CMU School of Drama


Thursday, May 05, 2022

With Roe in Danger, Studios Quiet on Plans for Georgia Abortion Ban

Variety: The major entertainment studios spoke out against Georgia’s “heartbeat” abortion bill in 2019, saying they would “rethink” their production plans in the state if the law ever went into effect. That moment appears to be approaching fast.

2 comments:

Monica Tran said...

I feel like if I had a dollar for every time a studio decided that it would pull out of a contract or threaten to stop doing business in a certain state because of a political conflict, I'd have a lot of dollars. I get that people believe that this is going to help, but I feel like the only way to actually affect any real change is by focusing on local and state government elections and making sure the people you want are actually representing you. I feel like I've read this article title so many times like when people were threatening to stop producing movies or tv shows either in Georgia, again, or like in Texas. It wasn't over abortion but next year it'll be over another highly debated political idea and people will threaten the same thing all over again. But at this point, it all just feels like talk.

Andrew Morris said...

This specific case is a very interesting one for us in the entertainment industry because it is an example of the threat of economic damage from an entertainment industry boycott in a certain state will be enough to influence the local politics regarding the very controversial topic of abortion. I heard about this a few years ago when the news first broke that Georgia was planning on passing the “heartbeat” abortion bill which bans abortions after 6 weeks. Over the last decade or so, The US state of Georgia has emerged as a new hub for filming movies and tv shows, due in part to Tyler Perry choosing Georgia for his studios and big shows being filmed there like AMCs The Walking Dead. The appeal to Georgia is that its not that far from both coasts and land is pretty cheap compared to big cities. Now that the draft majority opinion of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has been made public on overturning Roe V wade, public pressure to defy these law as has been picking up. I don’t think that they will cease production in Georgia because our Capitalist society unfortunately values profit more than lives and reproductive rights.