The film Where Are My Children? was deceptive during my first viewing. I almost fell for their silver-tongued ploy. I'm talking about the scene with Dr. Homer. While on the stand the good doctor makes some points about birth control. He talks about three scenarios. One where the child is born in a family that is too poor to afford food and will ultimately stave. Another where a child is born in a family with a drunkard father and is subjugated to abuse every day. And finally a baby victim to infanticide along with its mother's suicide as a reaction to having a child out of wedlock and her lover rejecting her. Dr. Homer argues that these children's tragic lives could've been avoided had their parents used birth control. He presents the idea that no child should be punished for being born, but that there are adults that are not ready/shouldn't be parents. As I watched I found myself nodding along to what he was saying while being astonished that such a film could be created in 1916.
Then Dr. Homer pulls out a book. He says that it has all the information one needs about the benefits of birth control. As the camera changes perspective for the audience to read, the book is titled "Eugenics." As Dr. Homer flips through he lands on a page that roughly states that eugenics will help stabilize and establish the prosperity of the white race. This set off my black person alarm bells, but another part of me handwaved it as an "every-film-before-blacksploitation-era-was-banana-bonkers-racist-and-is-definitely-the-norm-I-mean-it's-1916-for-christsakes." However, I would change my tune on the second viewing after doing a little research. After reading Shelly Stamp's analysis, the film took on a much more chilling tone.
During this scene, Dr. Homer is presented as a man of reason. He's not only teaching the jury about birth control but the audience as well. The way he's shot in the cinematography and the words in his monologue contains the words, God, little angels, God-given, and heaven paint him in a pastoral light preaching to his congregation. As a doctor, he has the dynamic duo in a debate, arguing that not only science supports him, but that it's God's will as well. Who can argue with that? What he's essentially preaching is that birth control should be given in mass to those seen as inferior (aka black/brown/poor people) so that society can control their numbers enough to still be a disposable workforce while not big enough to leech a large number of resources or incite revolution. While those seen as superior (rich whites) will have no need for birth control and their next generation will guide the white race into a new era. Dr. Homer is only vilified when it's found out that he performed abortions on Edith and her friends. Edith and her kind are the rich women who should be having babies to grow the numbers of the great white race and now there's proof Dr. Homer is aborting them!
What's troubling about this scene is that it frames Dr. Homer into the sympathetic villain. While he ultimately received his just desserts, the audience can't help but agree with some of his ideas and reasons. It's to imply that if only Dr. Homer was a different man or if his ideas were in the hands of someone nobler it would be heroic in another story. The Aesop is that it's up to the audience to take heed of the villain's ideas, but with a nobler outlook. What's even more frightening is that's what most likely happened due to Where Are My Children?'s popularity. The film packed theatres, in fact, it saved the theatre where it originally premiered from going out of business. With America's track record on sterilization of black/brown communities, it's chilling to think of a possible history where America wholly embraced the philosophy of eugenics had Nazi Germany not permanently damaged the perception of it.
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