Bitch Flicks – Page 58 – The radical notion that women like good movies

The Strange Love of ‘Mildred Pierce’

Elements of ‘Mildred Pierce’ play on the maternal sacrifice narratives that made films like ‘Stella Dallas’ (1937) and ‘The Sin of Madelon Claudet’ (1931) so powerful, and updates them for a more cynical era, positing that her sacrifice has not saved her children but ruined them…

This guest post written by Stacia Kissick Jones is part of our theme week on Bad Mothers.

“A mother’s love leads to murder!” announced advertisements for Mildred Pierce (1945), the box-office smash that was Hollywood superstar Joan Crawford’s comeback vehicle. The world had changed in the two years Crawford had spent away from the silver screen; her final film with MGM had been released during the height of World War II, while Mildred Pierce wasn’t released until well after VJ Day. Crawford’s career portraying strong women seemed, on the surface, the exact thing that would make her perfect as Mildred, a divorced mother of two who worked hard at both love and her career. In the post-war climate, however, independent women were seen as a threat, and the American media was encouraging women to leave the jobs they had held during the war and return to the domestic sphere.

In Woman’s Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir, Sylvia Harvey notes that the reaction to the wartime change in traditional gender roles was often expressed in the “underlying sense of horror and uncertainty in film noir,” and that Mildred Pierce, “woman of the world, woman of business, and only secondarily a mother, is a good example of [the] disruption and displacement of the values of family life.” It’s true that Mildred Pierce is commonly seen as an early example of Hollywood’s move toward portraying self-reliant women as disruptive, though there is hardly a consensus on whether the film means to be a cautionary tale against the subversion of traditional gender roles, or whether the movie, mostly through its sympathies with Mildred, slyly expands the boundaries of those gender roles.

In a particularly unsubtle promotional photograph, Mildred offers up her famous pie.

When Mildred Pierce opens, Mildred is safely ensconced in the kitchen, pretty in her apron and baking apple pies. But as we soon learn, her baking provides the family’s sole income, as her husband Bert (Bruce Bennett) has no job and no prospects. It seems innocuous enough to our modern eyes, even quaint, but in 1945 the fact that Mildred was turning the domestic world of the kitchen into the social world of business was a real threat. Later, when she opens her own restaurant, she is giving her domesticity to anyone who will pay for it, not reserving it for her husband and kids, making her even more volatile and dangerous.

But long before Mildred even thinks about opening a restaurant, Bert seems to instinctually understand that Mildred’s determination to provide for her family is a threat. He’s sore about that, but about life in general, too, and as Mildred insists their daughters Veda (Ann Blyth) and Kay (Jo Ann Marlowe) are the most important things in her life, Bert’s insecurities flare. He’s certain that piano lessons are spoiling his daughters; Mildred is certain he has taken up with the widow Mrs. Biederhof (Lee Patrick). Mildred has had enough and tells him so. He leaves, not stopping to tell his daughters goodbye.

Teenaged Veda, preternaturally cool and aloof, is unconcerned about her father’s disappearance. She’s a snob, really, and in the James M. Cain novel on which the film is based, much of her attitude is explained by the fact that Mildred actively encouraged Veda’s haughtiness, believing it to be a sign that her daughter was a superior individual. Similarly, Bert had once been rich and had no desire to work for a living, and Mildred was initially far too proud to work in the serving class, the only jobs open to her.

It’s understandable that none of this made it into the film — the husband could hardly be cast a villain in the post-war climate, and movie star Joan Crawford would never play such an unsympathetic character — but how did Veda develop such a classist ideology? The Mildred of the film is grateful for her job as a waitress, while Veda is mortified that her mother is so low class as to wear a uniform. As the film continues, it becomes clear that Mildred is right when she says money is all that Veda lives for. Still, there is nothing in the film to explain the origins of her attitude; omitting the complicating factors from the novel mean Veda’s greed and coldness are mostly unexplained. The implication, primarily through studio advertising rather than the text of the film, was that Mildred was responsible. “Please don’t tell anyone what Mildred Pierce did!” said one poster, while ads referred to “trouble” that Mildred “made herself.”

Despite having only one lover in the film — the man she would eventually marry — advertising portrayed Mildred as a fast woman who slept around. — Despite having only one lover, advertising portrayed Mildred as a fast woman who slept around.

There is also the heavy implication that Bert — philandering, lazy, useless Bert — was right when he said Mildred spoiled Veda. All Bert knew when he uttered those lines was that Mildred paid for dancing and piano lessons and bought the girl a dress she didn’t really need. We’re meant to think Bert was prescient and knew that Veda was in danger of becoming so desperately needy that she might do something terrible, and when the inevitable happened, it was because Mildred spared the rod and spoiled the child.

But as Proverbs 13:24 says, “He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” Mildred’s devotion to her daughter is extreme enough that hate could easily be one component of it, and her final act of “spoiling” — paying rich playboy Monte (Zachary Scott) to marry her so she can give Veda a fancy home — is filled with a bubbling hostility underneath. But if Mildred hates Veda, she never expresses this outright; it’s her gal pal Ida (Eve Arden) who vocalizes just how supremely irritating the young teen can be, and always humorously. “Veda’s convinced me that alligators have the right idea,” Ida famously tells Mildred. “They eat their young.”

In order to create a melodramatic character that was the perfect Joan Crawford star vehicle, the film had to prevent Mildred from becoming too angry, too irrational, or too obsessed; instead, they made her both sympathetic and level-headed. The film then, perhaps accidentally, suggests that Veda’s snobbishness has less to do with parental nurturing than with cultural nurturing. In the absence of any family members to blame, her attitudes must have come from society at large, perhaps from the heavily commercialized media of the day. As Jacqueline Foertsch points out in American Culture in the 1940s, popular culture was the most commercialized it had ever been. Appearance and affluence were becoming increasingly important, and Veda’s intense materialism reflects this. Mildred Pierce seems to be saying that, sure, Mildred made mistakes, but society made more.

It’s that sort of world-weary cynicism that helps place Mildred Pierce firmly in the film noir cycle. Based on the novel by James M. Cain, Mildred Pierce shares many of the traits of a typical Cain noir, but with one notable difference: the female lead is not the femme fatale. Mildred uses men, they don’t use her, and she’s always the one with power. She’s the breadwinner and head of household when married to Bert, she exerts more control over business partner Wally Fay (Jack Carson) than surely any other woman has in his life, mother included, and when she doesn’t win the love of the land-poor Monte, she buys him like he was a tool in a hardware store.

Just like any good noir antihero, Mildred has a sidekick and considers her career the most important thing in her life. And just like any good noir villain, she likes to spoil her girl; it’s just that, with Mildred, that girl is her own daughter. As her desperation to make Veda happy increases, she eventually buys Monte, but it’s only after years of practice buying Veda’s affections, an uncomfortable parallel to some money man in a noir buying a pretty girl, setting her up in a nice apartment and asking her to call him “uncle.”

In Cain’s novel, Mildred’s inappropriate attentions toward Veda are explicitly laid out, but a film in 1945 could never suggest such a thing. It does quite a good job of hinting at it, though, by creating a Veda who is no sexy girl in the typical Hollywood fashion, but who alternates between masculine and sexless. Blyth plays this perfectly, especially in her later scenes: she’s gorgeous but stone cold, looking more like a beautiful statue than a human. She’s ambitious, ruthless, critical, and expects to receive what she feels is her due, both socially and financially, but without the usual tit-for-tat sexual exchange required of other female characters of the era. Some of the difference is due to her age, certainly, but it’s notable that even after she becomes a legal adult singing racy songs to soldiers in a riverfront dive, her affect is curiously neutral.

In a literary sense, the Freudian idea of boys and men separating from, or even outright rejecting, their mothers leads to masculinity; therefore Veda, by rejecting her mother, takes on masculine traits. When she latches on to Monte, just as she had with the rich young boy she falsely accused of having made her pregnant, she seems to have almost no intent beyond the acquisition of money. This culminates in a finale in which, in solid film noir tradition, she symbolically becomes the man when she guns down Monte, at the same beach house he first bedded Mildred in.

At times, it’s almost as though Mildred was simply unlucky enough to have a psychopath for a daughter, but as E. Ann Kaplan notes in Women in Film Noir, luck would have nothing to do with it: the Freudian model would place the blame squarely on Mildred, her maternal sacrifice being the root cause of unhealthy psychological issues. Elements of Mildred Pierce play on the maternal sacrifice narratives that made films like Stella Dallas (1937) and The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931) so powerful, and updates them for a more cynical era, positing that her sacrifice has not saved her children but ruined them, killing her youngest daughter and turning the eldest into a murderer.

This played toward men’s post-war fear of women refusing to return back to the home, too. Media took to radio and the big screen to remind women that their only jobs should be as wife and mother. Magazine articles, news stories and films were produced that were little more than thinly disguised instruction manuals on how women should raise their children. Mildred Pierce is frequently cited as one of the first of many examples of what was essentially peacetime propaganda.

Mildred is grilled at the police station after Monte's murder. — Mildred is grilled at the police station after Monte’s murder.

There is a curious visual signifier that undermines that theory, however. Leading with Monte’s murder and told in flashback, Mildred Pierce features a beautiful, glamorous, well-lit past, almost entirely filled with clear and sunny days. It’s the present that becomes dark and cold, even a little surreal when Mildred is at the police station, the chief detective both gentle and cruel to her, telling lies in the same sentences as the truth. He means to humiliate and confuse her, punish her, make sure she knows it’s not the past anymore. He sends her away, the morning sun managing only a light gray haze, casting shadows on the cleaning women straining their backs to scrub the station floor by hand.

