Tag: Motherhood in Film and Television

Motherhood in Film and Television: Phoebe in Wonderland

This review of Phoebe in Wonderland, by Stephanie Rogers, first appeared at Bitch Flicks on September 14, 2009. 
Movie poster for Phoebe in Wonderland

For a film that wants to explore the difficulties of marriage and motherhood and, essentially, what it means to exist as a woman in a society that places so many demands on wives and mothers, I found it disconcerting to say the least that this film only barely passes the Bechdel Test. If it weren’t for one scene, where Felicity Huffman’s character, Hillary Lichten, engages in a brief conversation about her daughter, Phoebe, (played by Elle Fanning) with her daughter’s drama teacher, Miss Dodger, (played by Patricia Clarkson), then this entire movie, a movie about women, would plod along without one woman ever speaking to another woman.

imdb plot summary: The movie focuses on an exceptional young girl whose troubling retreat into fantasy draws the concern of both her dejected mother and her unusually perceptive drama teacher. Phoebe is a talented young student who longs to take part in the school production of Alice in Wonderland, but whose bizarre behavior sets her well apart from her carefree classmates.

Well, on the surface, the movie is about Phoebe and her struggle to fit in with her peers. But it quickly turns into an examination of motherhood and parenting in general, when Phoebe’s odd behavior gradually worsens: she spits at classmates, she obsessively repeats words and curses involuntarily, she washes her hands to the point that they bleed—and she explains to her parents over and over again that she can’t help it. However, her mother (and father), being academic writer-types (Hillary is actually attempting to finish her dissertation on Alice in Wonderland), merely choose to see their daughter as nothing more than eccentric and imaginative.

The caretaker role falls exclusively to Hillary. She’s a stay-at-home mom trying to write a book while also attempting to care for two young daughters. While her struggle to play The Good Mom definitely lends sympathy to her character—I mean, honestly, what the hell is a good mom?—I couldn’t help but despise her selfishness and blatant disregard for Phoebe’s needs. Even though both parents decide to (finally) get Phoebe into therapy, it’s Hillary who refuses to accept the doctor’s diagnosis, even going so far as to remove Phoebe from therapy, deliberately hiding the diagnosis from her husband.

The problem here, and where the movie most succeeds, is that Hillary feels alone as a parent. She believes that her children’s struggles will ultimately reflect poorly on her as The Good Mom, and she even says at one point that she doesn’t want her daughter to be “less than.” Obviously, we live in a society that mandates the over-the-top importance of living up to an unattainable standard of proper mothering (see: any celebrity mother and the scrutiny she faces, with barely a mention of celebrity fathers), and Hillary definitely effectively represents that unattainable standard.

The movie also successfully portrays the societal trend of the working father: he pokes his head in when necessary, checking in on his daughters, and demonstrating just the right balance between quirky annoyance at their neediness and curiosity about their daily lives—he shows up to parent/teacher conferences, he consoles Phoebe when she gets in trouble at school, and he genuinely wants to participate; he’s just not required to maintain the role of The Good Dad—it doesn’t exist.

Motherhood in Film & Television: Spawning the World: Motherhood in ‘Game of Thrones’

One of the aspects that struck me in the show though, is the portrayal of motherhood. Far from being absent or swept to the side, the film’s mothers are a driving force in the plot development and are some of the most multi-dimensional of the series (credit has to be given to the actresses who play them).

