Education | 1960 | Sound | Colour
Sex Education 1960's
Animation. Baby crawls across orange background to a young girl. Baby grows into a young boy, another baby crawls along the ground. Titles come up in Spanish, French, Arabic and Japanese (?). Mum is darning socks, dad is reading the newspaper on a nice brown couch. Baby toddles into the frame and out again. Man has thought bubble of a heart popping out of his head as he looks at woman. She reciprocates in close up. They sit on the sofa holding hands with love heart thought bubbles emanating from their heads. Close up of hand holding. Woman has baby in thought bubble in her head and smiles, then bottles, washing nappies and drying on the line. She looks miserable. The baby thought bubble appears from the man's head, he is smiling. Money disappears in another thought bubble, rubbish going into bin, baby waking up screaming. He pulls a face. They stop holding hands! Looking sad, the hearts in the bubble split down the middle. The woman starts to cry.
Three women are in the park, two white, one black and their children. Another mother joins them, the protagonist of the previous scene, she looks sad, close up of her crying. The three women on the park bench turn to her with ? In their thought bubbles. She explains her dilemma (in thought bubbles) about the strains of having children. It seems that the thought of getting pregnant again frightens her. One woman (in her thought bubble) suggests using a condom including different foreign language spellings. The next woman suggests a diaphragm with foams and jellies. The third woman suggests an IUD. Another woman turns up suggesting the Rhythm Method (via a calendar graphic). A fifth woman suggests the Pill. Our protagonist looks puzzled, all the methods of contraception are in her thought bubble with red question marks over them. Cut to doctor's surgery and previous graphics of contraceptive methods on a wall chart. Doctor explains diaphragm with assistance of profile of woman's body. The cap floats through the air into the woman! A splodge of jelly is pointed at the woman's genitals and sprayed on top of the cap. The IUD is inserted in the same floating manner. The pill is shown by a silhouette of a woman popping a pill into her mouth. The condom is already on a curiously flaccid penis, but how did it get there! The Rhythm Method is indicated by a hand marking off dates on a calendar with a red pen. Assuming my prior knowledge, the woman wants to know how to control the birth of children so they are not born too close together, graphics show a toddler, a baby, then the baby becoming a toddler as a new baby comes along. This is increased five-fold to show the example of bad birth control. The woman agrees that she wants to plan her family. Will these methods have any side effects such as a weaker child? No. Defects (looks like androgony, the genitals appear to move to the stomach!). No. Does it make sex less passionate? (shot of bed going up and down with love hearts pouring out top). No. Map of world with contraceptive, they are used all over the world … The doctor advises her to talk to her husband. She relays the story to the husband, suggesting he go to the doctor. At the doctor's he outlines his worries about having another child. He says his wife had told him about contraception. What should he choose? The doctor goes through each one. Includes an odd shot of the woman bending over with what could be period cramps. Back on the sofa he discusses what he knows (They do not seem to have come to any conclusions yet!) and they kiss. The doctor has examined the woman (she is lying in the surgery) and decides the pill would be the best method for her. Final shot of husband and wife cuddling, hearts come from their heads. Sub-titles say Ask Your Doctor.
The film tries to put the message across that planned parenthood and birth control are necessary in today's society. This is illustrated through graphics and was perhaps intended to be shown with an expert (doctor) explaining more about the options in varying languages: English, Spanish, French, Arabic (?) and Japanese.
Interestingly the final choice of contraception is the pill
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