Bloody

Over the weekend, Justin and I watched a lot of movies. Probably more in 4 days than I've seen in the entire past year combined. One of those movies was The Backup Plan. Romantic comedy drivel, Jennifer Lopez, mediocre acting blah de blah, I know. That's the kind of movie I like at 3am, go on, judge.

Moving on to the point of this post. If you're unfamiliar with the plot, a 30 year old woman, having given up on the dream of the nuclear family, decides to get pregnant via a sperm donor on her own. Upon leaving the clinic, happily inseminated, she meets a guy, you can figure out the rest of the story. The thing that makes this particular movie notable, at least in my world, is the fact that during her first ultrasound post-insemination, the doctor checks her, and his glove is bloody when he removes it. Then, when he uses the trans-vaginal ultrasound wand, it too comes out bloody. I know, at this point I've lost half my audience, and at least another quarter of you are feeling a bit woozy. Stick with me.

There are a couple of reasons that I like this. (Not counting the fact that I particularly enjoy blood in clinical settings.) 1. It will hopefully make people realize that a little bleeding during pregnancy is normal. Maybe that will prevent so many people from marching up to L&D the moment they have a bit of pink on their toilet paper. 2. It normalizes vaginal bleeding in general. Historically, this has been completley NOT DONE in the film industry. Whether it's a girl starting her period or a woman losing a pregnancy, the blood is always implied, but never really talked about and certainly not shown. That's the sort of behavior that makes people freak out over every little spot in their panties. We have no problem with blood in general, even massive, obscene amounts of it. Check out any Quentin Tarantino movie, if you don't believe me. The freak out, need-to-hide mentality only comes in reference to blood from the lady bits. So thank you CBS Films, Escape Entertainment and Jennifer Lopez for showing the world that whether it's from a nose, a gunshot wound, or a vagina, blood is just blood.