Are the worst mothers in America in the movies?

[Bootsy Whoosh]

Here's an article that caught my eye from MSN.com:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Mommy Direst
The worst mothers in America are at your local Cineplex.
By Moira Redmond
Posted Monday, July 22, 2002, at 8:14 AM PT

What is it that women find so compelling about Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood?

It's the story of three generations of women facing abuse, alcoholism, and mental illness, all of whom are made yet more miserable by toxic mother-daughter relationships. This has somehow resulted in Ya-Ya being considered a fun "girls' night out" movie.

In fact, there's been an epidemic of bad mothering on screen lately. A quick summary:

Mom Is Mean or Uncaring: In About a Boy, Marcus' mother, Fiona, played by Toni Collette, attempts suicide, knowing that her 12-year-old son will be the one to find her body. That's very bad. But, much worse, she makes her son wear an awful knitted hat to school, almost guaranteeing he'll be bullied in the playground. (A Slate colleague begs to differ, arguing that "the sweater with the rainbow and the clouds on it is much, much worse than the hat.")


In Monster's Ball, Halle Berry's character smacks around her son in a scene that would be much more heart-wrenching if the casting wasn't so off. Skinny Ms. Berry is about half the size of her child—it was hard to believe he was going to put up with much more without hitting back. Fortunately the boy disappears from the film before he realizes that he is enmeshed in another of the classic bad mother plots: Mom Makes Bad Life-Partner Choices—in this case the Hamlet subset, as his mother gets together with the man who killed his father. Bad partners come in other forms: Look at last year's Domestic Disturbance, where John Travolta's ex-wife has married Mr. Wrong, or at Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, in which Anakin Skywalker finds out that he has a stepfather and stepbrother his mother never told him about.

Mom Is Too Sexy: It's a small part of Y Tu Mamá También, but the source of the title. Julio tells Tenoch that he has slept with not only Tenoch's girlfriend but also his mother: a disaster for the boys' friendship. This genre has a long history: A terrific too-sexy mom is Lois Farrow in 1971's Last Picture Show. When her prim daughter (played by Cybill Shepherd) says it would be a sin to sleep with her boyfriend, Mom counters, "I thought if you slept with him a few times you might find out there isn't anything magic about it." Farrow is played by Ellen Burstyn—who went on to play the bad mother Vivi in Ya-Ya.


Unfaithful's mom is a little bit too sexy as well, but her real problem is that she is a Mom Who Neglects Her Kid. Connie (played by Diane Lane) ruins her life for a handsome boy—she starts wearing tarty underwear and sexy shoes and risks home and family in an adventure that will end in death and fear. The road to doom is matched in her increasing neglect of son Charlie: At first it is just unsupervised TV watching, but then she is late to pick him up from school, and next thing you know she is giving him a McDonald's meal instead of home-cooked food. (Does Mickey D's actually pay for this sort of anti-product placement?)

Mom Is a Throwback: In My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Maria, mother of heroine Toula, is a feisty, kind, admirable woman, but she seems to think she is living in a 1950s sitcom. She instructs her 30-year-old daughter in how to get her way while making the man (whether father or partner) think he is in charge. She also thinks it very reasonable for parents to have a say in whom the 30-year-old dates, and—worst of all—she says, "I gave you life so you could live."

Mom Has Every Possible Failing, but She's OK, Really: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood is the full house of bad motherhood: The plot includes loads of embarrassment, meanness, and neglect, and no one is a good role model. This is accompanied by a punishing theme: that you need to have a bad mother in order to "find yourself"—that awful childhood has helped young Siddalee to artistic success (it gave her something to write about).

In the end, Ya-Ya's Vivi and Sidda achieve a new closeness. Thirty years of bad feeling dissolve with some truth-telling and secret-revealing, a common enough conclusion in movies if not in real life. Perhaps that is the final fantasy for the women who are flocking to see it—all of them daughters, many of them mothers. No matter how bad intergenerational relations get, there is always hope! Or perhaps the reason for the movie's appeal is even simpler: We sit there and think, "Well, my relationship with my mother/daughter isn't as bad as that."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A couple of things jump out at me about this article.

#1.) I wasn't aware until now that the do-all end-all worst thing a mother could do for a child is feed him McDonald's. Heaven forbid! Why can't Daddy cook him home-cooked meals anyway?

#2.) I was also unaware, until THANKFULLY this article informed me, that a pre-resequite to being a mother was that you had to lose all sex drive and all sex appeal. Thank goodness I know now.

Personally I find this article more than a tad ridiculous. There are women in the real world who are far worse mothers than Hollywood portrays. I also think it's ridiculous to expect all Hollywood films to portray mothers as June Cleaver.

And this is yet another example of how when we go looking for someone to blame the lack of so-called "family values" on, we somehow without failing end up examining the mother. I am ashamed that it was a woman who wrote this article.

~*~*~*~*~*~

What do YOU think?

[Kitt]

I think the lady is making some incorrect assumptions. I went to see Ya Ya with my daughter at a cinemaplex. We walked out. My daughter nor I, inspite of the ladies assumption, were 'compelled'. Then we tried "Greek wedding". Again we walked out. Not just because the MOTHER was a cartoon character, but everyone and every plot piece was junk--equally rediculous men and women characters.

I'll have to admit, Bootsy, I missed just how one sided the ladies theme was until you brought it up. My first reaction to your take was, "Very astute Bootsy." Then I thought what a bonehead I was for missing it, lol. You're right of course but then I'm sure that there are equally one-sided collumns written about men and their contribution to the lack of so called 'family values'. (That phrase makes me grind my teeth). But women always have and still do take the main bum-rap for child rearing. But on the other hand, I can say from experience, some Dad's don't get the credit due to them for their part in raising daughters. People tend to think that Dads dont' have much to do with how their daughters grow up. Makes me mad sometimes.

[Charlie Max]

Great post, Bootsy. I meant to check out this article on MSN the day it came out but I missed it. I'm glad you posted it here.

I just thank God my mom ( may God rest her kind soul) was nothing like the mothers these movies are portraying. My mother was a very caring, nurturing, and persevering woman. I wish I would've been closer to her while she was here but thinking back, we did have our quality time together. Fortunately, not all moms are like these "movie moms".

[TJL]

Ya know, I love articles and essays about movies vs. real life. Every once in a while I read stuff like this, and I have to issue my standard response...

IT'S ONLY A MOVIE!

Whew. That felt good.
Sorry I had to yell....