The Ides of March: Another tired, inaccurate story about young women who have sex

*Spoiler alert*

I went on Friday night to see The Ides of March to get my requisite dose of dreamy Ryan Gosling and also in the hopes of seeing a smart political thriller. Instead, the film provided further confirmation that mainstream representations of female sexuality are still woefully out of touch with real women’s experiences with sex and the various decisions that having sex often entails. In the film, Ryan Gosling plays Stephen, a savvy, cutthroat political aide to George Clooney’s character, a Pennsylvania governor named Mike Morris who hopes to win the democratic seat for the presidential candidacy. Evan Rachel Wood is Molly Stearns, a pretty, punchy intern on the campaign who soon starts sleeping with Stephen. In the second scene that we see of Stephen and Molly, it is dramatically revealed that Molly also had sex with Governor Morris and is now pregnant as a result.

The film then quickly joins the ranks of most conventional media that can’t seem to figure out how to tell a story that involves abortion without making abortion the only story, and in all the wrong ways. In a show of misguided masculine force, Stephen lectures Molly about her sexual missteps and Molly makes an appointment at a nearby clinic to get an abortion. Hours after the abortion, she overdoses on painkillers and is found dead on the floor of her hotel room. Yet again, viewers are reminded that young women who have sex, get pregnant, and choose abortion are destined for insurmountable depression and, shortly thereafter, death.

This is not to say that choosing abortion is not a difficult decision, or to deny that some women experience sadness afterward. The problem is that this is the only version that we ever hear, and invariably when the narrative is crafted by a man – in this case by George Clooney, the film’s writer and director. One out of three women in the United States has an abortion by the age of 45. Why then is abortion consistently and deliberately marked as the tragic end to a sordid story, instead of a personal reproductive decision that is a reality for many women? It goes without saying that there were other factors that contributed to Molly’s death in the film: for example, Stephen’s utter disregard for her physical and psychic wellbeing preceding and following her pregnancy. However, the single rationale provided for her death is that she didn’t want the abortion to “hurt” Governor Morris, or his campaign for presidency. Not only is Molly’s agency wholly denied leading up to her decision to have an abortion, so too is her reproductive autonomy explained away in favor of a bullshit story about her loyalty to the married man who got her pregnant and moved on.

Lest the audience forget that women are mere toys in any political playground, a new intern arrives on the scene soon after Molly’s death. She, too, is slender and pretty and her only line in the film consists of a giggle and some reference to the mascot of her college’s football team during a flirty exchange with her male superior. Given this new intern’s resemblance to Molly and a scene in which she delivers coffee to Stephen, we are left to assume that she too will fall victim to the allure of the sexy, ruthless male politician. Clooney makes his point endlessly clear: young, ambitious, politically active women in truth only desire sex with powerful men and once they have it, they become disposable.

The Ides of March could have been an opportunity to reflect on the complexities of sex and politics; at any point in the film, Clooney could have decided to ask thoughtful questions about what it means for women to navigate male-dominated institutions, and to have sex along the way. Instead, he carelessly indulged every frustrating, unimaginative stereotype about young women who have sex with men and the reproductive decisions that often follow. Someday, I hope to see a film that satisfies my desire for fast-paced political drama without repeating narrow, sexist scripts.