By the finale, men in authority, from Bert to the police, have arrived to clean things up by breaking the mother-daughter bond. At the same time, visually, it’s as though the film is looking back wistfully to the days when a working woman was not only accepted but patriotic, a time when women had a voice in their relationships, when it wasn’t a sin to sacrifice for their children because it was their primary mode of sociocultural power. The kind of strength and verve the U.S. hoped to recruit into the war effort just a year prior was now dangerous, which was why, for the good of society, the independent and successful Mildred had to be stripped of everything, even her children, by the end of the film. As she leaves the police station, it’s a bleak future ahead, those final stylized images she walks through almost Kafkaesque. And to make sure the message was fully received, Warner Bros. launched an ad campaign directed at returning U.S. soldiers, declaring the film the “big date” movie of the day. “Oh boy!” the poster shouted. “Home and Mildred Pierce!”

A freelance film critic and writer for the better part of a decade, Stacia Kissick Jones also plays classical guitar, reads murder mysteries and works tirelessly to consume all the caffeine in the world. Her work has appeared at Next Projection, Press Play, ClassicFlix and more.

Emily Gilmore and the Humanization of Bad Mothers

They’re complicated women who have both scarred each other over the years, and there’s no getting past that easily. But they both try. And in trying, we get a better picture of who they are as human beings. Like I said in the beginning, there’s something so valuable in seeing a character like Emily who is, unequivocally, a bad mother also be a good person. Because she is a good person. Sometimes. Mostly.

Three generations of Gilmores: Rory, Emily, and Lorelai.

This guest post by Deborah Pless previously appeared at her blog, Kiss My Wonder Woman, and appears now as part of our theme week on Bad Mothers. Cross-posted with permission.

It’s sad, but it’s true. When we talk about “bad mothers” we almost always limit our discussion, intentionally or not, to talking about mothers from lower income families, single mothers, mothers of color, and other women whose motherhood is deeply impacted by the difficulty of their ability to provide for their children.

Most of the “bad mommies” we’ve seen depicted on television fit this trend too, being disproportionately women of color with low incomes and frequently without a parenting partner. It would be really easy to look at the media, especially television, and come to the conclusion that the only real kind of bad mother is a poor one.

It’s arguably even more rare, though, to see a depiction or discussion of a woman who is a bad mother but not necessarily a bad person. A woman who, for all of her faults and genuine failures as a parent, is still a human being with wants and needs. In other words, sometimes women can be bad at being mothers but halfway decent at being people. We accept this readily when talking about fathers, but when it comes to mothers, it’s like we all freeze up. A bad mother must be a bad person. End of story.

Naturally, this isn’t true.

Lorelai and Emily at a Mother-Daughter fashion show. — Lorelai and Emily at a mother-daughter fashion show.

The truth is that reality is much more complex and difficult to understand than we like to admit. It’s so much easier to frame little bubbles of belief around ourselves and only pay attention to the narratives that affirm our understanding of the world. Motherhood is disproportionately valued in our society, which leads to an understanding that women are evaluated on the basis of whether or not we are mothers. If we are mothers, then we seem to think that our value is determined by whether or not we’re good at it. We are the products of our uteruses, and apparently nothing else.

But this misses the vast complexity of human experience, and, clearly, devalues women into walking incubators. And when all we see are narratives that enforce this, narratives that equivalence good motherhood with valid personhood, it’s hard to shake the idea that women are only good if we are good mothers.

So, with all of that in mind, let’s talk about Emily Gilmore, a fictional women who, glory of glories, managed to be both a bad mother and an interesting person, all without losing her genuine humanity. While much ink has been spilled over the years about Gilmore Girls and the unconventional relationship between mother and daughter Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory (Alexis Bledel) Gilmore, the undiscovered country of the show is in the characterization of Emily Gilmore (Kelly Bishop), Lorelai’s mother.

Emily Gilmore hits rock bottom on the rocks.

Emily Gilmore could have very easily been a caricature of a certain type of society matron, but she’s saved from that fate by the excellent writing of Amy Shermer-Palladino and the fantastic acting of Kelly Bishop. An upper class woman concerned primarily with image and status, Emily’s not a very nice person when we meet her in season one. She’s angry and bitter and cutting and devious, the sort of woman you would back away from slowly at a party. A running joke is made out of her inability to keep a maid employed (because she keeps firing them for tiny infractions), but the reality is that Emily Gilmore is a deeply unpleasant woman to be around.

The premise of the show actually makes it very clear that Lorelai has no real intention of pursuing a relationship with her mother. The first episode tells us that Lorelai hasn’t spoken to her parents in 15 years or so, having run away at 16, shortly after giving birth to her daughter. Lorelai has been living in isolation from her mother simply so that Emily could not control her life. The only reason she goes back to her parents is because her daughter, Rory, has been accepted to a prestigious private school, and Lorelai lacks the financial resources to pay the tuition.

This in and of itself is a pretty stark statement about the level of their relationship. Lorelai will only speak to her mother when the only other alternative is letting down her own child. That’s bad. It’s also understandable. The show never lets Emily off the hook or tells us she was secretly an amazing mother. While it does make clear that Emily has always cared about Lorelai more than Lorelai perhaps realized, it also gives us lots of evidence that Emily was an awful parent. She was manipulative, controlling, overly critical, and tried to micromanage her daughter’s every move.

What makes Gilmore Girls a great show, though, is that it gives us Emily Gilmore in all of her flawed parental glory, and doesn’t try to excuse or redeem it. Instead, it shows us a story where Lorelai and Emily come to appreciate each other for who they are. Emily doesn’t magically become a better parent, but she does become more and more aware of how terrible a parent she is, and she starts to want to change.

In other words, it’s not so much that Emily Gilmore is a terrible mother that I like, it’s that she’s a terrible mother who realizes she is. And, upon realizing that she has no relationship with her daughter at all, seeks to fix that.

It’s not an easy road, and the show, to its credit, does not give Emily much slack. She has to work for that relationship. Lorelai does too. They’re complicated women who have both scarred each other over the years, and there’s no getting past that easily. But they both try. And in trying, we get a better picture of who they are as human beings. Like I said in the beginning, there’s something so valuable in seeing a character like Emily who is, unequivocally, a bad mother also be a good person. Because she is a good person. Sometimes. Mostly.

At the very least, she’s a fully realized person. Emily Gilmore has all the faults and foibles that real people have. She has enemies and friends and flaws and spectacular good qualities. She yearns for a closer relationship with her husband but has no idea how to get it. She desperately wants to be a good mother, but utterly lacks the tools or understanding on how to relate to her child. She’s complicated, and I love that.

The Gilmores gather to celebrate Rory’s graduation.

It is also worth mentioning, however, that our understanding of Emily Gilmore really does come down along class lines. While it’s considerably less common to see a depiction of a white, upper class woman as a bad mother, it is more common to see women like Emily Gilmore given the benefit of the doubt, both by society and by the media. Still, that doesn’t make the show any less valuable as a depiction of the complexities of motherhood. Just, you know, take it with a grain of salt.

The main thing I want to get at here is simply this: women are not defined solely by our ability to parent. Some women are bad mothers. They just are. Whether because they are too proud to seek help or lack the emotional capacity or simply don’t see how their choices are affecting their children, some women are bad at being parents. And that’s important to admit. If we can’t see that, then we can’t understand women fully as people.

But more than that, if we can’t understand that a woman can be both a bad mother and still a valid, valuable human being, then we have no right to say that we understand the humanity of women. Characters like Emily Gilmore can help us see this, but ultimately it’s up to us. We have to admit the complexity of the world around us if we want it to get any better.

Deborah Pless runs Kiss My Wonder Woman and works as a freelance writer and editor in western Washington when she’s not busy camping out at the movies or watching too much TV. You can follow her on Twitter and Tumblr just as long as you like feminist rants, an obsession with superheroes, and the search for gluten-free baked goods.

‘Riding in Cars with Boys’ and Post-Maternal Female Agency

‘Riding in Cars with Boys’ showcases a humanity to women who are mothers that our media lacks. Women are constantly punished and depowered for their sexuality, and their motherhood status is often used as another way to control in media.

This guest post by CG is part of our theme week on Bad Mothers.

Being a woman in today’s society means following a particular script. You are to: be a quiet, pleasant child. Discover boys by puberty. Get good grades, wear a sparkling prom dress. Have a college boyfriend. Marry said college boyfriend. Be a quiet homemaker, be pregnant, raise your children accordingly. But rarely, if ever, do we get a glimpse into what life means outside of this script – particularly after motherhood. What happens to these women who follow the script, who find themselves the proper example of what the script can mean – and what happens to those who choose to forge their own path, and mix life in with the order of the script?

It’s rare to find that there is life for women beyond motherhood. For this, I turn to one example that has shown the full humanity of post-maternal female agency. This is 2001’s Riding in Cars with Boys.

Riding in Cars With Boys is a journey story, first and foremost. Radical even today, the story follows Beverly “Bev” Delfrino (played by Drew Barrymore) as she stumbles her ways through life. Even at eleven, Bev displays her zest for life and the zing of excitement. She wants to be a writer. She wants to go to college and rub elbows with the elite. And most of all, she wants to be desired…by boys.

In one of the first scenes, Bev’s father is flabergasted as she tells him that what she really wants for Christmas isn’t a bike, but a bra, to impress a classmate that she likes.

This kind of boldness is cemented into Bev’s character as she grows older. Even when she is rejected at a high school party by yet another classmate she is pining over, she finds comfort in Ray, a guy who really doesn’t have much going for him but comforts our heroine. She then has unprotected sex with Ray in the backseat of a car.

It isn’t long before Bev finds herself pregnant. And while most stories would end here, or move the heroine to find some meaning in her pregnancy and motherhood, Bev rejects this. She continues being the same selfish, flamboyant lover of life that she is at the beginning of the film, despite the constant pressure from others in her life (particularly men) for her to conform. Her father, with whom Bev has a close relationship with, not only rejects her but kicks her out of the house when he finds out she is pregnant. Ray, who Bev marries out of necessity, remains a static character as well. He is a well meaning individual whose irresponsibility outweighs Bev’s. Between forgetting basic essentials to falling into a haze of drugs, Ray’s unreliability mirrors the same gender roles that move along the film.

