Written and directed by North West Tasmanian Rebecca Griffin, The Blindness is a response to the question of ‘My Body, My Choice’ if the same principal were applied to men during pregnancy. Exploring this question led to the creation of a world where men experience blindness during a pregnancy and the consequences of a change to their bodies that they had no control over and that the government saw to fit to intervene and legislate against.
Set in the year 2095, 75 years after the discovery of the Reciprocal Antenatal Blindness Syndrome (RABS), the government has taken wide sweeping and hitherto unprecedented changes to encourage population growth. Free healthcare, in home help, childcare, as well as robust parental leave are all a given. Family Welfare Centres are hubs of support for pregnant people, and the population is slowly growing.
Across five vignettes The Blindness explores themes of bodily autonomy, patriarchy and power, feminism, equality, class, interpersonal relationships and examines the difference in societal expectations of childbirth between men and women. Why is pregnancy and childbirth, considered primarily the domain of women until now, supported and highly valued because men are now physically impacted?
Written and Directed - Rebecca Griffin
Cast -
Gillian English
Lucas Hodge
Caroline Cherry