Game of Thrones
This piece by Rachel Redfern is cross-posted with permission from Not Another Wave.
Game of Thrones is the buzzword for this season’s TV community: the backbiting, the plotting, the violence, the sex (which everyone is discussing). What horrific plot twist will the Lannisters think of next, we wonder out loud?
So I won’t really talk about those things, because to my mind, those aspects of the show have been reviewed by dozens of worthy reviewers: The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Mary Sue and Bitch Flicks, just to name a few. (If you’re not really sure of the plot or premise of the movie, you should definitely Wikipedia it, as I’m not really going to talk about that here, considering that so many other reviewers and websites have already provided a synopsis for it.)
One of the aspects that struck me in the show though, is the portrayal of motherhood. Far from being absent or swept to the side, the film’s mothers are a driving force in the plot development and are some of the most multi-dimensional of the series (credit has to be given to the actresses who play them).
There are thee instances of motherhood being portrayed here: Cercei and Lady Arryn’s obsessive, spoiling, “my child is a god” kind of motherhood, Lady Stark’s “good mom” style, and lastly, the Dothraki queen Daenerys Targaryen’s pregnancy where she is worshipped by her people.
Lady Arryn is mentally unstable, we can see that. Hell, the other characters can see that and are sending concerned glances to each other whenever she speaks and this outlandish behavior is most noticeable in regards to her son. Her child is a picture-perfect example (almost a caricature) of the spoiled child—the kind of spoiled child who still nurses at the age of ten (which, no matter what you say, is always weird). Her kind of motherhood, the indulgent nothing-is-wrong-with my child is interesting in that it also coincides with her isolation, as her castle is one that is almost completely cut-off from the world.
It’s a common trope, the mother who does everything for her son, so much so that we never see outside of the role of mother. She appears to have nothing else in her life and so instead showers him with inappropriate attention.
There is another example of spoiling a child, one in which the child is in the later stages of his aberrant and spoiled behavior. Lady Cersei, though, is a different kind of mother from the unstable and isolated Lady Arryn. Cersei is the mother to a prince, and then later to a king, and her kind of mothering seems to revolve around the difficult lifestyle of maintaining power for her son and, therefore, for her. It’s a selfish sort of spoiling, one in which the son is used as a way to protect the mothers status, a situation she is able to maintain by creating an “Us vs. Them” mentality in the cruel Joffrey.
In both instances, their treatment of their children is one way that the case for their “evilness” is created; it appears that the road to creating an evil female character is to highlight the way that she uses her children, in that here, the children become a mirror for the mother. It’s a common trope, motherhood being the most unselfish of occupations and perhaps the most revered, therefore in order for a woman to be truly evil, she must also be a bad mother.
So two examples of bad motherhood, one completely consumed by her child, the other only consumed by her child because of the power and status it offers her, both characters however revealed by their relationship to their children (something I find a little frustrating, personally).
Then there is the nice mother; there always has to be a nice mom. Someone who legitimately cares for her children and does her best to offer them a stable and happy home, free from a “take whatever you want” kind of attitude, and while that is how the lovely Lady Stark begins (every time someone says Stark in the show though, I totally think of Iron Man and subsequently, Robert Downey Jr.; it’s a happy thought), she ends up being a very different kind of mother.
I find it interesting that she decides to join her oldest son Robb on the battlefield and become his most valuable diplomat and negotiator, scoring him alliances and armies at every turn. It’s possibly the most unique portrayal of motherhood in the show, in that it morphs from kindly lady sitting by the fire, watching her sick child, to wartime confidant and adviser. The Lady Stark pounds around on her white horse, offering counsel to her son, but also taking his commands as she rushes into hostile camps and offers a truce here and a daughter there in exchange for a few more soldiers. It’s a very different kind of motherhood, one that is loving, but ultimately becomes a bit harder when she begins to bargain off her children (giving Arya to one of Lord Frey’s sons and Robb to one of his daughters) in order to keep them safe, and even to get what she wants: a little revenge for her husbands death.
I suppose you can therefore read it two ways: Lady Stark is merely caught between a rock and a hard place and is doing what she must in order to protect them, or she, like the other mothers, is willing to use her children in order to fulfill her own selfish ends. I’ll let you decide in her case.
The last instance of motherhood is rather short-lived and consists mostly of pregnancy; I’m referring to the delicate-turned-fiery (literally) Daenerys Targaryen and her unborn son. Daenerys is queen (by marriage) of the Dothraki, a war-like, horse-loving people of nomads and once she gets pregnant with a son (it’s always a son) she becomes an object of worship for her people. Her ability to become impregnated elevates and causes an outpouring of love for her amongst her people, a circumstance that I see repeated often in films and even in our society.
The worship of fertility has a huge place in our history: fertility gods, fertility idols, fertility rites are everywhere as a symbol of the divine power inherent in childbirth. Now, I am not a mother, I’ve never had children, but I see it even today, the belief that the pregnant lady can do no wrong (believe me friends, she can); I’m not trying to belittle this situation, or even criticize it, merely pointing out it’s prevalence in our society.
In the scene above, Daenerys is kneeling on a dais, surrounded by people cheering her name, while she eats a raw horse heart as a power ritual designed to give her son strength. Daenerys is in positioned above everyone else as she takes on the divine mother role; she is to be the deliverer of a mighty new son and ruler, a vessel of the future.
However, I find this problematic sometimes, as it seems to suggest that Daenerys’ worth is directly tied to her ability to be used by something else (in this case, her child). Though perhaps that analogy doesn’t work in this situation as she ends up sacrificing her own son’s life in order to save her husband. So again, in this series, the child becomes something to be used in order to achieve her own ends.
On a depressing note, I guess what I’m saying is, the mothers in Game of Thrones are not very nice mothers.


