Olivia Wilde Claims The Pro-Life Movement Is "The Ugliest, Most Depressing Element" Of American Culture

Olivia Wilde has been in the headlines frequently over the last few months for a variety of reasons. Her split from actor Jason Sudeikis was especially public, heightened only by the fact that she quickly cozied up to Harry Styles, who is 10 years her junior. Her film Don't Worry Darling carried a lot of drama during the promotion of the movie and there was speculation that Florence Pugh (who played the protagonist in the film) didn't get along with Olivia. But one thing that Olivia has made clear is that the movie is meant to shed light on women's "participation in the system that objectifies us." She talked to Elle about the film and how she sees it related to a lot of the cultural issues happening today.

Olivia Wilde Says the Pro-Life Movement Is "the Ugliest, Most Depressing Element" of American Culture

Olivia says she's "very curious about our collective complicity in [upholding] the patriarchy and that's why she was so drawn to the story of Don't Worry Darling. She says she was seeing a lot of attempts to tackle 'feminist issues' that just ended up being too simplified.

"I had no interest in making a feminist parable that was judgy or that defined men as bad and women as good," she continues. "I was much more interested in that tense space where we recognize our own participation in the system that objectifies us.”

Don't Worry Darling follows Alice, played by Florence Pugh, who seems to be happily married to Jack, but things turn upside down when she notices a few strange things about her environment. There are meant to be overarching themes of sexism and patriarchal grabs of power throughout the movie (although many have criticized that the film doesn't quite achieve this). Of course, Olivia claims that she turned to former President Donald Trump for inspiration.

“We had a bunch of Trump quotes up on our board when we were writing the script, and there was this gross tendency of Trump’s to be very nostalgic about a better time," she shares. "What these men are referring to is a time that was horrific for anyone who wasn’t a straight white cis man. It was interesting to recognize that I had spent my entire life lusting after the iconography of this time when I would’ve had very few rights.”

Olivia also attempted to tie the film to Roe v. Wade being overturned. She says she has been "very involved in the pro-choice movement" and they were expecting that the landmark Supreme Court decision would be overturned this year. She also says that being involved in pro-abortion activism has "introduced me to probably the ugliest, most depressing element of our culture," citing an incident in which some "threatened to throw acid on my face."

It's unfortunate that she was threatened in such a violent way, but it's disingenuous at best to suggest that the entire pro-life movement is "the ugliest, most depressing element of our culture." But this isn't surprising coming from a woman who advocates for abortion on demand all over the country.

Olivia also opened up about the way that she is portrayed as a single mom in the press. She shares custody of her children with ex-husband Jason Sudeikis but she complains that if she's not photographed with her kids, people assume it's because she's an absent mother.

"The suggestion is that I have abandoned my role as a mother. You know why you don’t see me with my kids? Because I don’t let them get photographed. Do you know the lengths that I go to to protect my kids from being seen by you?” she says.