I decided to do my blog on the movie "The Pregnancy Pact". The film is based on the events that occurred in Gloucester, Massachusetts where a group of high school girls allegedly made a pact to all get pregnant at the same time.
The movies centers around four friends who all decide to get pregnant at the same time(Sarah Dougan, Karissa, Iris, and Rose) and Sidney Bloom an alumni of Gloucester High who is an Internet blog reporter
In the opening act Karissa is seen in the nurses office asking for a pregnancy test. She seems to be rather eager and happy to take the pregnancy test, even laughing when the nurse brings out the test. Karissa takes the test and is distraught that she ISN'T pregnant. After finding out this news Karissa fids a boy from the baseball team to have sex with her. In a later scene it is discovered that she is pregnant and is quite joyful about her current situation
Sidney Bloom, and alumni of Gloucester High is writing her next story for her video blog that discusses teen pregnancy. After reading an article that her old schools pregnancy rate has increased from ten girls to eighteen girls she decides to go back home and investigate what's going on. She returns to the school to talk to the school nurse. The nurse tells her that she has distributed over 150 pregnancy tests in the past two months. Sidney is startled by this alarming news and decides to interview the local high school students. She comes across Sarah and all her friends. Out of the four girls Sarah is the only one who is not pregnant. The girls are all eager to interview with Sidney and think that having a baby and raising them all together will be the happiest times of their lives. Sidney tries to understand why the girls would even consider having a baby at such a young age and asks the girls if they knew about contraceptives.
When Sidney find out that the girls didn't know anything about contraceptives she goes to the principal to see if they can try to get the school to provide contraceptives. The principal however is not at all interested in doing so and rushes Sidney off unwilling to talk to her any further. Sidney decides to go to a parent board meeting where Sarah's mom is the president of the meeting. Sidney tries to propose offering contraceptives and a sex education class so teenagers can know all the information about sex. But once again she gets shut down. The parent board would rather raise 13,000 to open up another slot for the day care center that the school provides than talk about sex education.
A few weeks later Sarah becomes pregnant, fulfilling the promise she made to get pregnant. Time magazine hears about the news that girls are becoming pregnant at a rapid rate and speculates that the girls all made a pact to become pregnant. Jesse, Sarah's boyfriend asks Sarah if this is true. Sarah denies this and makes Jesse feel guilty that he would even ask a question like that. All seems to be going well until Jesse overhears Sarah and Sidney talking about the pregnancy and that the pregnancy pact is indeed true. Jesse is furious and tells Sarah that he wants nothing to do with her any further. Sarah begs Jesse to forgive her but to no avail. Sarah realizes that she will have to raise the baby on her own and comes to the conclusion that the pregnancy pact wasn't such a great idea
1. Why would girls so young want to have a baby to begin with?
2. Why do some girls thing that becoming pregnant isn't a "big deal"?
3. The girls town is a small catholic conservative town and many of the parents never discuss sex with their children. The school would rather raise 13,000 dollars for an extra slot in the day care center than get a sex education program for the school. Do you feel that this is kind of ironic? That the school allowing a day care center is letting the students know that it is ok for them to have a child, yet they promote an abstinence only program and refuse to have a sex education program.
-Chris M.
1. Teenage girls often try to attain attention any way possible, even if it affects the rest of their life. I believe because there was no sex education present at the school, these girls had no idea what the consequences of their pact would be. Their decision to all get pregnant at the same time shows how immature teenage girls are and that they are clearly not ready to take care of a baby. Whether they decided to make this pact out of boredom or just for attention proves that sex education needs to be taught in high schools.
ReplyDelete2. I believe some girls believe it’s not a big deal to get pregnant because of their lack of knowledge of the subject. It is hard for someone who knows little about parenting and all the responsibilities that come along with having a baby to take the matter seriously. Also, because teenage pregnancy is so present in our society today, girls think it is okay if they also get pregnant, because everyone is doing it. It also goes back to the issue of the lack of sex education in schools today.