Rachel Redfern has an MA in English literature, where she conducted research on modern American literature and film and it’s intersection, however she spends most of her time watching HBO shows, traveling, and blogging and reading about feminism.
 

Motherhood in Film & Television: Sherrybaby

Maggie Gyllenhall in Sherrybaby

This is a guest review by Gabriella Apicella.
In all areas of our lives, women are neatly packaged into stereotypes that strip us of complexity and personality. Dating back to the original typecasting of Virgin vs Whore, there are other labels that fall along the same trajectory, just as inadequate and inaccurate: Wife, Mother, Slut, Gold-digger, Victim, House-wife, Lesbian, Office Bitch, etc. All of these unhelpful words have been embodied by countless depictions in film, from “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” to “The Devil Wears Prada,” to “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.” So much so, that there appear to be very defined ideas in society of how any one of these characters may or may not behave.

What is so extraordinary about “Sherrybaby” is the main character is so completely rounded and real that she bursts free from the predictable constraints imposed by stereotypes. The film follows Sherry Swanson, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, as she tries to reconnect with her daughter after being released from prison. Yet although this provides the main motivation for virtually everything she does in the film, writer and director Laurie Collyer has brought to the screen a female character who is not just a passionate mother, not just a recovering addict, not just a victim of abuse, not just a sexually confident woman, not just a sweet primary school teacher, but ALL of these things.
Maggie Gyllenhaal in Sherrybaby
Even within my own circle of friends I have had conversations where they have expressed concern about how they should or should not behave now that they have become mothers. This revered state of Motherhood has them calling into question how much they should now drink, have sex, enjoy their careers: clearly something is very wrong if women are feeling that they are not free to be themselves, because they have become a mother. Other friends have confided to losing close friends since having a child – as if they are perceived as not even being the same person anymore!

Flaws within a mother are almost inexcusable by society: how dare they drink, have sex, work, put anyone but their child first 24 hours a day every day for the rest of their lives! Film and society at large have both upheld this unattainable expectation of virtuous behaviour, giving transgressors the harshest of punishments. In film “bad mothers” tend to end up dead, alone or insane, whereas the rates of women being imprisoned is climbing at an extraordinary rate, with nearly two-thirds of the prison population being mothers.
Director Laurie Collyer with Maggie Gyllenhaal
 
Watching the painstaking journey Sherry Swanson takes in “Sherrybaby” is almost unbearably moving at times. Her resolve to be with her child is steadfast throughout, yet as she makes attempts to reconnect with her, the audience is also shown the different sides to her personality; sexual, troubled, playful, over-sensitive, kind, immature, ruthless, Gyllenhaal’s performance is nuanced and raw.
Whilst she explodes into a violent rage at one of the bullying women harassing her in a halfway-house, she maintains her composure and diplomacy with the far more painful handling of a conversation with her sister-in-law, who has instructed Sherry’s daughter to call her Sherry instead of “Mom.” When her child Alexis appears to be scared of her, and is reluctant to spend a day with her, Sherry never loses her patience, and only displays love and tenderness to the child; entirely at odds with her declaration at an interview “I’ll suck your dick if you give me the job I want.”
Director of Sherrybaby, Laurie Collyer
 
There is no straightforward way to describe this character, as all the contrasting facets of Sherry’s personality are evident, and yet she remains consistent. Perhaps this has been the quandary of filmmakers, and the reason for stereotypes: how is it possible to reconcile so many different characteristics into one person? So “Moms” (and let’s face it, Women) are wholesome and good, or crazy and bad. But people are multi-faceted, as are Moms, and the sensationally real depiction of Sherry by Laurie Collyer demonstrates expertly that there is no need for the two-dimensional predictability we are used to from female roles.

