The pregnancy pact scandal turned out to be fake.

Which, duh.

The Pregnancy Pact movie on Lifetime turned out to be a whole bunch of un-re-watchable bullshit.
Which, unfortunate. I love a good Lifetime movie.

Basically, these girls in Gloucester, Mass make a secret pact to all have babies so their babies will all grow up to be in the same kindergarten class, and they can all resent their mothers who all never finished high school or made anything of themselves solely based on the idea of having a bunch of dolls to play with which were purchased at approximately the same time.

So, they agree. Like, a million of them agree. And they all get pregnant. All of them!

That’s the movie’s first problem. Like, yeah, teenage girls are fertile, but all of them? ALL 18 of them got pregnant within weeks of each other?

Cameron Manheim makes a twenty second appearance as a sad school nurse who handles used pregnancy tests without gloves WITHOUT GLOVES, UM NO, and petitions the school board for some god damn condoms already. But, when she’s turned down once again, she quits on the spot. And then Cameron Manheim is no longer in the movie in which she was supposedly starring?

That’s the movie’s second problem. The “council” (not the school council or, I don’t think, the town council, but possibly a church council??), based on their strict abstinence-only education program, provides the school with pregnancy tests, but not condoms. “Don’t Have Sex, EVER: the Guide to Using Your Pregnancy Test Effectively” is a yearly seminar for the incoming freshman.

Meanwhile, Thora Birch, who has somehow morphed into Emily Valentine (and I get that that comparison will make no sense unless you watch Thora Birch’s performance in this movie, and then watch Emily Valentine’s season-long run on 90210, which would be a waste of your time, so just trust me, and then impress your friends by telling them that Thora Birch has morphed into Emily Valentine) was a former Gloucester High student who now runs a Teen Issues Blog With Videos On It from her swanky New York City office with a secretary? And she decides to go up to Gloucester and figure out why so many girls are getting knocked up, and film it all to appear in Web Related Video Content for her Teen Issues Video Blog.

One of the pregnant girls is the daughter of the council president. Uh oh!

Thora Birch, meanwhile, is the former girlfriend of the current vice principal. Double uh oh!

Let’s get this out of the way quickly. Thora Birch lived in Gloucester for a couple of years and it’s intimated early that she was pregnant when she was a teenager. By the vice principal. It’s also intimated that she hurt this guy badly and that he’s never forgiven her. It turns out that she got pregnant at 16 and was terrified (normal reaction), and the vice principal, who was also 16, was excited (abnormal reaction) and begged her to marry him (ABNORMAL REACTION!!) and then got really upset when she went off to have an abortion without telling him (sort of normal reaction), but is still convinced that they would have been happily married still had she stuck around and teen-married him, despite the fact that he now is married (to some random hot woman) with children (he appears to love). Oh, yeah. (ABNORMAL ALL OVER THE PLACE!)

It turns out that Thora Birch didn’t have an abortion. Her family was moving to Florida conveniently, so she just told him she’d had an abortion so she could move with her family, have the baby in peace, and give him up for adoption. She eventually comes clean to the vp, and he has, as predicted, kind of an abnormal reaction where he may or may not be still mad at her? Even though she didn’t kill HIS BABY TOO?

Anyway, this is the third problem with this movie, because their message seems to be a warning to parents about the dangers of getting too serious with the boys at school, because you never know who’s ready to get knocked up and then married before they’re even able to get into an R-Rated movie. But, then it puts the vp in the position of sad dad and Thora Birch in the position of evil abortion lady/evil adoption lady. So, one doesn’t know what to think.

Thora Birch goes to a council meeting to find out why they won’t provide condoms for the school (when did mysterious volunteer councils trump school councils/boards for issues related to school funding?) and finds out two things. 1) Last year’s rummage sale made $6000 and this year’s is projected to make $13,000. Um, I’ve been to rummage sales? Everything costs, like, 10-cents. What kind of rummage sales are these people running? 2) The $13,000 will go towards another full spot at the high school daycare center.

