The Call is Coming from Across the Border: The University of Toronto in Black Christmas (1974) and Black Christmas (2019)
[image: Mental Floss ] Filmed at the University of Toronto, Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (1974), has important connections to Canadian politics and feminist history. While we’re often reminded that Roe v. Wade, a significant US legal decision, coincided with the year of the film’s release, the Morgentaler trials were the more relevant and timely news event in Canada — where the film was made and initially released — and crucial to the development of that country’s federal abortion laws. These trials occurred after Justice Minister Pierre Trudeau (who would become a two-time PM and father of the current PM) successfully passed a bill decriminalizing abortion, contraception, and homosexuality (for more information, see this helpful description courtesy of The University of Toronto). Focusing on the visceral horror of forced birth rather than “medical privacy,” the Morgentaler trials secured abortion rights in Canada (although abortion access remains a problem in many regio...