Without using over-egged sentimentality, Collyer even affords Sherry the possibility of happiness, showing that despite her drug-taking, sexual misadventures and lack of parenting skills, she deserves a second chance. This compassion is certainly missing from film depictions of women, and is all too often missing from wider society also. Both must change so that women may smash through the stereotypes.
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Gabriella Apicella is a feminist writer and tutor living in London, England. She has a degree in Film and Media from Birkbeck College, University of London, is on the board of Script Development organisation Euroscript, and in 2010 co-founded the UnderWire Festival that aims to recognise the raw filmmaking talent of women. Her writing features women in the central roles, and she has been commissioned to write short films, experimental theatre and prose for independent directors and artists.

Motherhood in Film & Television: The Evolution of Margaret White

Piper Laurie and Sissy Spacek (1976 film)

This piece is from Monthly Contributor Carrie Nelson.

(Warning: Contains spoilers about Stephen King’s Carrie and its film and stage adaptations.) 
I love Stephen King’s Carrie, and not just because we share the same name. More than anything, I love the way that Carrie honestly explores the tensions and horrors of being a teenage girl. The details of the story aren’t terribly realistic – not many teenage outcasts have telekinetic powers, and few high school send-offs involve murdering everyone at the prom. But the anxiety around getting your first period, the fear that the boy asking you on a date is only doing it as a prank, the compulsion to make fun of others even though you know it’s wrong – these are normal parts of being a teenager. King’s book taps into those experiences incredibly well, which is why the story has resulted in numerous artistic adaptations. 
Carrie was first made into a film in 1976. Since then, it has become a stage musical, a made-for-TV movie, and it will soon be made into a new film, directed by Kimberly Peirce and starring Chloë Moretz in the title role. Every adaptation of Carrie contains similar elements (notably the torturous shower scene in the beginning and the fatal prom toward the end), but other aspects of the story change slightly in each incarnation. What I want to talk about today are the ways in which the character of Margaret White, Carrie’s religious fundamentalist mother, has evolved over the years. Margaret is arguably the most frightening character in Carrie, and I believe that she has only become more disturbing in each new incarnation, but for a different reason than one might suspect. 
In the 1976 Brian De Palma adaptation, Piper Laurie plays Margaret. Laurie’s interpretation of the role is iconic, but something about the performance has always rung false to me. Laurie’s Margaret is loud and bombastic and evil, to a degree that’s almost campy. In particular, the scene in which Margaret dies is significantly different from King’s novel. In the book, Carrie uses her telekinetic powers to stop Margaret’s heart, but in the De Palma film, Carrie uses her powers to send knives flying at Margaret, crucifying her and mimicking the imagery of Saint Sebastian that torments Carrie throughout the film. It’s an unforgettable image, and given the visual nature of cinema, it makes sense that this particular detail would be modified from the book. (It’s important to note, however, that the De Palma adaptation is the only version with this ending – all others I’ve seen remain true to King’s original ending.) However, the excessive spectacle of the scene (and the film as a whole) lessens the emotional impact. Laurie’s Margaret is shocking and disturbing, but there’s an emotional element missing from the performance, which has always bothered me. 
Marin Mazzie and Molly Ranson (2012 musical revival)