The whaaaaa-record scratch-aaaat?

Yeah. The high school daycare center. As in, the place where all of the girls in the school who have already HAD their babies can dump their babies off during classes. As in, your effing abstinence only education is INEFFECTIVE!

Which is the fourth problem with this movie. Preaching abstinence in a church is a given. Teaching abstinence in a school is (I believe) totally irresponsible and without any merit whatsoever. But, teaching abstinence, frowning upon premarital sex, and withholding information about safe sex alternatives for kids who wish to not remain abstinent, and then spending tens of thousands of dollars to provide pregnancy tests and daycare after every kid in the whole school inevitably didn’t follow any of the teaching points in your non-sex-ed lessons is even beyond laughable.

So, that girl I mentioned before whose mother is on the council. Her mother’s pissed and also in some kind of abstinence-only denial. The girl has a bf who off-handedly mentioned getting married, as in, “When we’re out of college, we’re totes getting married and I am totes playing for the Red Sox [boo!].” She heard, “Marriage is legal at 16 and you are 15-going-on-16, so let’s do this!” So, she “tricks him” into getting her pregnant.
Insofar as you can trick a person who knows that you are not on any form of birth control, and who thinks that there is no legal way for a teenage boy to practice safe sex except for the pull-out method (which he admittedly didn’t do every time).

Which is the fifth problem with this movie. Condoms are not an over-18-only item. Anyone can go to a 7-11 and buy some condoms. There’s even a scene where Thora Birch does so for the benefit of some random non-pregnancy-pact-ed girl who’s too embarrassed to do it herself. Granted, the condoms are non-branded, and come in generically packaged strips that you literally have to ask the clerk for a specific number to pull off the wall for you like cheap lollipops. But, still, no council members or parents are working in or even shopping in this gas station convenience store, and despite the stupid abstinence-only program, every kid in 2010 has the internet in some form or another. These boys can’t say they were tricked when buying condoms was always an option open to them. So, the movie manages to make the girls seem like crazy baby-starved demons who stole all the contraceptives in the world and the boys like little gentle forest creatures who were never given the proper tools to deal with love.

Anyway, at a keg party (?) in the middle of the day (?) on a public dock (?) every 16-year-old in town is drinking and smoking. EVERY one. Including all of the pregnant girls. Every single one. There is not one girl out of the whole bunch who’s like, “I read on a blog that smoking and drinking deforms babies, so gross!” There is not one non-pregnant student who’s like, “I know we have abstinence-only education at our school, but we also have a really comprehensive and expensive baby-and-pregnancy-education program, and I think that they said something about how smoking and drinking deforms babies, so, you’re gross!” No, they all continue to smoke and drink at this not-possible-that-it’s-not-known-about-and-or-condoned-by-adults party.

There’s been a media frenzy surrounding the school once the idea of the pregnancy pact leaked and, though all the girls denied it, the Red Sox hopeful bf confronts his gf at the party to tell her that if she tricked him into having a baby, they’re over. I really hope that kid buys a few rounds off the condom wheel because, what an idiot. When he leaves, the girl is so distraught that she starts chugging from the tequila bottle that is suddenly and inexplicably in her hands. She drinks the whole bottle and then almost dies.

Problem number six with this movie. These girls are smoking and drinking constantly, and not ONE of them has a problem with her pregnancy, or with any of their babies. Every baby is born healthy to a healthy mother.

