For many activists on both sides of the abortion-rights debate, extremism in the defense of their position is no vice. But to first-time filmmaker Alexander Payne, it has the virtue of being funny.
Payne won't say whether he's pro-choice or pro-life, but he considers it a good sign for Citizen Ruth, his abortion-rights satire, that the question is asked.
Citizen Ruth stars Laura Dern as Ruth Stoops, a pregnant, glue-sniffing vagrant who becomes a pawn in the running battle between a city's pro-life and pro-choice factions. Payne uses Ruth's dilemma not to argue for one side or the other, but to make pointed fun of the fanaticism to which people resort in service of their ideals.
Payne and co-screenwriter Jim Taylor give both sides a good drubbing, and are so evenhanded that viewers may not be quite sure where the movie stands on the abortion issue. That's just fine with the director, who says he tried to be "equally unfair."
"It's not so much about these two sides as it is observations about human nature," he says on a recent visit to Fort Lauderdale. "People have these sets of beliefs, and through their own good intentions, kind of compromise themselves, and end up stumbling over their own pretty shoes."
Payne admits that it should be "pretty obvious" which side he's on, and indeed however harsh his depiction of the pro-choice camp, he always leaves the abortion decision up to Ruth. Though one strongly suspects this Hollywood director to be more likely to turn up at a NARAL fund-raiser than an Operation Rescue pray-in, he nevertheless maintains that part of Citizen Ruth's mission is to shake partisans on both sides out of their smug orthodoxies.
"I think the whole fun of making a film like this, which has seemingly ambiguous politics, is to make the viewer think. If it's a good film, it will make people wonder about their own position on the issue," Payne says. "I think it would be irresponsible of me to guide the reading of the film. If there's a part where somebody goes, 'What's this film trying to say?', and they know what my personal belief on abortion is, they'll feel like it's being interpreted for them, and that's way against the spirit of the film."
Citizen Ruth, scheduled to open March 28 in South Florida, begins on Skid Row in a nameless Midwestern city (it was filmed in Omaha, the director's hometown). Sleazy Ruth Stoops gets arrested once again for paint-huffing until she passes out. Authorities discover that Ruth, who has abandoned four children already, is pregnant. In one of the film's finer ironies, the weary judge tells Ruth that unless she aborts her unborn child, he'll throw the book at her for felony child endangerment.
In her cell, the forlorn wastrel meets four pro-life activists jailed for protesting at a local clinic. She is taken in by the group's leaders, the Stoneys, an achingly devout Christian couple who groom her for maximum media exposure.
Later, Ruth winds up in the clutches of a feminist, pro-choice lesbian couple. Though they are better educated and more tasteful than the Stoneys, Payne shows that Ruth has merely fallen into the hands of a better class of scoundrel. For all their blathering about the sanctity of Ruth's right to choose, the activists make sure the only option she considers is abortion.
If neither pro-lifers nor pro-choicers come away unsullied by Payne's gimlet gaze, Ruth herself is no paragon of purity. Despite each side's attempts to see her as a victim of their opponents, Ruth's bottom line is that she will do the bidding of whichever faction makes her life the easiest.
The director maintains that making Ruth unlikable was important to point out how fervent political and social activists tend to take away the dignity of others by seeing them only as symbols, not as individuals.
"Let's say you have an indigent person like Ruth, and a conservative person might drive by and say, 'Oh, look at that lazy alcoholic woman who won't get a job,' " Payne says. "And a liberal might drive by and say, 'Oh, look at that poor victim.' Both of those attitudes to me are equally dehumanizing, and I detest them both."
Much of the film's comedy comes from the clash of the activists' idealism with Ruth's messy humanity, which doesn't fit either side's game plan _ much to their consternation. But will conventional audiences cotton to a film without a likable protagonist? Payne knows he's taking a chance here, building his comedy around a dim-witted, loose-living, greedy scammer.
"But why is someone like that less deserving of our attention, or our compassion, or of trying to understand?" he asks. "One thing is you don't see many people like that in films, because ideologically what this culture seems to demand is that our movies have people we sympathize with, or can identify with, or be likable. I just think protagonists should somehow be truthful."
Some have criticized Citizen Ruth for an ending in which the Ruth character is spared having to decide the fate of her unborn child. Without giving too much away, it's safe to say the choice is made for her.
What kind of reaction does the filmmaker expect to get from the warring camps? Will they laugh at themselves, or fume at being made fun of? Payne says the pro-life and pro-choice communities aren't monolithic, so he expects a diversity of opinion.
"I don know that in any group you have extremists. Try to make a comedy about Cuba Cubans and Miami Cubans. It's the same thing. Here in Miami, you have a level of insanity about this kind of thing," he says. "There are people who are humorless about anything, and there's an attitude of 'if you're not for me, you're against me.' I can do nothing about that, but those people are a vast, vast minority."
By pointing out excesses, absurdities and hypocrisies attending America's longstanding abortion battle, Citizen Ruth suggests a possibility for common ground between the warring armies. If pro-choicers and pro-lifers can recognize themselves in the film, and laugh at their own sanctimony, might this not cool off some very hot heads?
Payne won't speculate and doesn't really care. When asked if he hopes his bitter little comedy will affect the way we talk about abortion in this country, the director laughs heartily. "It's just a movie! Who cares?!"