I saw the 1976 version of Carrie for the first time nearly five years ago, and it wasn’t until recently that I realized what doesn’t work for me about Laurie’s performance – it’s entirely one-dimensional. It’s cartoonish, even. It’s hard to be frightened by Laurie’s Margaret when she seems so unlike any mother who could realistically exist. But that isn’t how the character has to be. I thought about this in March, when I saw the MCC Theater’s Off-Broadway revival of the Carrie musical. Now, I did not see the original version of the musical, which opened on Broadway in 1988 and closed after only five performances, making it one of the biggest Broadway flops of all time. I cannot speak to that version, but I can speak to the heavily revised revival, in which Marin Mazzie played an unnervingly sympathetic version of Margaret. Though the story is the same, and Margaret is still deeply disturbed and abusive, there is a greater emphasis on Margaret’s inner struggle and the reality that she truly wants to help her daughter. In the second act, Margaret sings, “When There’s No One,” a moving ballad that reveals her intention to murder her daughter and the despair she feels about that decision. Rather than solely seeing Margaret’s evil and rage, in this version we see her rationalization. We see a fully developed character, a person who truly believes she is making the right decision, which makes the decision even more horrifying. There is nothing cartoonish about Mazzie’s Margaret, which made her far more terrifying than Laurie’s Margaret ever could be. 
Patricia Clarkson (2002 made-for-TV movie)
I feel similarly about Patricia Clarkson’s interpretation of Margaret in the 2002 made-for-TV movie version. In a dramatic shift from Laurie’s excitable reading, Clarkson nearly whispers all of her dialogue. Clarkson’s Margaret is completely understated, so much so that you almost believe she might come around and change her mind about her daughter. Of course, she doesn’t, and the scene in which Margaret tries to kill Carrie is shocking not because of the spectacle but because it catches you off-guard. This isn’t to say that the 2002 Carrie isn’t filled with spectacle – it is, sometimes to a distracting degree. But Clarkson’s performance as Margaret remains the calm, quiet element of the film, making her ultimate act of violence against her daughter all the more frightening. 
Kimberly Peirce’s highly anticipated remake of Carrie will be released in 2013. Little has been revealed about Peirce’s plans and vision, but Chloë Moretz promises the film “really looks into the relationship of Margaret and Carrie.” Julianne Moore recently signed on to play Margaret, a decision that makes me incredibly excited and anxious to see the film. I believe Moore will be able to add subtlety and nuance to the role, adding layers to Margaret’s character that have never been present before. I look forward to reading more about the film and Moore’s work on it as it enters production. 
I recently spoke with a friend who said that she didn’t think Carrie should be remade. She said the original is good enough as it is, so why change it? While I agree that the 1976 version is a classic, and nothing will ever replace it in cinematic history, I do think that much more can be done with the story. Particularly, I believe Margaret has much more room to grow as a character, and if the 2002 television film and the 2012 stage adaptation tell us anything, it’s that Margaret’s horror doesn’t come from her anger and violence – it comes from the completely calm way in which she rationalizes her beliefs and her actions. I hope to see Peirce’s version take Margaret even further as a character. I don’t know what that will look like, but I am anxious to find out.
Fan-designed poster for upcoming remake

Carrie Nelson is a Bitch Flicks monthly contributor. She was a Staff Writer for Gender Across Borders, an international feminist community and blog that she co-founded in 2009. She works as a grant writer for an LGBT nonprofit, and she is currently pursuing an MA in Media Studies at The New School.


Motherhood in Film & Television: ‘Rosemary’s Baby’

