Review On The Movie Trailer For “Orphan”

Yes, you read that right. I am reviewing the movie trailer, not the movie. Why? Because I will never see this movie, so I cannot comment or review it. The movie is billed as a horror movie and I’m hoping this will keep people away from the actual movie. The trailer is damaging enough to the adoption community.

The trailer, which I’ll call the world’s LONGEST commercial, was on the other night during the new show The Philanthropist that my husband likes. My hubby didn’t hit the fast forward quick enough (was there life before DVRs?) and we started to watch commercials. This one hit us like a ton of bricks. Hubby actually started to forward it, because he had no desire to see it. I told him that I wanted to watch it because I had heard about some movie that had the adoption world in an uproar. I wish I had not watched it though.

Several weeks ago I was sent an email about this movie that was coming out and to be honest I never click the link to watch it. My reasons were that I had enough stress already and I didn’t want to deal with it. Maybe if I had I would have been outraged sooner and written people to do all I could to stop it. Could I have stopped it? No. I have no power in Hollywood (gasp!) I would have felt like I did all I could though and now I just feel helpless anger.

What is Orphan about? Why was it so painful to watch? It’s hook is based on the fears and ignorance about older child adoption. Haven’t we all heard,”I wouldn’t want them to hurt my kids.” before?

The plot that I could deciper is about an upper class white family who goes to and orphanage to adopt a child and they decide to adopt one of the girls they meet (child shopping is really frowned upon, does anyone ethical do this anymore?) The child seems sweet and quiet and is cute but lonely looking (I cannot imagine letting my child act this character)and looks very innocent. The long and the short of it is that freaky stuff starts happening and family members get hurt (or worse?) and they find out that she had been in some mental facility and the orphanage had no record of her past, etc, etc…. This commercial went on forever and showed every twist and turn in the movie it seems (a sign the movie isn’t good to begin with).

Did I care about my children’s safety before we decided to adopt? Of course. We thought about our kids at home the entire time. We choose the sex and ages based on the children we had at home. The kids were never unsupervised for a long time when we brought them home. We had baby monitors in the bedrooms to listen to everything that went on at night. Baths and bathroom visits were always monitored and they did not share the bathroom for a good, long while. My plan was to sleep in the girl’s room for most of the first year. I could go on and on about the preparation we took in adopting older children, and this blog is proof of many of the things we prepared for and have gone through.

Do I believe that this movie trailer will stop people from adopting older children? Yes, I do. All of us have doubts and fears. We all have anxieties. When preparing to adopt an older child (any child, for that matter) you go over theses anxieties with your partner, your dear friends, your therapist or you just mull over them a bit in your own head. Is this bad? Absolutely not. I am all for prevention and thinking through every senerio and making plans on how to deal with that senerio is a HEALTHY way of working through anxieties.

A counter argument could be, “If a would-be parent does not adopt from being scared of a movie trailer, maybe that person should not adopt anyway.” If a parent or parents are in the process of adopting an older child, this trailer probably will not stop them at this time. It will cause people to maybe not be as supportive of the adoption though. Many adoptive families have problems with extended family members and friends about adoption, this just fuels the fire and makes the support chain that much smaller.

The biggest worry I have from this is the seed of fear it may be planting in future adoptive families. Think of the teenagers who see this. People who are not thinking about adopting or having kids for a long time. When they grow and want to become parents, will this seed of fear grow and prevent them from adopting an older child?

As a profession I work as a nurse on the OB floor. My emphasis is on breast-feeding. In the lactation world there is something called the “Chicago Hope Effect“. In 1998 a Chicago Hope episode they had a mother rush her new baby to the E.R. The baby died of dehydration and the mom had been breast-feeding. Needless to say the producers of Chicago Hope misrepresented breast-feeding. This one episode is still effecting breast-feeding thoughts, fears and myths after ten years. The media and it’s effects are powerful and long lasting.

I urge you all to turn off your TV or fast-forward through this trailer. If you must watch it, be strong and don’t let it get to you. This post is proof that it upset me as it is 5 am and I have been up for hours, not being able to sleep well for the anxiety this has caused. I am worried about the millions of other older kids around the world and the tens of thousands in the U.S. that don’t have permanent homes.

Is older child adoption easy. NO. Is it for everyone? NO. Do some adopted children have serious problems (as bio kid also do). Yes. Are there enough of us to parent them or to improve conditions in developing countries to make less orphans? Yes, if everyone who could would step up. I believe this movie trailer will decrease the numbers of potential parents and make life harder for those who do adopt older children.

Photo Credit

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.