Anyway, the girl doesn’t die, and her mother tells her the big secret about how she boned a lot before she was married and she didn’t want her daughter to make the same mistake. Too late! She also learns her lesson and advises the council to just put some god damn condoms in the school already. No word on what happened to Cameron Manheim.
Thora Birch visits the girl once more before she goes back to her Blogging and Video Blog Making Offices in New York City, and basically tells her that giving a baby up for adoption is still a totally solid option, because having a baby when you’re fifteen is going to be pretty hard. The girl insists that she wants her life to be “getting married and having babies”, like, she literally has no other ambition. And Thora Birch is straight up, like, “Seriously, you’re not living in the 1500s, your life can have marriage and babies and also education and a job if you want and also lots of other things, too,” and the girl looks at her and is, like, “I’m going to be a great mother.” And Thora Birch is like, “Yeah, I’m sure you will. I’m going back to New York City now, where things are a little less creepy, but also a little more implausible, because Bloggers and Bloggers with Video Content on Their Blogs generally work from home in pajamas and not in offices with secretaries. Also, I am Emily Valentine now.” The movie ends with a scene in the girl’s bedroom, now completely overrun with baby toys and clothes and a crib, where we see the girl playing happily with her baby.

So, that’s the seventh problem with the movie, and really the biggest one. Because, what the eff was the message? Wasn’t this a cautionary tale for teenagers and/or parents of teens? It seemed like the whole movie was trying to get at the idea that abstinence-only education pretty much just leads to girls having babies and that kids are totes irresponsible (hello, chugging tequila) and are not ready for the harsh realities that come with being pregnant.

But, I think it was also kind of about how girls are evil and conniving and will do anything to get one over on their bfs? Like, it was sort of like Sex and the City but with pregnancy pacts? (I’ve never watched Sex and the City, but they seem crazy on that show. It’s a show about mental patients, right?) But it’s also about the joys of giving birth to a baby when you’re fifteen? I think it’s about how condoms are ok, but the guy who sells you condoms off the condom roll doesn’t care about you. And abstinence is good, but if you don’t bother with that, someone will be willing to buy $13,000 worth of old World’s Best Grandma mugs and used children’s snow suits to pay for your child’s way. And that giving up babies for adoption/getting abortions when your insane child bf thinks you have the means to support a baby with him is evil, and keeping a baby and effectively ending your life as you knew it as a teenager is angelic and also fun?

I think I got it. The message. Girls are bad/Babies are good.

High School Reunion is still the best show on television. Just ask my awesome passed out friend.

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Persuasion was the last book Jane Austen wrote before she died. It’s about losing love and finding it again and defying your awful family, etc, like some classic literature shit. Anne’s delusional family told her to reject the marriage proposal of the sailor she was in love with because he was poor and they weren’t. Ten years later, when she’s almost 30 and pretty much an old maid, her family’s still delusional but now not as rich, Anne has lead a very sad lonely life, the sailor is now a captain and has tons of money, and Anne has to watch him rub it in her face about what she missed out on as her sister’s in-laws fall all over themselves trying to get him to marry one of them. He realizes, of course, that revenge is pointless because he still loves her, and she still loves him, and omg her family is essentially abusive so no wonder she’s so effed, and he asks her to marry him, the end.

Persuasion, the tv-movie adaptation from 2007 is about the woman from Happy-Go-Lucky

attempting to look sad

- probably due to her extremely painful hairdo -

and running a whole lot

after her former almost fiancee

who’s stopped over from his frat house to invite Anne’s awful sister

Mary’s sister-in-law Conan O’Brien

and her suicidal sister Louisa

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to help him rub it in that Anne is a loser

before finally deciding to get back together with her after she goes blind.

I mean, approximately.

Actually, they did totally eff up the story in the following three ways.

1. The Casting

Happy-Go-Lucky was a great movie. Sally Hawkins was great in Happy-Go-Lucky. I don’t think actors should be pigeon-holed into roles, but SH is so much better suited to someone who sees the joy in life as opposed to someone who’s been lonely and sad and treated like crap by her entire awful family for the past ten years, whose only glimmer of hope came and went quickly, and came back again only to taunt her.

Plus, Capt. Wentworth up there is supposed to be bitter, hardened, angry, out for a little bit of revenge, and has been on a boat for the past ten years. What kind of sunscreen did this guy have? He looks great.