It seems odd to praise a film like this, where the mother figure is such a notable “bad mother”, but that in lies the beauty of this film. Riding in Cars with Boys doesn’t negate or try to water down Bev. She remains an individual first and foremost, and the role of mother becomes secondary to that. And there are far and few media representations that allow women to embody themselves fully like this.

Bev is surrounded by men in the film – her father, Ray, her son Jason – and they all embody some part of the responsibility and gender roles that Bev is fighting against. Jason ends up being the voice of reason in the film, growing up feeling resentful and grateful for having Bev as a mother. In one of the final climax scenes of the film, we see Jason’s frustration bubbling over as he tells his mother “I raised you!” Bev’s reaction? To pout and throw a temper tantrum.

Do you see how great this is?

Riding in Cars with Boys showcases a humanity to women who are mothers that our media lacks. Women are constantly punished and depowered for their sexuality, and their motherhood status is often used as another way to control in media. We see this in everything from Scandal to Flowers in the Attic to Lizzy Bordon Killed a Man. Rarely are women granted that full spectrum of emotions and flaws in the way that men and men who are fathers are allowed to be. Bev Delfino proves that there is life beyond motherhood, and that a woman doesn’t stop being who she is once she has children.

Though this film came out in 2001, I still hope that more people can watch Riding in Cars with Boys and can see the importance of post-maternal female agency in our media.

CG is a writer, blogger, and fangirl from New Jersey. Most of her online writing can be found on her site (blackgirlinmedia.com).

Spy Mom: Motherhood vs. Career in the ‘Alias’ Universe

This conflict drives Sydney’s arc and establishes a recurring question at the heart of ‘Alias’: can you be both a mother and a spy? … Sydney’s own mother Irina figures powerfully into this conflict. … Yet Irina’s arc throughout ‘Alias’ is the tension between her desire for a relationship with her daughter and her independence as a spy.

This guest post by Katie Bender is part of our theme week on Bad Mothers.

Irina: “You should know something, Sydney. I never wanted to have a child. The KGB demanded it. They knew it would ensure [your father’s] allegiance to me. You were simply a means to an end. And then when the doctor put you in my arms and I looked at you, so fragile, all I could think was, how could I have made such a terrible mistake. And at that moment I was sure of one thing. I couldn’t be an agent and a mother. I’d either fail at one or both. And I chose to fail at being a mother. In time you’ll learn…you can’t do both.”

Sydney: “Watch me.”

—“Maternal Instinct”

In setting up the story of Sydney Bristow, grad student/covert CIA officer, J.J. Abrams’ television series Alias hit a lot of the usual spy-story stand-bys: glamorous locales, top secret missions, high-tech gadgets, and for the main character, a measure of isolation. Sydney’s friends and fiancé are unaware of her double life, and with parents out of the picture (mother dead, father estranged) she has no family around. Then her fiancé’s casual mention of children raises the inherent conflict between Sydney’s career as a spy and her potential future as a mother. This conflict drives Sydney’s arc and establishes a recurring question at the heart of Alias: can you be both a mother and a spy?

Irina Derevko: “You must have known this day would come. I could have prevented all this, of course. You were so small when you were born. It would have been so easy.”

—“The Enemy Walks In”

Sydney’s own mother Irina figures powerfully into this conflict. The revelation that Irina is not only alive, but a former KGB officer who abandoned her family by faking her own death, shatters Sydney’s idealized view of her mother. Irina’s reunion with her daughter is anything but tender – she ends their interview by shooting Sydney – and from her first lines she makes it clear that she chose a spy career over motherhood a long time ago. For Irina, motherhood and espionage are mutually exclusive, regardless of her personal feelings for Sydney.

Irina Derevko: “I need you to understand, I was eighteen when the KGB recruited me. For a woman to be asked to serve her country it was a future. It meant empowerment, independence. I was a fool to think that any ideology could come before my daughter. Sydney…”

—“The Abduction”

Yet Irina’s arc throughout Alias is the tension between her desire for a relationship with her daughter and her independence as a spy. As she becomes a larger part of Sydney’s life, she makes genuine attempts to forge a connection with her daughter, even expressing regret at the things she missed in Sydney’s childhood. She acts with concern for Sydney’s well-being, shows pride in her daughter’s accomplishments and, in a few rare moments, allows a flicker of vulnerability to show. Perhaps most significantly, despite her acknowledgement of her decision to pursue espionage over motherhood, she consistently self-identifies as Sydney’s mother and asserts that relationship repeatedly throughout the span of the show.

Sydney Bristow: “You orchestrated the whole thing, because you wanted this. And when… When you couldn’t torture it out of me, you came to me as my mother.“

Irina Derevko: “I am your mother.”

—“Maternal Instinct”

But while Irina may be seeking some measure of redemption in her daughter’s eyes, she’s not looking to change. Each time the choice between motherhood and her life as a spy recurs throughout the series, Irina invariably prioritizes espionage over her daughter. Her attempts to connect with Sydney, sincere though they are, serve an additional purpose of allowing her to acquire classified intel which leads her to abandon her daughter a second time. She risks her freedom to deliver Sydney’s baby, but reaffirms her choice to Sydney in dialogue. Irina’s ambiguous morality throughout the show makes her a fascinating character, and in watching her fight to build a relationship with her daughter in spite of her choices, it’s hard not to have a measure of sympathy for her.

Irina Derevko: “You’re too forgiving, Sydney. Don’t pretend I’m something I’m not. I’ve never been a real mother to you and… you don’t owe me a second chance.”

—“A Free Agent”

Still, in the end, the show determines that Irina’s choices have placed her beyond saving. As her choices are portrayed largely through the lens of Sydney’s experience, every decision Irina makes that elevates her own desires above her relationships is viewed as a failing. Ultimately, her choice of her lifelong ambition over her daughter proves her downfall. Her failure is driven home in the series finale as Sydney is shown surrounded by her own children, about to set off on a mission – the picture of a successful spy mom having it all. Perhaps, as the show suggests, Irina’s decision between espionage and family was a false dichotomy all along. Or perhaps it is through Irina’s struggle that Sydney is able to discern her own path as both spy and mother.

Katie Bender is a musician and writer in the Seattle area, where she collaborates with her co-author/ruthless editor Jennifer Hughes.

Bad Mothers Are the Law of Shondaland

It’s fascinating that all four of Shonda Rhimes’ protagonists have strained relationships with their mothers… Shondaland’s shows work to combat the stereotype that if you don’t have a functional family unit, replete with a doting, competent mother, you’re alone in the world.

This guest post by Scarlett Harris is part of our theme week on Bad Mothers.

If ever there were a TV universe replete with bad mothers, it’s Shondaland.

Of course, not all Shondaland shows exist in the same fictional world, which allows bad mothers such as Ellis Grey on Grey’s Anatomy to be reincarnated as a reprehensible Vice President of the United States on Scandal. (But don’t let the different fictional worlds fool you: Grey’s Anatomy spinoff Private Practice consistently used actors from the former to play different characters in the latter.)

It’s fascinating that all four of Shonda Rhimes’ protagonists have strained relationships with their mothers when Rhimes herself (from what we commoners can see) couldn’t be any further from that trope, having adopted three daughters as a single (and seemingly awesome) mum.

The first, and most obvious, of these Mommy Dearest connections is Meredith Grey and her aforementioned mother, Ellis. Throughout 11 seasons of Grey’s, we see Meredith’s internal struggle with the distant mother she simultaneously strives to live up to while resenting her for putting her career above her daughter and her early onset of Alzheimer’s which resulted in her death in season three. Ellis continued to haunt Meredith from beyond the grave when it was revealed that Meredith had yet another sister, Maggie, who Ellis put up for adoption when Meredith was a child.

With the sustained appearance of Meredith’s copious family members and the adoption (shout out to Shonda!)/birth of her own three children, the struggle to be a good mother and, thus, a good person is at the forefront of Grey’s Anatomy, whether it’s always palpable or not.

The somewhat forgotten Shondaland creation, Private Practice, also featured a strained mother-daughter relationship between Addison Montgomery and her mother, Bizzy, who committed suicide when her partner died. Of course Rhimes painted a more nuanced picture than this, but I imagine it’s pretty hard to forgive your mother for committing suicide and leaving you to fend for yourself, no matter your age. (Ellis also tried to kill herself when Meredith was a girl, right around the time she found out she was pregnant to Richard Webber with Maggie.)

Scandal, perhaps the crown jewel in the Shondaland empire, has a truly evil mother (and father!) in Maya Lewis/Marie Wallace, an alleged terrorist and murderer. Proving some people are never meant to be parents, last week’s season four finale showed Olivia continuing to be used as a pawn in her parent’s power games, with Maya/Marie choosing freedom over helping her daughter and Rowan/Eli thwarting Olivia’s attempts at revenge at every bloody turn.

Mellie is another Capitol Hill resident that struggles in her motherhood. Sometimes portrayed as ruthless and vindictive, it is Mellie who expresses sensitivity when daughter Karen has a compromising video taken of her and who wallows in grief after son Jerry is murdered. Mellie is perhaps a less rigid characterisation of motherhood than Maya/Marie as she is permitted to express a range of emotions that I imagine one would experience as a mother.

Finally, we see the mother of Annalise Keating rear her head towards the end of this year’s first season of How to Get Away with Murder. In what I think is arguably the most fascinating dynamic since Meredith and Ellis, Annalise’s mother Ophelia (played by Cicely Tyson) first comes across as rigid, unfeeling and old school, guilting her daughter (formerly Anna Mae) into remembering her humble beginnings and the sacrifices Ophelia made for her. Annalise resents Ophelia (someone write a thinkpiece unpacking that naming choice!) for not protecting her from being molested by her uncle and, while Ophelia is combing her daughter’s hair, she reveals that she did indeed seek revenge by burning their house down with Annalise’s uncle inside. Talk about protecting your children!