3. The fact that the school would rather raise 13,000 dollars for a day care rather than use that money to prevent the problem in the first place, baffles me. If they were to teach girls about contraceptives and the importance of safe sex, they would not need a daycare center in the first place. Even though religion plays a huge part in this small catholic town, parents and teachers need to realize that they are still teenagers with impulsions that they tend to give in to. I believe that If they were to teach kids about abstinence but also that if they chose to have sex that it is important to use some sort of protection not only to avoid pregnancy but also STD’s. Teenagers lack of knowledge leads to their ignorance and their sense of “invincibility” regarding pregnancy and STD’s.
1. I believe that teen girls often see through the glamorized lens the media puts on pregnancy and parenting. As a teen, most people have the ‘it won’t happen to me’ attitude, which leads teen girls to believe that their boyfriend will be in the minority of men who stick around, and they themselves won’t have money troubles or any rough times. I believe that for a lot of teens (not really the ones from the movie) that get pregnant are coming from a bad situation like Jenifer talked about in class so that having a baby really isn’t ruining anything that they had going for them. As far as the teens in the movie go, I believe that they were getting pregnant because it was ‘stylish.’
ReplyDelete2. Teens don’t thing pregnancy is a big deal because that is what they are exposed to. The fact that the media shows so many representations of teen pregnancy and parenting (Teen Mom, 16 and Pregnant, Juno, and so on) desensitizes young people of the realness of the issue. Also, most teens know that society isn’t going to let them fail. If they don’t make enough money they can get on foodstamps or other types of welfare. If they can’t get a house on their own friends or family will bring them in.
3. I believe that the position of the school to allow daycare and not allow contraception is ridiculous. I understand that they believe they would be allowing sex if they provided contraception and that daycare is just an after-the-fact service they provide but I do not agree with that. Even if the school did not provide contraceptives they should at least let students know it is available. I think that this is just proof to the fact that parents have to be talking to their children to supplement for what the school is not teaching.
-Cheyane Frizzell
1. I think some young girls want to have a baby young because they think that's what being a good parent is. They see being a young parent as being able to be active with your children when they're little. They don't want to be "too old" to have children and do not see a problem with being "too young".
ReplyDelete2. I think teens see being pregnant isn't a big deal because it is more manageable to be a young parent. I'm npt saying society should make it hard, but some teens never know the true difficulties with having children. You don't really hear about teen parents having sick children or being homeless. They are always able to find a way to make it work.
3. I don't think it's ironic so much as it is denial for the parents in the town. I think they would rather think they would rather believe that teen parents are the exception and not the standard when it comes to teen sexual activity. No parent wants to think about their child having sex, so until their kid has a baby, they want to believe he or she is pure and chaste. It really is about parents accepting that their kids are having sex. (I saw this movie too, and even with all the teen pregnancies, no one asked their child if he or she was having sex.)
-Sloane H.
1. I don't know that girls at that age actually WANT to have a baby, because they don't understand what it means to be a parent. I think a lot of them get caught up in how cute babies are and how much "fun" it would be to dress them all up and play with them. I don't think the understand the fact that it isn't like babysitting; it is a full time job.
ReplyDelete2. I agree with what Cheyane said, "Also, most teens know that society isn’t going to let them fail." Teens aren't exposed to the hardships about teenage parenting. The images they see are of people who are succeeding, granted it may be hard, but it is feasible because there are resources they can utilize from family, friends, the community, and the government.
3. That seems like the most expensive irony out there. Yes, it seems much more beneficial and cost efficient to open up another slot for the school daycare instead of providing contraception so you won't NEED to open another spot at the daycare. Clearly their priorities are all backwards. Education, education, education. Resources, resources, resources. It's not that hard!
Oops... forgot my name. Alyssa K. ^
ReplyDelete1) I believe some girls feel it's a gift to have a baby ,but don't realize the responsibility that comes along with it. As do guys to it's never the case when a guy gets a girls pregnant though.
ReplyDelete2) In this day and age where sex is every where and you see celebrities glamorized for being pregnant I understand why young people feel the way they do. This goes back to my previous answer of responsibility though. They don't realize it's a "big deal" till they have to take care of a child.
3) It is ironic ,but I think it's more for the teachers than the students because there catholic and if they "believe" in there religion they wouldn't be partaking in sexually activities. Also I think it would be more useful to the students knowledge of raising a child rather than having one. It's very ironic though it contradicting also.
Dorsey