Okay, dear readers: Here’s a little Monday-morning puzzler for you. Which movie involving a sperm donor is referenced in the following quote?
The point of the movie is what is it that defines family? It isn’t necessarily the traditional mother, father, two children and a dog named Spot. Love is love and family is what is around you and who is in your immediate sphere. That is what I love about this movie. It is saying it is not the traditional sort of stereotype of what we have been taught as a society of what family is.
No, it’s not The Kids Are All Right. Answer after the jump.
The quote is from Jennifer Aniston, talking to People magazine about her movie The Switch, which opens August 20. In brief, it’s about a single woman who decides to get pregnant with help from a known donor. Another man is really in love with her and switches his sperm for the donor’s. Fast forward seven years to when they meet again. After that, I’m not sure what happens, since I haven’t seen the movie yet—and writer Jeffrey Eugenides (The Virgin Suicides; Middlesex) has already said the movie does not follow the exact same lines as “Baster,” his short story on which it is based. I’m guessing we can expect much of the same romantic-comedy formula for which Aniston is known.
Yes, the media seems obsessed with sperm donors, as I wrote two months ago. It bears repeating, however, that I hope these movies give the media and many more of us the opportunity to talk about our real relationships with sperm donors, egg donors, surrogates, birth parents, and the other people who make up our families.
These conversations are vital. A new study has just reinforced what many of us have been saying for some time: that parents were among the most critical groups helping Prop 8 to pass. (“Almost three-quarters of the net movement toward the ban was among parents with kids under 18 living at home.”) It recommends that we “cultivate allies”  among parents and others if we are to succeed in stopping future anti-LGBT ballot measures. Having a film like The Switch follow so closely after The Kids Are All Right (and both following Jennifer Lopez’ The Back-Up Plan, also about a straight single woman who uses a sperm donor), should give people the opportunity to discuss the similarities of family and family creation across boundaries of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Movies like these may stretch the limits of credibility for many of us in the know about non-traditional families. They may not look like any “real” families we know. If they have value, however, it is in giving us an excuse to have conversations about them, to discuss the issues that they raise, dispel misconceptions (!), and perhaps spread our own knowledge and experiences a bit further.
I couldn’t agree more passionately!! This is PRECISELY what I felt during the Prop 8 battle. The obv
Ooops! iPhone-induced premature submit. Was going to say: the obverse is also true–that the understanding and compassion within this group was/is critical, as you say. That was pretty much what drovemy frenetic blogging output during the campaign, and one of the primary driving forces for my continued work online. Thanks, as ever.
Yes, I just saw a print ad for the new Jen A. film and I did a double take. I am surprised by the plethora of sperm donor movies these days. On the on hand, it suggests that people’s attitudes and assumptions about families are shifting, on the other hand, they way in which the subject matter is dealt with in these films often reinforces negative stereotypes.