Like her fondness for mistresses, you have to wonder whether Rhimes is dealing with some mommy issues of her own when she writes bad mothers so often. (Even her debut screenwriting gig featured a bad mother.) What Rhimes really excels at, though, is writing real, nuanced people who happen to be mothers. On the season 11 finale of Grey’s Anatomy, Maggie finds out her adoptive parents are divorcing while Amelia, the black sheep of her family, is still struggling with the death of her brother. Meredith, already a mother to three, takes Maggie and Amelia by the hands in a rare demonstration of something other than contempt, with the final scene being the sisters three dancing at Richard and Catherine’s wedding.

While we all have mothers in some incarnation, Shondaland’s shows work to combat the stereotype that if you don’t have a functional family unit, replete with a doting, competent mother, you’re alone in the world.

Scarlett Harris is a Melbourne, Australia-based writer, broadcaster and blogger at The Scarlett Woman, where she muses about feminism, social issues and pop culture. You can follow her on Twitter here.

‘Ever After’: A Wicked Stepmother with Some Fairy Godmother Tendencies

This guest post by Emma Kat Richardson appears as part of our theme week on Bad Mothers.

Let’s face it: Ever After is pure fluff. Sure, as a late ‘90s girlhood staple, it’s been deified by 20- and 30-somethings old enough to remember when Drew Barrymore was touring with Hole and flashing David Letterman. And yes, there is some feminist gravitas about the film that makes it stand out; a streak of personal empowerment runs through this hip retelling of the classic, demur Cinderella tale. It was the perfect interpretation of a decidedly not-feminist fairy tale for the Girl Power! generation.

Revisiting Ever After now is a bit like biting into a Hot Pocket after 10 or more years of not having done so; it’s a bit more plastic than you last remembered. The shiny Hollywood gloss that decorates Ever After from head to toe becomes more transparent with age. To its credit, the film does a relatively competent job of co-opting the look and feel of a real Renaissance setting, but this doesn’t prevent the acting from being frequently overwrought, the plot devices predictable and contrived, and the fact that everybody speaks with a British accent, despite living in France. (No Francophile worth her weight in, well, Francs, would stand for it!)

That said, there is one compelling element to this fairy tale that makes it well worth a closer look: the utterly fascinating dynamic between Cinderella and her “wicked” stepmother.

As an orphan of common origins, Drew Barrymore’s spunky protagonist, Danielle de Barbarac, is forced into a life of servitude to her father’s widow, the Baroness Rodmilla de Ghent, and the Baroness’s two natural daughters, Jacqueline and Marguerite. As Baroness Rodmilla, Anjelica Huston is equal parts breathtaking as she is fearsome, as cruel as she is oddly sympathetic. Disney never could have dreamed up such a multi-layered villainess. Together, the two lock horns in a continuous battle for control over personal fortune and fate. It’s far from a healthy relationship, and Rodmilla is far from a nurturing force. Even toward her own daughters, she’s spiteful and manipulative; throughout the film, she continuously taunts Jacqueline about her weight, and spends a considerable amount of time trying to push Marguerite into bed with the prince. (Not that Marguerite is exactly unwilling; she’s certainly inherited more of the toxic elements of Rodmilla’s personality.)

And then, there are hints at Rodmilla’s background that suggest more substance than one-dimensional wickedness. For one thing, she’s a noble woman who appears to have married Danielle’s father, a man far below her station, out of love. The de Barbaracs are not nobility; before she met Prince Henry, Danielle had never been to court. Her father, Auguste, is a country gentlemen of modest means and one small manor farm for property. On the other hand, the baroness brings with her a title and riches. Presumably she is a dowager baroness, since she has two daughters but no baron to keep her swathed in rich furs. We see more evidence of their love when Danielle tends to Rodmilla in her most intimate moments – brushing her hair before bed, sharing heartache over the memory of Danielle’s father, who died of a heart attack when she was just 8. “Did you love my father?” Danielle inquires earnestly. “Well, I barely knew him,” is the restrained reply. “No go away, I’m tired.” Visibly moved, Rodmilla stifles a tear and looks off into the distance, sobered.

While she may have loved her father, she merely tolerated Danielle, which is the most generous possible way of putting it. With his dying breath, Auguste reaches for his scrawny, weeping daughter–not his glamorous new wife, also howling with grief. It is an unintended slight for which Rodmilla never forgives Danielle, and the severity of Danielle’s punishment for this offense is boundless. Yet, Danielle can’t help but try at every turn to please her ceaselessly demanding stepmother. In lieu of any other parental figure, Danielle may have latched on to Rodmilla as the only viable role model in her young, fragile life. It’s possible she even learned how to cultivate self-reliance and independence from the formidable baroness; after all, Rodmilla spends the majority of the movie husbandless, scheming, and maneuvering her way into higher chances and better opportunities. In many ways, Rodmilla and Danielle are more alike than they are drastically different, as every other Cinderella narrative would have you believe. Both are rather unusual women for their era: Danielle is the daughter of a low-born farmer, but she can read and write, and even quote Thomas More from memory. Rodmilla, a woman born to privilege, actively chooses to be single and to make her own way in the world – even if this occasionally involves playing by the rules of the patriarchy, which govern both their lives.

Ever After 1 — I’m the thinking man’s helpless victim, don’t ya know?

But ultimately, of course, we all know how this story concludes. Danielle triumphs over her tormentor, capturing the heart of the prince and rising to a status so high it would have made even the grasping Rodmilla dizzy. Given that, however indirectly, she taught Danielle to follow her heart and live out her ambitions for a better life, can we really write her off as a bad – or, indeed, wicked – mother? Rodmilla is deeply flawed, and far from perfect. She’s narcissistic and hypocritical: “We must never feel sorry for ourselves,” says the woman who spends much of the movie moping about how under-appreciated she is. And yet, the pivotal role she plays in the development of Danielle’s self-actualization cannot be denied. Even more so than in her relationship with Prince Henry, Danielle is indelibly shaped by her stepmother’s influence. Driven to succeed on each of her own terms, these two remarkable women together fill the void left by far too many conventionally competitive mother-daughter dynamics. In the end, karma doles out adequate payback, with Rodmilla and Marguerite being sent to work in the royal laundries, as Danielle becomes queen-to-be through her marriage to Henry. “I only ask that you show her the same kindness she has always shown me,” Danielle says to the king and queen, while debating Rodmilla’s punishment for lying to the queen about Danielle’s identity. Even as Rodmilla acquiesces to her fate, there’s a glimmer of respect in her eye for her long beleaguered stepdaughter. Perhaps she has taught her ward well after all.

Emma Kat Richardson is a Detroit native and freelance writer living in Austin, Texas. Her work has appeared in xoJane.com, Bitch, Alternative Press, LaughSpin.com, Real Detroit Weekly, 944, and Bust.com. She’s enough of a comedy nerd and cat lady to have named her Maine Coon Michael Ian Cat. Follow her on twitter: @emmakat.

‘Grace’: Single Mothers, Stillborn Births, and Scrutinizing Parenting Styles

Eventually, Madeline is pushed to the absolute limit in protecting her child and kills those trying to take her daughter from her…and feeds them to her. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is explored to the nth degree as the blood of those trying to destroy the mother/daughter relationship are then utilized to keep baby Grace alive.

This guest post by BJ Colangelo appears as part of our theme week on Bad Mothers.

Despite humanity surviving nearly 200,000 years without mommy blogs and Dr. Spock’s baby books, our culture has become fixated on determining the “right” way to be a mother. The truth is, there is no right way to be a mother. What works for one mother and child may not work for another, and the ongoing debate of motherhood is something ugly and downright frightening. Society imagines the “right” mother to be the ones creating the crafts and cooking the meals we pin to our Pinterest boards, all while raising well-behaved and “normal” children. However, the things that we believe to be “right” aren’t always going to wind up being the best options.

Paul Solet’s feature debut Grace is a stunning insight into motherhood and the selfless love mothers have for their children. Within the first five minutes, we become witness to the way people try to dictate the parenting styles of other women. A visibly pregnant woman named Madeline (Jordan Ladd) has prepared a vegan dinner for her husband Michael and his parents. Michael’s domineering mother Vivian (Gabrielle Rose) scoffs at her meal and passive-aggressively tells Madeline that a more “conventional” diet would be healthier for her child. Madeline has yet to even deliver her baby and she’s already being swarmed with parenting advice from another person. This is a common occurrence for many pregnant women, and Grace showcases this conflict effortlessly. Shortly after, Vivian expresses her dislike for Madeline’s decision to use a midwife rather than Vivian’s obstetrician (and personal friend) Dr. Sohn. Madeline experiences complications during her pregnancy and is rushed to a hospital. Dr. Sohn arrives (at the request of Vivian) and determines Madeline needs to be induced. Luckily, her midwife Patricia shows up and challenges his diagnosis through blood work (which he has ignored) and Madeline is not induced. The life of her baby was put in jeopardy because an overbearing mother-in-law couldn’t let Madeline make her own decisions regarding her own child.

Tragedy strikes when Madeline and Michael are in a car accident that kills both Michael and Madeline’s unborn child. Madeline decides to carry the child to full term, rather than have the dead fetus removed. After delivering the stillborn child, Madeline holds her deceased child in her arms when suddenly the baby revives. It would appear that the love Madeline has for her child has “willed” her back to life. Patricia suggests that Madeline take her baby (the titular named Grace) to the hospital to get checked out, but the earlier experience with Dr. Sohn has left a bad taste in her mouth and Madeline refuses any more encounters with conventional medicine. Had Vivian not interfered with Madeline’s birth plan, a majority of the problems that she faces throughout the film could have easily been avoided. Madeline soon discovers that Grace has unusual problems. She smells strange, she’s attracting flies, her skin bleeds in the bathwater, and she is unable to digest breast milk. During an attempt to breastfeed, Madeline discovers that the one thing Grace can digest is blood.

