Odds & ends

• There was a great article in Harpers Bazaar recently that asks "Is infertility the last taboo in cinema?" and cites two recent films on the subject: "Private Life" (now on Netflix) and "Only You," which will be released on July 5th.  I haven't seen "Private Life" yet, but I hear (from other ALIers) that it's good. I love Paul Giamatti, and I'm glad it seems to be a well-done look at infertility & childlessness, but I think I'd have to be in the right mood to watch it... How about you? 
• Sample quote:  "Ultimately, our society can be held accountable for this dearth of movies about infertility: reproducing is so bound up in the accepted human experience that daring to spotlight the alienation of couples without children takes guts... 'Having a child is hailed in the media as an incredible feat and any woman who doesn't have one is questioned and pitied.' ”
• Jody Day of Gateway Women flagged this great article from a New Zealand publication in which she is quoted:  "Women childless by circumstance shamed and misunderstood."  Lois Tonkin, a New Zealand academic & grief counsellor who wrote a recently published book called "Motherhood Missed," is also cited. 
• As a former journalist & communicator, I'm a big fan of the CNN Sunday morning show about how the news gets made, "Reliable Sources," and follow the host, Brian Stelter, and his wife, Jamie (who co-hosts a morning show on a local New York City TV station), on social media. They have an adorable toddler daughter named Sunny, and Jamie just announced Sunny will be getting a little brother or sister in August. They have been very open about their struggles with infertility and pregnancy loss, and I loved Jamie's Instagram post, thanking people for their good wishes, but admitting that "getting here was not easy" and "we all need to take a beat and think about how we relentlessly ask women about having (more) children — or worse, asking them if they're pregnant. (please, don't do this.)"  Worth a read! 
• (Non-ALI-related:)  I was in a bookstore recently, and as I moved along the row of shelves, there was a man nearby. As I moved nearer to him, he caught my glance & pointed indignantly at the shelf in front of him. It was a whole row of copies of Michelle Obama's book. "Look at that," he said in a withering tone. "Those people have lots of money already and now they're making more. They shouldn't be allowed to do that... It's disgusting..." and continued ranting in that vein. I just sort of raised my eyebrow, shrugged & moved away. All I could think was, how much anger must you be carrying around to vent like that to a total stranger having a quiet browse in a bookstore?? What made him think I'd be receptive to listening to that? -- did he think I'd agree with him??  (And this was in Canada!!) 
• Dh & I went to see "The Favourite" on Sunday afternoon.  The acting, costumes & sets were superb, and Olivia Colman's Oscar was richly deserved, albeit the story was a rather dark one.  As I wrote right after the Oscars,  I'd been alerted that the Queen's 17 pet rabbits were representatives of her 17 (!!) lost babies/children/pregnancies, so that part was not a surprise, but it was still an emotional moment to hear her tell the story, and to hear her plaintive comment to the effect that "everyone I love leaves me."  I did a bit of reading, and the rabbits were a bit of film-making embellishment, but the 17 lost children is sadly true. An article I found about the real history behind the movie had this to say: 

"Of course, pet rabbits would never have been found lolloping around a royal bedchamber: they were an early 18th-century foodstuff and pest. Their function is instead historically symbolic, representing an adult lifetime of pregnancies endured by Anne that only ever resulted in miscarriage, still birth, or the premature death of newborns, infants or children. 

"Until rescued by more recent historical revisions that recognise both her political and cultural legacies, Anne was a queen who was badly treated by history, subject to quick caricatures that portray her as being frail, ungainly, emotionally needy and ineffective. Her incredibly traumatic obstetric history was often rendered as a footnote, or yet another item on a long list of regal failings levelled against her. She was labelled as the ‘childless’ queen – despite her bearing and burying child after child after child after child. In The Favourite this aspect of her life and reign is brought much more firmly into our vision. Personal pain and court politics come together in the form of the rabbits. The pets remind us of the impact that so many dead heirs must have had not only on the queen as an individual, but also on her court, her reign, and the future of the crown and constitution. No one will leave the film having missed the rabbits. No one will leave without an emotive sense of Anne’s antenatal agonies."