredible creativity in all the films, and the effect of the movies is evident in my recent writings. I express myself mainly through poetry and monologues, as well as through my current book, which is in the planning stages. In this essay, I will explore the film “Choices” and how the message had an effect on me.
“Choices” shared a message that really spoke to me. The message of how pregnancy, sex, and abortion are treated as taboo or dirty (especially around black and people of color) is an incredibly pressing topic in our current society. The film showed three black high school girls: one who had an abortion, one who was pregnant, and one who was waiting for the result of a pregnancy test. I’ve heard many conversations in the past few years about the choices when it comes to pregnancy: giving birth or having an abortion, keeping the baby or giving it away. I was thirteen, and I didn’t exactly understand all the adults talking about how if a person has a uterus, then their body must be controlled in a stricter way than the United States controls guns.
When Roe v. Wade was overturned, I was living in Texas, where I was born and raised. Quickly, mine and countless others’ lives were turned upside down. My mother stocked up on Plan B pills for me, my brother, and our friends. Rumors spread around school about who was anti-abortion and who was pro-abortion. My mom taught me about how this would affect everyone, not just people who were having sex. She told me how it would cause countless deaths and that black women would be more vulnerable than others. When I moved to California, I realized how differently some people thought. Not everyone had been convinced that abortion is murder, that a period is manslaughter, and that people’s bodies belonged to whatever was inside them. The film presented the message that every person should have a choice, without constant restrictions and restraints on what they decide to do with their body and their life.
The film “Choices” captured my attention from the beginning, with a father speaking to his daughter about how she is not a little girl anymore. The next part that truly made me feel engulfed in the message was the scene after she takes a pregnancy test—those few minutes of not knowing where your life would go. It turns a few minutes into an eternity. The last scene I found was an extremely courageous choice from the writer; the decision to not let the audience know if the character who may have been pregnant really was. Interpretive endings are complex and a delicate thing to work with in film and media. However, I think that the ending provided added more to the story and message.