THE TANGLED MESS OF LOIS WEBER’S WHERE ARE MY CHILDREN?
Lois Weber’s 1916 silent film, Where Are My Children?, is considered a classic example of a social problem film, one which in this instance “dealt with the taboo subjects of contraceptives (for) and abortion (against).” [1] The narrative content of Weber’s film is a particularly tangled web of conflicted morality, unclear rhetoric, and misleading medical anecdotes, with “contradictory discourses arising from the context of the film’s production, cultural preoccupations of the period, and Weber’s idiosyncratic concerns.” [2] It is difficult—if not highly impractical—to judge a film that is over 100 years old through a modern feminist lens when its very topic of discussion (reproductive rights) is still a matter of heated, complex debate in the 21st century. As such, the contemporary cultural context of Weber’s film is key to breaking down and understanding Weber’s well-meaning but tangled message as it was (most likely) intended. In modern feminist politics, the issues of birth control and abortion are often grouped together under the umbrella of reproductive rights, and those that are for one are typically (though not …
Danielle Nicholson graduated OU with a BA in Creative Writing with a Specialization in Screenwriting in 2020.