Bump+: Finding Common Ground Through Reality TV?

Last week I wrote a piece for Alternet about a new web series called Bump+, a "fake" reality show. Three actresses play women facing accidental pregnancies, women who have agreed to be reality show contestants. The web audience gets to weigh in on these faux contestants' ultimate decision. Needless to say, the format hasn't endeared the show to either camp in the abortion debate. I talked to Bump+'s Creative Director Chris Riley about the writers' intentions to open a "common ground" discussion based solely on the stories of these characters, and whether the show's reliance on reality TV tropes is getting the message through. He stressed a desire to reach out to pro-choicers, who are staying away from the site's commenting forums. Here is our full conversation for RHRC readers to weigh for themselves.

Tell me about how you came up with the idea for the show--was it actually  inspired by Obama?

One inspiration was his speech at Notre Dame--a call for a more civil conversation looking for common ground between people who have been shouting at each other. I also read The Audacity of Hope, the part where he describes his views on abortion and his interactions with people who disagreed with his position. I was struck by the respect he had for people who disagreed with him. I thought that was remarkable. And then I saw an episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart where he had Mike Huckabee on and they talked about abortion. It was fascinating to see people who saw the issue differently but were still able to talk about it.
So an idea occurred to me--why don't we just follow three women, as honestly and fairly as we possibly can, not have it be about politics, and neither for or against any version of the law. Let's just tell the stories of women and see what kind of conversation we might be able to spark.

One thing I noticed about those examples you just cited is all of these people having "civil" conversation were men, and so are a lot of the visible writers and producers on your site. Do you think it might be harder for women, whose lives and bodies are affected, to step back and have that kind of detached intellectual conversation about it?

That's a good point. First of all, we made sure we had a lot of women on our team [producers, directors, and actors]. A lot of this show was scripted, a lot was improvised. The actresses have been bringing a lot of their personal viewpoints into this.  I readily admit I'm a man, and that can't be helped. But I didn't want to disqualify myself because of that.
I have never been in the position our characters are in, but I've reached out to hear real stories from people who have faced unintended pregnancies in various ways. We certainly haven't told every possible story, but the interactivity allows us to invite anyone to tell their story on the website. We may cut stories into future episodes. So we're not the only storytellers.

Can you talk about the "their choice is up to you" concept of viewers weighing in? That ruffled some feathers in the pro-choice camp.

Their choice is up to you--we don't mean it in the sense of a vote. We have shot multiple endings, and we've shot 50 hours of which we'll only see about 75 minutes. So in post-production we'll have a lot of latitude to shape things in terms of what happens and the input we get, but as characters these women will fully make their choices on their own. We as storytellers will be listening to everyone's voices. We're finding on our site, when we turn the volume down then different people do step into the conversation.

If the characters are "written" and fictional, why the real-fake reality TV?

We chose the format because it's more interesting. We are a web series with a very low budget. We had to be provocative in order to get noticed. This was our way into the stories, and we felt it was an "of the moment" idea. We knew it was provocative concept on all ends of the spectrum, but it was an artistic choice--to tell stories and invite viewer reaction.
The most obvious controversy would be get pro-choicers and pro-lifers to just argue on television. We decided we'd rather let the controversy be about us.

Do you think people will be able to sympathize with these characters, these women who have agreed to let this decision be out of their hands?

Yes, if this were real, it would be outrageous. For the women to volunteer to be on the show, that's not a likable move. That is a challenge we have. But we as writers have a tremendous amount of affection for these characters. What will happen over episodes is that viewers will come to see them as more and more three-dimensional. You're going to start to root for these women and care about them. Nobody's going to be hitting anybody over the head with a folding chair. The more you hear their stories, you think "wow, that's really tough." Even Katie, who cheated on her husband. You're going to get that there's no easy solution to their problems. From those who oppose abortion, I hope it creates more sympathy for kinds of real dilemmas people find themselves in.

While looking over the site, most of the comments I've seen have come from one side, which is the "pro-life" side. I have to wonder if that's because on that side, people are comfortable telling women what to do with their pregnancies while on the pro-choice side, we believe it's a private decision that we shouldn't have input in.

We have noticed that. It was not completely unexpected for the reasons you've articulated. We want find ways to reach out to more pro-choice voices and invite those kinds of stories to be posted. There's stigma attached to those stories, and people may be less willing to share one of those stories. But  hopefully online there is enough anonymity for that to happen. We have one [anti-abortion] commenter, "sister Mary Agnes" who keeps posting, saying "please, even though I may not agree with you, I want to understand."

Anything else you might want to say to a progressive, pro-choice audience?

Everyone involved said let's be as honest as possibly be, as fair as we can possibly be. At every decision point, we've stuck by that
doesn't mean we know everything, been able to say everything. Whatever we've missed, please bring it to the conversation. We all have so much in common, communication would be impossible if we didn't. Please don't make the mistake that Fox News readers [who condemned the site] made which was deciding on the basis of a headline decide that we were completely partisan. Check it out, then make your own decision, and by all means, if we're missing something, tell us your story because we desperately need to hear it.