Meanwhile, a grieving Vivian struggles with the idea that she is no longer a mother. Her only son has passed away, and her relationship with Madeline is almost non-existent. Vivian has become a bereaved parent and the loss is psychologically damaging. She begins to order her husband around as if he were a child, and during a sexual encounter, his nipple play slowly turns into a horrifying replication of the way a child would suckle on their mother’s breast. Her sorrow becomes too great to handle, and she convinces Dr. Sohn to visit Madeline in order to collect evidence proving that she is an unfit mother so Vivian can raise Grace instead.

Madeline continues caring for her child, by any means necessary. Draining the blood from meat in an attempt to feed her baby proves useless, so Madeline allows her child to continue to “feed” on her until she is left in an incredibly weak state. Eventually, Madeline is pushed to the absolute limit in protecting her child and kills those trying to take her daughter from her…and feeds them to her. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is explored to the nth degree as the blood of those trying to destroy the mother/daughter relationship are then utilized to keep baby Grace alive.

It would be easy to say that Madeline was an unfit mother, because she was killing people and feeding her child their blood. However, this wasn’t done with dangerous motivations. This was an act done purely out of necessity. In an extremely exaggerated sense, this is a parallel to the dietary restrictions that many people choose to explore with raising their children. Gluten free, dairy free, meat free, peanut free, etc. are all different lifestyle choices that parents believe are the best option for their children, and it is no one else’s business whether or not this is the “right” way to feed their child. For Madeline, this is her only option. Much like parents raising children with food allergies, feeding Grace human blood is the only way to keep her child alive. However, mother-in-law Vivian cannot comprehend someone successfully raising a child (let alone her grandchild) in any manner other than the way she raised her own children. The loss of her son (although an adult) has left her feeling purposeless, and she questions her own existence now that she is technically no longer a mother. Desperate to retain some of her motherhood, she clings to the only thing she feels she has left, her granddaughter Grace.

Women are often defined by their motherhood, but many women choose motherhood as the biggest part of their identity. There’s nothing wrong with this decision, and that’s what makes Grace such a fantastic movie. The interpretation of who is the “bad” mother is up for debate, when in reality…neither of these women are bad mothers. Should Vivian be scrutinizing Madeline’s every move? Of course not, but her aggression is not coming from a vindictive place, it’s coming from a place of love (regardless of how overbearing it comes off). These two women are simply two very different women trying to do what they feel is better for the most important thing in their lives, a child.

BJ Colangelo is the woman behind the keyboard for Day of the Woman: A blog for the feminine side of fear and a contributing writer for Icons of Fright. She’s been published in books, magazines, numerous online publications, all while frantically applying for day jobs. She’s a recovering former child beauty queen and a die-hard horror fanatic. You can follow her on Twitter at @BJColangelo.

‘Michiko to Hatchin’: Anime’s Newest Mom Has Some Issues

Throughout the course of the 22-episode series, Michiko abandons Hatchin to get laid, lets Hatchin work a part-time job rather than pay for shoes she herself stole, leaves Hatchin with an abusive orphanage (more on that in a second), lets her run away half a dozen times, all while the two bicker constantly about often incredibly petty matters. All of this rolls up to establish that Michiko is, well, basically just a terrible, terrible mom.
And that’s pretty amazing.

This guest post by Robert V. Aldrich appears as part of our theme week on Bad Mothers.

**Includes extremely mild spoilers**

Michiko is a terrible, terrible mom.

In 2008’s Michiko to Hatchin, brought to us by Studio Manglobe and directed by Sayo Yamamoto, we see Michiko Malandro (voiced by Yoko Maki or Monica Rial, depending on the original or English dubbing) break out of prison and liberate her daughter, Hatchin Morenos (voiced by Suzuka Ohgo or Jade Saxton) from an abusive foster family, and subsequently take her daughter on a whirlwind trip around a South American nation that’s totally not Brazil. Sounds like pretty good mom, right?

Yeah, no. See, for starters, Hatchin’s name is actually Hana. Michiko just calls her Hatchin because it seems more fitting. And she isn’t taking Hatchin on this “tour” of South America; she’s on the run from the police (remember the part of her breaking out of prison?). And she isn’t quite so much reuniting her family as she is trying to track down clues to find Hatchin’s allegedly dead father, Hiroshi.

But at least Michiko rescues Hatchin, right? Well, yes, she does do that. But that’s about all she really does for Hatchin. And, again, it’s more because Hatchin might have a clue or two about Hiroshi’s whereabouts. Throughout the course of the 22-episode series, Michiko abandons Hatchin to get laid, lets Hatchin work a part-time job rather than pay for shoes she herself stole, leaves Hatchin with an abusive orphanage (more on that in a second), lets her run away half a dozen times, all while the two bicker constantly about often incredibly petty matters. All of this rolls up to establish that Michiko is, well, basically just a terrible, terrible mom.

And that’s pretty amazing.

Why? Because mothers in anime are usually perfect. Like their fairy tale counterparts, mothers are (with a few very rare exception) saintly figures capable of doing no wrong. The matrons of anime families are often paragons of the traditional Japanese ideal; dedicated homemakers who are happy to don the apron and attend to the culinary and domestic responsibilities of husband and child. Examples include Trisha Elric from Full Metal Alchemist, Ikuko Tsukino (Serena/Usagi’s mother) from Sailor Moon, and even Mom Racer (from Speed Racer), and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Other characters in anime can be louts but when maternity is concerned, there’s rarely much messing around.

We see atypical examples of course, such as Yui Ikari from Evangelion, who instead of being a homemaker is a brilliant and innovative scientist but whose primary if not sole motivation is to make a better world for her son, Shinji. We see Chi-chi from Dragon Ball Z, who is a ferocious fighter but still the doting housewife. We also see evidence of the strong maternal instinct in non-mother characters, such as the career military woman Lisa Hayes in Robotech/Macross, who adopts a maternal role to Rick Hunter/Hikaru Ichijyo), despite the personal and romantic tension between them.

The anime genre is positively lousy with iconic mothers whom fill the role either perfectly or cleverly. Still, one constant in all of anime is that the role of the mother is filled as near-perfect: in deed or at least intention.

Except Michiko. She’s terrible.

There’s a theme developing here, you may have noticed.

Mothering is hard and not every woman takes to it naturally, even when they’ve hoped to be mothers their entire lives. Check out this clip from Scrubs or episode 11 from the third season of House of Cards (where the campaigning Claire Underwood talks to the lonely mother and wife) just for a few examples in fiction. And yet in anime (like much of art), mothers are often depicted as flawless in their pursuit and intentions, if not results as well. The idea of a woman who isn’t naturally inclined towards maternity, if not automatically great at it, is almost alien and so rare as to be almost be unheard of. Thus art isn’t always imitating life.

Michiko, as outlandish and flamboyant as she is (we first meet her when she drives a motorcycle through a window onto a dinner table), might be one of the most realistic depictions of motherhood in anime. Not because she’s terrible per se, but because mothering doesn’t come naturally to her. At all. It’s not some magical transformation that she (like all women) automatically goes through. Some women struggle with the trials and with not knowing what to do. Some fail at it, no matter how much they wished they could do better. And Michiko reflects that possibility.

Of course, Michiko isn’t the only mother in the series. On the contrary, the series has quite a few mothers and mother-figures. In episodes five and six, we meet the woman who ran the orphanage that Mitchiko grew up in, Zelia Bastos. A hard woman, we see her making a terrible situation almost functional. She’s a horror, but a horror found in a horrible world. We see a menagerie of mother-figures, but almost none are actual biological and true-to-the-iconic-image of the mother-saint found in so many other anime. Whether it’s a drag-queen single father doing his best or even Hatchin having to take care of her ill mother, motherhood as both a responsibility and an identity is an undercurrent in Michiko to Hatchin and nobody is the ideal.

The series does a lot to explore the different people in Michiko’s life, and by virtue Hatchin’s life as well. We see a multitude of different maternal figures, including, at the very end, Hatchin herself. The series closes by jumping forward half a dozen years to when Hatchin works as a cook and has a child of her own, a little baby girl. Her life is far from idyllic but it’s a life of her own creating and one free of at least some of the troubles that plagued her own mother. In some ways, her life is the result of Michiko’s trials and struggles witnessed throughout the show. Just as Michiko tried to give Hatchin a better life than she had (which she did, which is a testament to how terrible Michiko’s life was), Hatchin tries to give her daughter a better life than she. And she seems to be managing it, certainly at least compared to Michiko’s efforts.

The series, directed by Sayo Samamoto (previously known for her work on Trava: Fist Planet and Samurai Champloo) and produced by Shinichiro Watanabe (one of the leading voices in modern anime, with credits like the aforementioned Samurai Champloo as well as Cowboy Bebop and segments from the Animatrix), isn’t the most innovative or ground-breaking anime narrative to come along, but it is most certainly a breath of fresh air. It is a vibrant and encouraging show with a vivid style and a unique feel. It can remind palling anime fans of what the medium can do and it’s the sort of thing that can surprise others who might dismiss anime as nothing but “giant robots and hentai.” This is a great show that deviates from so many anime norms, but its greatest accolade may just be its bravery to make Michiko a terrible, terrible mother.

Robert V Aldrich is a semi-talented author who writes novels and others works, while also speaking at conventions. His newest novel, Samifel, will be released by Haven Publishing House this June at Anime Mid-Atlantic. His writings and other works are available at official website, TeachTheSky.com

The Accidental Motherhood of ‘Gloria’

Every woman is a mother? Yeah, no thanks. If Gloria is a “mother” to Phil then she’s also a lifetime member to the Bad Moms Club. In the beginning, Jeri, Phil’s real mom, calls on Gloria to take her kids. She tells Gloria that their family is “marked” by the mob. A gangster even waits in the lobby. Jeri begs her to protect her kids to which Gloria bluntly responds: “I hate kids, especially yours.” Despite her tough-talk, this ex-gun moll, ex-showgirl reluctantly agrees.

This guest post by Rhianna Shaheen appears as part of our theme week on Bad Mothers.

