By REY FLORES
This is not a movie review about the new film Grandma. As a matter of fact, whatever I can do to discourage anyone from viewing this new film, I hope I accomplish with what I am writing here.
Now playing in theaters is a movie for our times. This is not because it is such a cinematic epic, but because of its sickening message that families are there to help you through “tough times” by helping you abort your own flesh and blood.
Comedienne and actress Lily Tomlin has been a fixture on the cinema stage for close to 50 years now. I never found her to be too funny myself, but as a kid I recall my mother used to be amused by some of Tomlin’s characters: a little girl sitting in a gigantic rocking chair or a 1940s-era switchboard operator on the old Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In TV comedy show.
Later Tomlin got another jumpstart in her acting career, through 1980’s Nine to Five, costarring with Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton. A whole new generation of fans now watches her on the popular Netflix series Grace and Frankie, also starring Jane Fonda, another controversial modern feminist.
There’s no doubting her talent; otherwise none of us would know who she is and I certainly wouldn’t be writing about her here. In her personal life, Tomlin has been in a lesbian relationship with her longtime partner and collaborator Jane Wagner since 1971. They finally “married” each other in 2013.
Tomlin has kept her personal life out of the public eye for the most part. It is, however, no surprise that lesbians tend to be huge abortion supporters, and Tomlin comes out in full force by embracing this new role of hers.
In Grandma Tomlin portrays an ornery old lesbian grandmother who just broke up with her girlfriend and becomes hell-bent on helping her granddaughter get an abortion at all costs for the remainder of the movie.
Grandma and granddaughter have zany adventures trying to raise the money for the abortion by grandma trying to sell first-print copies of a couple of old feminist manifestos like The Feminine Mystique and The Second Sex.
This film is supposed to be a comedy. Imagine that — a comedy about abortion, especially timely given all of the Planned Parenthood videos which have shown us the true nature of its human butcher shop.
One quotation used in the film’s promotions says that this is “a story about three generations of women and how they interact with each other. Lily Tomlin adds heart and soul and naturally tons of comedy.” That was written by Brian Moylan of The Guardian.
I would rewrite this quotation like this: “A story about three generations of women trying to kill the fourth one. Lily Tomlin adds heart while Planned Parenthood adds livers and brains too!”
Ever since last year’s flop Obvious Child, another wacky comedy about a young single woman trying to abort her child, I have been simply horrified at how Hollywood somehow seems to think that abortion makes good fodder for comedies.
One of its promotional taglines reads: “You have the right to choose funny.” Another quotation from one review says: “The most winning abortion rom-com ever made!” Really? I didn’t know that abortion rom-coms (romantic comedies) were now a film genre.
The best analysis came in a Facebook comment I read after I posted the Grandma trailer on my own Facebook page. It said that watching films like these is just like “watching the West commit suicide, one chuckle at a time. . . .”
I wonder what’ll be next. A father helping procure an abortion for his daughter, or better yet, helping his son ditch the responsibility of doing the honorable thing after impregnating his girlfriend?
Perhaps Hollywood can make a comedy about a bungling pro-life undercover videographer trying to expose abortionists, but when wacky 20-something girls working at the clinic discover him, they pelt him with human baby parts. The film can be titled Take Heart or Talk to the Hand.
Maybe Hollywood can produce a comedy about Kermit Gosnell and Leroy Carhart called The Nutty Abortionists, starring some huge pro-abort star, like Tina Fey, as their lawyer trying to get the bungling abortionists off the hook for their sloppy practices. Amy Poehler can cut her hair and play a Cecile Richards-like character as the cool CEO of a Planned Parenthood-like institution called Family Solutions. A cameo appearance of President Obama saying “God Bless Family Solutions” would ensure huge box-office revenues.
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(Rey Flores is a Catholic speaker and writer. Book Rey now for your fall/winter fundraising and gala events. Contact Rey at reyfloresusa@gmail.com.)
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