But, Mary. Oh, Mary. Mary, Anne’s younger and only married sister, is conceited and constantly disappointed with her life. Her in-laws don’t like her because she’s annoying, but she thinks they owe her a lot more respect, and her husband ignores her because she’s a shrew. She pretends to be ill in order to get attention and is conniving when it comes to who her young sisters-in-law should marry, though it’s really none of her business since both their parents are alive.

Once upon a time, I got a BS in special education. This is true. So I spent a lot of this movie trying to figure out what special needs Mary has.

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My conclusion is that she’s just generally deranged. There is no help I can give her.

2. The Letter

At the end of the story, Capt. Wentworth overhears a conversation between Anne and a mutual friend where she’s all, “I’m still obvs in love with someone from my past,” and Wentworth writes a letter that’s all, “Serious? ‘Cause if I heard you right, you’re in love with me, and I’m in love with you AWESOME,” and then he makes sure she gets the letter before he leaves and she reads it and goes down to tell her brother-in-law to find Wentworth and tell him that she wants him to come back to her house later for a party, “make sure you wink at him a lot, dude, it’ll get the point I’m trying to make across,” but her brother-in-law is, like, “I have errands to run, and Wentworth has been hanging around outside the front door of your house for the past ten minutes, so why don’t you just tell him yourself?” and then they get married.

In this movie, Anne has the conversation (which is the only solid indication that Wentworth has that Anne really didn’t want to give him up ten years ago, and still wants him back) but Wentworth isn’t there to hear it. And Anne gets the letter (which contains the phrasing from the book, including the part about how he overheard her, but he didn’t overhear anything) while she’s already on some weird jog through the town to find him, but without ever having read the letter, she never would have known that he wanted her back. I’m not one of those people who thinks that movie adaptations can’t take artistic license, but it’s kind of the climax. Which is kind of the important part of the story. Kind of.

3. The Kiss

There are some truly bad movie kisses. This might be the worst. Anne runs through Bath searching for Capt. Wentworth, running into about thirty people on the way who keep sending her in different directions like she’s playing some kind of poorly designed board game. When she finally finds him, it takes them about three hours to just kiss each other already, because I guess the person who directed this movie reeeeally liked Dawson’s Creek.

The description on YouTube says that the actor playing Wentworth thought it was the steamiest kiss he ever did on screen. Ew. Even with the spittle?

But what do I know? There are currently fan videos for Persuasion on YouTube set to I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing, Moonlight Sonata (?), Right Here Waiting, Wait for You, Back for Good, Chasing Cars, When You Say Nothing At All, I’ll Never Get Over You (Getting Over Me), Light Up My Life, What About Love, How to Save a Life,  It’s All Coming Back to Me Now, My Immortal, What About Now, Because You Loved Me, and I Will Remember You, so I’m obviously missing something.

I’m almost convinced, but not quite. When a fan vid is made using the Heart song All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You, then I’ll concede: best period piece ever.

High School Reunion’s 3rd season started this week, and I figured that I should write about it, but then I fell into this really deep depression, because what is there to say about High School Reunion that hasn’t already been said? But, like, everything, because Sally and I are the only people that watch this show.

Do you like reality dating shows? Do you like uncomfortable situations? Do you like witnessing awkward “oh my GOD what was that guy’s NAME?” moments? No? Well, me neither, but when you mix them all together, you get High School Reunion, which brings a dozen or so members of a 20-year-reunion high school class together and sticks them in a house in Hawaii and gives them unlimited alcohol and sun and lots and lots of forced dates and bonding. It manages to be the best reality show since Jersey Shore, which is interesting, because Jersey Shore started after High School Reunion, and I’ve watched HSR since the first season, but I guess I’ve watched Jersey Shore my whole life, since I live here.

This guy really wants you to stick with me on this one.

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