In John Cassavetes’ Gloria (1980), the title character must overcome a seemingly insurmountable obstacle: motherhood. Well, not exactly. When the mob wipes out a Bronx family, their neighbor Gloria (Gena Rowlands) suddenly becomes responsible for their 7-year old, Phil (John Adames). It’s more like forced guardianship, but the film constantly hints at her symbolic motherhood to the boy. Even when she’s pleading for Phil’s life, her gangster ex-boyfriend undermines her argument with the inevitable mother-son formula:

“I understand. You are a woman. He is a little boy. You fall in love. Every woman is a mother. You love him.”

In her apartment, before the impending hit on his family, Gloria has difficulty relating to Phil. He’s aware that his family is in trouble, but she neither comforts nor coddles this soon-to-be orphan: “You want to play 20 questions? How about watching the TV for a while?” She doesn’t know how to talk to kids.

Neither of these characters wants to be in the same room together.

After a loud explosion, signifying the murder of his family, Phil is in shock: “I want my father! Papi! I hate you, you stupid person!” Gloria, shaken, now understands the gravity of the situation but still lacks the sensitivity to support him:

“I don’t know what to do with you, kid. My poor cat. What do I do with you? You know, you’re not my family or anything. You’re just the neighbor’s kid right?”

It’s both shocking and humorous. His entire family was just murdered, but she can only think of herself and her cat? To her defense, she didn’t sign up for this. She isn’t Daddy Warbucks. She’s a childless, single lady by choice.

Gloria loves her life. She loves her friends. She loves her cat. She saved all of her life so she could have some money. In one moment, she’s expected to just give all that away. She doesn’t want to die for this kid. Does that make her an unnatural woman? Or a rather flawed human being?

“Me, I’m not a mother. I’m one of those sensations. I was always a broad. Can’t stand the sight of milk.”

Not only does she lack so-called maternal instincts but also basic cooking skills. When she attempts to make eggs for Phil she inevitably becomes frustrated and burns them. This scene echoes a similar breakfast disaster in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) in which newly single father Dustin Hoffman attempts to make breakfast for his son. However, Gloria is a woman, and thus belongs to generation and socioeconomic background that would demand woman to know how to cook. Thus she is even further stigmatized as a bad mother.

Gloria’s first attempt at performing “motherly” duties.

Gloria also shifts between wanting to abandon and wanting to protect the child when things gets tough. At one point she tells him to run home: “Run as fast as you can.” She walks a few steps with him, and then turns around, telling him to go. Although her attempt at abandonment is awful we understand her frustration. She cannot turn him into the police, because she’s been arrested. She also cannot turn on the mob, because they’re old friends of hers.

Regardless, Phil continues to follow her. He sees her as a substitute mother even if she’s a lousy one. Then when a group of gangsters confronts them on the street, Gloria must finally make a choice. It’s an opportunity to walk away, but instead she shoots the men, forever sealing her fate with Phil’s.

It’s a heroic act that speaks more to her humanity than to her ability to be a mother. While her feelings for him are at times ambivalent, Gloria ultimately commits herself to the boy’s survival. She empties her safety deposit box, changes hotels each night, and pistol-whips gangsters all for Phil. Together on the run, Gloria acts more like a partner-in-crime than a mother. Despite his efforts to be “the man” in this pairing Phil lets go of his hyper-masculine anxieties once he witnesses the toughness of this badass woman. She teaches him how to survive in this unfathomable New York environment.

Although there seems a desire to fulfill the mother-son mythos, the film does not explore their relationship in such clichéd terms as its 1999 remake. It lacks the sentimentality but has all the heart and truth to it.

As Cassavetes himself puts it:

“[…] these characters go on the basis that there are certain emotions and rules that go beyond words and assurances. They just know. […] Even when they’re thrown together, they don’t pretend to care about each other, it’s because of their personal trust and regard.” (from Cassavetes on Cassavetes)

“It was about a woman who beyond her control stood up for a kid whom she wanted nothing to do with […]”

However, in his discussion of the film, Cassavetes also evokes the same mythos and stereotypes that Gloria attempts to refute:

“I wanted to tell women that they don’t have to like children – but there’s still something deep in them that relates to children, and this separates them from men in a good way. This inner understanding of kids is something very deep in them that relates to children, and this separates them from men in a good way.”

Despite this backpedal into maternal instinct bullshit, I think Cassavetes has good intentions. In the end, Gloria is not defined by her ability to mother or understand this child (whatever that means) but by her heroism and humanity (not that those are mutually exclusive). Her desire to protect this helpless child is rather mistaken for motherhood.

Let’s consider Luc Besson’s Léon: The Professional (1994). A New York hitman shelters a 12-year old girl after her family is murdered by corrupt DEA agents. It’s almost an exact replica of Gloria except with the gender roles reversed and the cult film status. Instead of a father/daughter relationship, this unlikely pair acts as teacher/protégée. In fact, there is no mention of fatherhood at any time. Some pedophiliac undertones? Maybe. But no paternal transition.

Despite these double standards, Gloria represents an important cultural touchstone that is often overlooked. Released at the end of Second-Wave Feminism, the political relevance of this film is undeniable. It not only exposes the absurdities of gender norms but also captures the nuanced relationship women have with this idea of “motherhood.”

Rhianna Shaheen is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College with a BA in Fine Arts and Minor in Film Studies and Art History. Check her out on twitter!

‘The Killing’ and the Misogyny of Hating Bad Mothers

Vilifying mothers is a national pastime. Absent mothers, celebrity mothers, helicopter mothers, working mothers, stay-at-home mothers, mothers with too many children, mothers with too few children, women who don’t want to be or can’t be mothers–for women, there’s no clear way to do it right.

The Killing promotional still.

This repost by Leigh Kolb appears as part of our theme week on Bad Mothers.

In AMC’s The Killing, “bad” mothers have been woven throughout all three seasons.

It would be easy to see this as a failing on the show’s part; instead, I think we can see it as a realistic depiction of how we treat mothers in our culture represented in both in the fictional world of the show and in critics’ responses to the series.

In the first two seasons of The Killing, the plot centers around the murder of Rosie Larsen, a 17-year-old girl. Her grieving parents–Mitch and Stan–have a difficult time (understandably) in the aftermath of her death and in the investigation. Mitch (Michelle Forbes), in the midst of a breakdown, leaves her two sons with Stan and her sister as she hits the road to try to heal or find something to ease the pain.

Mitch Larsen: bad mother.

In last year’s “The 10 Worst Moms on TV” on Yahoo TV, Mitch Larsen was featured as one of the worst. The critic wrote:

“Her daughter may or may not have been a prostitute or involved in some illegal doings at a casino. And she ended up dead seemingly because of it. But instead of hunkering down and paying more attention to her remaining children, Mitch left her sons to be raised by a depressed father and their hooker aunt while she went off to live in a motel and act creepy around wayward runaway girls.”

Mitch’s interaction with the runaway girl was a direct response to her feelings of inadequacy about her failings as a mother to Rosie. She was attempting to heal and grow. She mothered the runaway girl the best she knew how and was still abandoned and hurt. Mothering is difficult and complex–it’s not a simple equation of just being there all of the time.

In season 3, the victim pool has grown substantially–a number of teenage girls are found murdered, and the suspect appears to be a youth pastor at a homeless shelter.

One of the missing girls who is still unaccounted for, Kallie Leeds, has a terrible no-good single mother, Danette Leeds (Amy Seimetz), who seems to prioritize cigarettes, beer and getting laid over her difficult relationship with her daughter. Her neglect and indifference are seen as central to Kallie’s victimization.

Danette: bad mother.

As Danette and another mother of a missing girl sit next to each other at the police station, Danette notices that the other mother has a binder full of photographs and composite photos. She seems uncomfortable, as if she’s understanding the depth of her neglect. She recognizes that Kallie’s life trajectory closely mirrors her own, and the weight of that is pushing down on her. She was being the kind of parent she knew how to be, and she didn’t know how to be June Cleaver. Most mothers don’t.While these supporting characters’ relationships with their daughters are troubled, and it would be easy for the audience to “blame” the victimization of the daughters on their mothers, it wouldn’t be correct. We are so used to complex, fallible male characters that we are also conditioned to see them as complex and fallible, not good or evil. When we’re presented with women with the same depth of characterization–especially mothers–we don’t know what to do except what we’ve been conditioned to do: criticize them and blame them.

This is blatantly obvious when we consider the show’s protagonist, detective Sarah Linden (played by the amazing Mireille Enos).

Linden has consistently been portrayed as a terrible mother in critics’ reviews of the series. She is a realistic female lead character–she is good at her job, works tirelessly and struggles with her failings in her personal life and professional life. Complex female characters are a good thing, and The Killing consistently delivers them (it can’t hurt that the show’s producer and many of the writers are women).

In the first two seasons, Linden had custody of her young teenage son, Jack. Her work means long hours away from him and dinner from vending machines. Linden herself was a foster child and has difficulty negotiating her upbringing and being the kind of mother that she’s supposed to be, but cannot. In the third season, Jack has moved to Chicago to live full-time with his father–he’s thriving, and living with his father. That’s good, right? No, Sarah Linden is evidently still a piece of shit mother.

Sarah Linden: bad mother.

In reviews of The Killing, writers often take an acerbic tone when mentioning her as a mother.

For example, this reviewer seems to think taking a jog makes her a bad mother:

“We all struggle with the work-life balance thing, and detective Sarah Linden is hardly an exception. Finding time to mother her son, for instance, seems to be a challenge. Jogging, however, she manages to squeeze in. And it’s a good thing, too. Because Linden (finally) got a major break in the case this week, and it’s all thanks to the fact that she prioritizes cardio over sleep, parenthood, marriage, friendship, or updating a sweater collection that appears to have been sourced from Dress Barn circa 1997.”

This reviewer fails to make the connection that she’s preoccupied by an intense case, so she needs to stay in Seattle (or maybe the fact that she’s putting her career first figures into this assessment):

“But she’s still the World’s Worst Mother — her son lives in Chicago and she won’t visit because, well, he’s the only person she knows there. Wow, Linden. Just, wow.”

In a Salon review from last year (which, remarkably, denounces The Killing for not being “fun” enough), the reviewer slips in, “Yes, it’s still raining, and Linden’s still a bad mother…”

Even the New York Times, in a review from the first season, comes to the conclusion that the “scariest aspect” of the show is the theme of absent motherhood. Crooked politicians, murders, prostitution… those don’t hold a candle to bad mothers.

“Sarah Linden refuses to accept that her inattentiveness is gravely affecting her son until she is forced to reckon with her absence around him. And in Mitch Larsen (Michelle Forbes) we bear witness to a character who is present in her daughter’s life and yet still positioned at a significant remove from the darkest secrets of her adolescence. In the end, of course, this is the scariest aspect of all.”

And in the aforementioned Yahoo TV list, Linden gets first place. The manifesto against her begins: “She’s not actively trying to kill her son, but she may end up doing so anyway.”

OK then.

I’m not going to try to defend Sarah Linden’s parenting. That would be ludicrous–she doesn’t need defending. She’s a complex, realistic character with real issues.

At Bitch Flicks, Megan Kearns posted in the first season how it was “refreshing” to see this kind of character trying to navigate her different roles, and that “the lead character is an accomplished single mom striving to keep her son out of trouble all while maintaining her demanding career.” She manages to do that by the third season, but it’s still not good enough.

Instead, audiences and critics alike focus much too closely on the female protagonist’s failings as a mother. We do not do that with male protagonists. (OK, six seasons in, after an episode highlighting parenting, Jezebel posted about how Don Draper was a “shitty dad.”)

Is Dexter a good father? What about Rick Grimes? Walter White?

Certainly there are lists of “bad dads” in TV/film, but the tone is different, more tongue-in-cheek. And a focus on these characters’ fathering abilities doesn’t run throughout conversations about the show, especially not with the same venom we see about Linden. When there’s a bad father in the mix, it’s just a poignant piece of a Joseph Campbell hero’s journey. Bad mothers, however, deserve to be burned at the proverbial stake.

There is a dearth of female antiheroes in film and television. The response to Sarah Linden shows why this is. When audiences see female characters, they think primarily in critical terms, especially about their roles as mothers and wives. (Of course this extends past fictional characters; there’s consistent and persistent hand-wringing about real-life women working too much and not being good enough mothers.) Women aren’t perfect (especially within the narrow confines of perfection that our society has put in place). Female characters shouldn’t be perfect.

My son is doing fine and my sweaters are warm and comfortable, assholes.

Linden’s role as a parent, girlfriend and ex-wife is just one small part of the grand scheme of the show. Her partner, Stephen Holder, has a girlfriend this season. He forgets Valentine’s Day and is never home. He is not painted as a villain, because he’s out getting shit done. He’s doing his job. That is what is important in The Killing. So when critics focus (in depth, or just in passing) on how terrible a mother Linden is, that further erodes what should be good about having strong, complex female characters.

Sarah Linden may not be a full-time mother. But she’s a bad-ass mother, and that is what should matter the most.

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

Gambling for Love and Power

These two characters’ inability to see each other as anything other than personal property emerges as the compelling dramatic engine of unfolding events involving far more sinister agents, who eventually exploit the fissure in the mother-daughter bond.

The poster illustrates the triangle Renée, Maurice, Agnès.

This guest post by Erin Blackwell appears as part of our theme week on Bad Mothers.

L’affaire Le Roux, or more vulgarly, the Leroux Affair, is a real court case involving a young heiress on the French Riviera, whose body never turned up, whose inheritance was absorbed by her lawyer-lover who didn’t love her, whose mother ran a sumptuous casino the Mafia plucked from her grasp with the aid of said lawyer-lover, a case that is still working its way through the courts today, 38 years after the young heiress vanished. Whatever else this affair might signify, say, to legal minds and the involved parties, it has served to inspire a movie that is very fabulous for the first 90 minutes of its 116 total run time.

In the Name of My Daughter premiered at Cannes 2014 out of competition, one month after Maurice Angelet was convicted for the second time to 20 years in prison. That same day, he launched another appeal. Frankly, I can’t keep up with this case, which keeps insinuating itself into my thoughts about the film, which is now in certain U.S. cities still able to sustain an art house. In the Name of My Daughter, directed by André Techiné, is an intimate melodrama wrought from sensational facts, starring Catherine Deneuve as a platinum blonde grande dame and Adèle Haenel as her wide-eyed and wild-hearted daughter. These two characters’ inability to see each other as anything other than personal property emerges as the compelling dramatic engine of unfolding events involving far more sinister agents, who eventually exploit the fissure in the mother-daughter bond.

Agnelet (Guillaume Canet) pushes his luck with Renée (Catherine Deneuve).

Money changes everything? Money ruins everything. Especially in families. Especially when one generation does all the work and the next does all the spending. It is, of course, in the nature of a child to receive love, shelter, warmth, food, care, education, advice, protection, but in the presence of wealth, children sometimes prefer to take the money and elude the smothering, or the well-upholstered neglect or abuse. This syndrome is the crux of In the Name, when the daughter demands her small fortune in shares left by her dead dad, the immediate sale of which would compromise her mother’s ability to stay in business.

The father’s name is never spoken, nor his memory invoked. No incidental photos on a gilt rococo side table in the centuries-old Le Roux villa on the hill overlooking the drop-dead view of the Bay of Angels. And yet he reaches beyond the grave to separate the mother from the daughter by establishing the latter’s legal right to her fair share in the family business. This is the stuff of melodrama, and the French invented that genre after the Revolution to cover the sordid money-based family squabbles of the bourgeoisie. There’s no melodrama without a money angle, ever a reliable motive for murder.

Deneuve isn’t just Mom, or Maman, she’s the chic proprietress of one of the classiest casinos in Nice, le Palais de la Méditerrannée. All tarted up with heavy eyeliner and lipstick, platinum hair in a French twist, wearing clothes Imelda Marcos would fancy that look like shot-silk Chanel suits on acid, Deneuve is a vision of old, stolid, corrupt, bourgeois, money-grubbing glamour as it can only exist on the Côte d’Azur (Azure Coast), where the sun smiles on the blue Mediterranean, palm trees dance in the breeze, and the Mafia and other lesser-known brands of evil are eager to get in on the game. Not unlike Southern California, birthplace of Noir.

When we look at Deneuve’s face, we’re still looking for the young or younger face. That’s how it is with people we’ve “known” for years, and loved. The mother still sees the child, even as she must deal with the young woman. The daughter still yearns for the mother’s affection and attention, which she used to wallow in, or fail miserably to attract. The mother would like to move past dutiful child-rearing to a relationship in which she, too, is a person to be cherished and supported. So, fighting for the life of her casino and its 350 loyal employees, against an interloping crime syndicate, she asks her daughter to be patient.

Haenel as Agnès gives a performance impossible to imagine in a Hollywood film. She goes for broke. She tests the limits of her own vulnerability and our ability to watch her spiral out-of-control like a weepy drunk at a party. She bares all, as the tabloids like to say, which is why we love tabloids. Being French, what she bares is the soul of a Romantic, an open heart, a trusting nature, and a bottomless pit of emotional chaos. Her mother doesn’t mind her being a bit of a mess, and that’s a catastrophe for the child, should she ever fall prey to a cynic, a non-believer in romance, a soulless opportunist, someone in it for the money. Oops. I gave away the plot.

Haenel dances an African solo sans bra, swims, smokes, and stares with an abandon utterly opposite to the mother’s rigorous, staid, encrusted rituals. And yet, Deneuve’s eyes reveal the sophisticated depth of emotion those in the know count on the French for. Beneath their façades, their aspirations aren’t dissimilar, but Mom, like Mildred Pierce, does have a business to run, and Agnès, like Vita, doesn’t give a shit.

Agnès (Adèle Haenel) trusts Marcel (Guillaume Canet) all the way to the Swiss bank account.

The original French title, L’homme qu’on aimait trop, or The Man We Loved Too Much, is a saucy wink towards real-life sleazy lawyer Maurice Agnelet, the third angle in the triangle. Agnelet is played by Guillaume Canet as your typical sociopathic control freak, who sucks up to Madame Le Roux because she is his only paying client, she pays well, and he figures he can parlay the widow’s quasi-maternal fondness for him into the professional jackpot of his dreams: a real job paying a real salary, affording him real power over his life and allowing him unlimited motorcycles, women, and prestige among those very fussy, old-money types who haunt the casino.

The American title, In the Name of My Daughter, refers to the fact that real-life Renée Le Roux dedicated her later years to proving Angelet guilty of her daughter’s murder. Without a body, that’s tricky. And one of his girlfriends gave him an alibi, so he served a year in prison and was released. Years later, that girlfriend changed her mind, said she’d lied, he wasn’t with her in Geneva when Agnès, after a well-documented suicide attempt, disappeared. Agnelet was tried again in 2006 and acquitted. In 2007, he was condemned to 20 years. In 2013, the European Court intervened to overturn the verdict and set him free. Last year, his own son testified against him, he was again given 20 years, a verdict he immediately appealed, a month before the film premiered at Cannes. You can see why Techiné had trouble closing his narrative. Too bad I wasn’t there to persuade him his rendering of the triangle is more compelling as a psychological mystery than any mere legal wrangling.

The American title, In the Name of my Daughter, suggests U.S. distributors hope to sell this mother-daughter-lawyer triangle as “a woman’s picture,” even though that’s a hard sell in this hard country. Variety‘s manly reviewer complained the audience is denied the spectacle of grande dame Renée Le Roux being whacked on the head by a thug, having to settle instead for Deneuve’s restrained account at a swanky press conference in her casino. Why go to the movies, thinks the red-blooded American male, if I can’t see a woman being attacked? All I can say is, thank God for the French.

The first 90 minutes make a splendid neo-noir built on a classic triangle, like something out of Liaisons Dangereuses. The mother and the lawyer both have hard heads, the daughter is the weak link. When the lawyer tries to push Maman around, she shoves him back in his place. Suddenly the daughter’s unresolved Electra complex, her past-due-date adolescent rebellion, makes her vulnerable to the lawyer’s machinations. The intrigue is spellbinding. Then Agnès disappears. No more triangle. Instead of ending the film here, director André Téchiné wanders into the vagaries of a complex legal battle and the camp value of facial prosthetics and wigs. Bad idea.

In the Name of My Daughter, a terrible title, is based on Renée Le Roux’s memoir, A Woman Against the Mafia, about how her fight to stay in business resulted in the death of her daughter. Techiné, who co-wrote the script, makes not the Mafia, but the daughter’s tragic flaw the heart of the movie. Adèle Haenel plays Agnès as a slapdash, brooding, needy, watery-green-eyed tomboy-siren whose bourgeois bubble has ill-equipped her to deal with an arriviste rat like Agnelet. We watch her swim, like Alice swims in her own tears, while Maurice bides his time on the sand, and never was there a more astute rendering of the battle of the genders, or the Romantic vs. the Mercenary, or the spoiled hippie child vs. the sociopath.

Adèle Haenel’s Agnès reminded me of François Truffaut’s Adèle H., incarnated by Isabel Adjani as a woman shamelessly in love, who similarly loses first her self-respect and then her reason. That 1975 film, also based on real life, came two years before Agnès vanished in 1977. It’s entirely possible the real Agnès Le Roux watched Adèle H. and recognized that doomed Romantic story as her own. Bizarre, bizarre, that an actress named Adèle H. should incarnate Agnès Le Roux.

The fabled Côte d’Azur is a different country from the rest of France, a stone’s throw from Monaco, where the high-rollers have their empty apartments, and a short hop by motorbike to a Swiss bank, as the film splendidly demonstrates. It’s a real place and this was a real news story before it became a film. Apart from suffering narrative decline at minute 91, Techiné’s film is a riveting portrait of an homme fatal, a creature we don’t see enough of onscreen. Deneuve’s beauty isn’t right for the character, and it’s a distraction, but a fascinating one so who cares, and it does work to establish the daughter’s hatred of the mother, who is visibly everything she is not. I was regretting the fillers in her cheeks and rooting for her muscles’ ability to still deliver recognizable human expressions. The muscles do pretty well. The eyes are where it’s happening, however. Lively and liquid, Deneuve’s orbs register the pains of a heart that has gambled on a daughter and lost.

Erin Blackwell is a consulting astrologer who was raised to regard movies as a form of worship. She blogs at venus11house.

‘Mommy’: Her Not Him

I went into ‘Mommy,’ the magnificent film from out, gay, Québécois prodigy Xavier Dolan (he’s 26 and this feature is the fifth he’s written and directed) knowing that Anne Dorval, who plays the title character, was being touted in some awards circles as a possible nominee for “Best Actress” in 2014 (she’s flawless in this role, certainly better than the other Best Actress nominees I saw)–as opposed to “Best Supporting Actress.” But this film (which won the Jury Prize at Cannes) kept surpassing my expectations by keeping its focus on her and not the one who would be the main character of any other film: her at turns charismatic, obnoxious and violent 15-year-old, blonde son, Steve (an incredible Antoine-Olivier Pilon).

This slightly modified repost by Ren Jender appears as part of our theme week on Bad Mothers.

The misunderstood, screwed-up manboy/hero is such a persistent trope in films that audiences are often tricked into empathizing with characters whose actions are more deserving of our scorn. At the end of Blue Valentine, when Ryan Gosling’s character separates from his wife, Michelle Williams’ character, and leaves the daughter they’ve raised together, I heard someone nearby say aloud, “Poor guy.” But Gosling had, just a scene before, shown up drunk at Williams’ workplace to terrorize and humiliate her (and ends up assaulting her boss, which results in her losing her job). The director and co-writer, Derek Cianfrance, could barely manage to see these actions from the point of view of Williams’ character: the one with whom our empathy would more naturally lie.

I went into Mommy, the magnificent film from out, gay, Québécois prodigy Xavier Dolan (he’s 26 and this feature is the fifth he’s written and directed) knowing that Anne Dorval, who plays the title character, was being touted in some awards circles as a possible 2014 nominee for “Best Actress” (she’s flawless in this role, certainly better than the other Best Actress nominees I saw)–as opposed to “Best Supporting Actress.” But this film (which won the Jury Prize at the 2014 Cannes) kept surpassing my expectations by keeping its focus on her and not the one who would be the main character of any other film: her at turns charismatic, obnoxious and violent 15-year-old, blonde son, Steve (an incredible Antoine-Olivier Pilon).

We first meet Dorval’s character, Die (short for Diane), after we see, from a distance, a car crash into hers at a good speed. She staggers out after opening the jammed door, her head bleeding as she curses out the other driver. In the next scene we see her walking in extremely high heels along a hallway filled with several inches of water to meet with the director of the “youth facility” (one small step from a detention facility) where her son has been staying. The resigned bureaucrat behind the desk is more like real-life people who work in social services than the young idealists and abusive villains we usually see in movies. She explains that Steve has set a fire (the reason for the watery hallway) that injured another student, so he’s being expelled into Die’s care. Die objects, but the director tells her she has no choice–unless Die wants to commit him. Die astutely points out that doing so would put him in the pipeline to prison, which she doesn’t want. The director tells her, “We save some, we lose some,” and “Loving people doesn’t save them,” but no one, certainly not Die, can be as philosophical about their own child.

“Skeptics will be proven wrong,” Die retorts. Besides having a sexy wardrobe of high heels, tight jeans, sheer shirts and short skirts (a contrast to how unwilling most films are to acknowledge mothers as sexual beings) we see she also signs her name like a 12-year-old girl–complete with hearts.

Steve has some psychiatric diagnoses and no impulse control, so even though he has a loving, teasing, quasi-inappropriate relationship with his good-looking, tart-tongued, probably alcoholic mother, their lives together are measured in the moments between his abuse and violence, some directed toward her, some directed to others. In one of the only scenes in the film that fall flat he makes racist remarks to a Black cab driver, the only person of color we see onscreen. Young, aimless white guys have targeted their anger at Black and brown people through the ages, but filmmakers, especially young ones like Dolan, should understand that audiences need to see POC characters as more than anonymous victims–and more than one in a film that is over two hours.

At one point Steve goes to the mall and in a beautifully stylized sequence (the expert cinematography is by André Turpin) we see him shouting and whirling around with a shopping cart. He shows joy and energy along with the intermittent charm we’ve already witnessed. But when he goes home and shows Die the goods he’s brought with him, including a necklace for her that spells out, “Mommy,” she tells him he has to return this stolen merchandise. He then starts shouting and smashing things, chasing Die, and at one point strangling her until she hits him in the head with a glass-covered picture frame and he retreats. As Die cowers in a locked closet, pleading with Steve through the door to take his medication, she hears him talking calmly to someone and when she ventures out she sees the neighbor from across the street (to whom she has never spoken) dressing the leg wound Steve suffered in the confrontation. Kyla (Suzanne Clément, every bit as great as her co-stars) is about Die’s age and the two have similar features but their personalities and circumstances differ. Kyla has a form of aphasia that seems to be the result of a breakdown. She is “on sabbatical” from her job as a high school teacher and, as we have seen in previous scenes she spends a lot of time facing away from the husband and daughter she lives with, observing Steve and Die through her home’s front window.

MommyTrio — Mother, son, and friend/tutor

The three have a convivial dinner together and while Steve is out of the room, Kyla and Die down shots while Die explains that she can’t ever call the police or alert hospitals after an incident like the one that afternoon because the authorities might then take her son away from her. Die states, “Life with Steve is a roll of the dice,” and, “When he loses it, you best scram because it gets ugly.” When Steve returns he encourages them all to dance and sing along with one of his favorite songs.

Kyla, who feels superfluous in her own household, accepts Die’s request to tutor her son while Die goes to a job interview. We see Steve testing Kyla by acting up with her the way he does everyone else, even touching her breasts, but when he pulls a necklace from around her throat and refuses to give it back, Kyla shows the reserves of rage quiet people often have, pushing Steve flat onto the floor. In a lesser movie this scene would be the prelude to a sexual encounter, but Dolan instead makes us see, as Kyla does, that in spite of his bravado and violence Steve is just a screwed-up kid.

What follows is a chronicle of three misfits who, for a time, find what they need in one another. Kyla is Die’s confidante, the only person who really understands her and the situation with her son. Steve likes having Kyla as his tutor and is on his best behavior (which is by no means perfect) in her presence. And Kyla has fun and feels like she has a purpose when she is with Die and Steve. In a bravura moment, the square frame of the film is seemingly stretched by Steve’s own hands into widescreen as Oasis’s “Wonderwall” plays on the soundtrack.

We see, when Die is interrupted as she prepares dinner with the others, that the idyll can’t last (and the screen shrinks back to a square). The classmate at the facility whom Steve injured with fire is suing. The knock at the front door was to serve a subpoena. Still, Die scrambles to “save” her son and in another widescreen sequence imagines a parallel life for him, graduating from high school, going to college, getting married, becoming a parent–and growing tall.

At one point Steve wonders what will happen when his mother doesn’t love him anymore, but she explains to him that he is much more likely to stop loving her than the other way around. In the end we see that no matter the circumstances their bond will continue. But the two women who had been such close friends (friendship between two 40-something women is an unusual enough focus for a film that one would think it rarely occurs offscreen) can hardly face each other anymore. The other’s presence reminds each of what she would most like to forget.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7rtSqI0ZeA” iv_load_policy=”3″]

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Ren Jender is a queer writer-performer/producer putting a film together. Her writing, besides appearing every week on Bitch Flicks, has also been published in The Toast, RH Reality Check, xoJane and the Feminist Wire. You can follow her on Twitter @renjender