This is a guest post from Erin Fenner.
Rosemary’s Baby, the Roman Polanski 1968 adaptation of the novel with the same name, uses minimal effects. While it is a horror story about the mother of Satan’s child, we only briefly glimpse the arm and eyes of the feature’s supposed monster. And, while the plot against Rosemary is conceived by a coven of witches, we don’t see bubbling potions. That is because Rosemary’s Baby is not a horror story about Satan or witchcraft.
Rosemary’s Baby is a horror story about being a woman.
Watch the trailer:
Rosemary, played by the waifish Mia Farrow, is a young woman excited for her role as wife and soon-to-be mother. But, even in her acceptance and celebration of traditional gender roles she is exploited, robbed of autonomy, discounted as hysterical and ultimately must give up all control of herself and her body.
Sound familiar? That’s because her terrors are real ones with just a dash of supernatural motivations.
We meet Rosemary when she and her husband, Guy, played by John Cassavetes, decide to move into a new apartment house. She is the picture of a cheerful stay-at-home wife – taking pleasure in decorating the house, filled with bubbling optimism and one who enjoys pleasing her husband. All she wants beyond her currently cozy situation is to become a mother.
She gets her wish when Guy, an ambitious actor, declares he’s ready to be a dad. The audience learns quickly that his motivations aren’t rooted in a comparable desire for fatherhood, but because he’s made a pact with peculiar neighbors we later discover are witches. He gets a shot at success if he delivers them a baby.
While the viewer can deduce this easily, we never see the world from anyone’s perspective but Rosemary’s. We spend most of the film cooped up with her, claustrophobic and powerless, in the apartment house.
The conception of Rosemary’s baby happens in a particularly brutal way – through rape. Guy drugs his wife and takes her to a ritual to be impregnated by Satan. Rosemary is semi-conscious and cries out, “This is no dream – this is really happening!” And, when she wakes up the next morning, Guy casually mentions that he had sex with her while she was sleeping. So, even though upon waking she concludes the rape was a dream, she still considers the conception of her baby as one derived through non-consensual sex. Her first step toward motherhood is one where she is deprived the right to control her own body.
Her journey into motherhood is further hijacked by Guy and her witch-neighbors who insist on her going to a different doctor – one we learn is part of the Satanist coven. Her new doctor, Dr. Sapirstein, played by Ralph Bellamy, demands she ignores the advice of her friends and books, and only listen to his instructions. Whenever she expresses concern about her pregnancy, he shoots her perspective down and shames her for self-education.
Rosemary (Mia Farrow)
We see the already thin Rosemary develop pronounced dark shadows under her eyes and become emaciated. She says she’s in a constant state of pain. It’s only when, during a party with her peers, that she is validated by other women. One of her friends even pushes Guy out of the room so that they can express their support and concern. It’s from this very brief exchange with her friends, where they insist her pain is abnormal, that Rosemary is empowered and encouraged to change doctors and take charge of her own health.
This empowerment is short-lived, because she gives up after a fight with Guy and her pain eases up. She relinquishes to her husband and her body.
Her small rebellions against others’ attempts to control her body – like not drinking the drink her witch-neighbors prepare for her – cease. She falls easily into passivity until she reads a book left to her by an old friend who we can presume was murdered by the coven next door.
The book details the history of the coven that had lived in her apartment house generations before, and helps her conclude that her pregnancy is central to a plot devised by her neighbors, husband and doctor.
With this new realization Rosemary rushes to her old obstetrician, Dr. Hill, played by Charles Grodin, to seek help. After pleading with him for assistance, Dr. Hill brings her into a room for rest, but then returns with Guy and Dr. Sapirstein to sedate her and take her away. She is dismissed as being a hysterical woman: pre-partum.
The next scenes are delirious. Rosemary is sedated, and when awake she attempts to make demands, but is denied. And, when she gives birth, she is not allowed to see her baby and is deceived about its condition.
Rosemary’s only motivation now is centered on her motherhood. It’s the only power she can claim. So, after recovering from giving birth, she sneaks around her apartment house, and finds a hidden passage to the witch-neighbors. There she finds the coven surrounding a satanic crib.
The scene is almost anti-climactic. There is no struggle and no high drama speeches. Rosemary discovers her baby is a monster – the son of Satan. She learns the truth – her husband and neighbors were plotting against her. And then, she resigns herself. She has already lost control of her body long ago and has nothing left but her role as a mother.
Rosemary lives up perfectly to the norm of womanhood. Unlike the women who we begrudgingly expect to be punished in films because they are promiscuous, independent, “bitchy” or uninterested in family life – we would expect Rosemary’s story to pan out positively because she adheres to gendered expectations.
But, Rosemary’s Baby is not a film meant to encourage a fearful narrative about the value of following prescribed roles – instead it is about a woman who is victimized by the very gender roles she had enthusiastically accepted. Rosemary accepts her societal role as a woman. Still, she is punished and suffers. And, because it is so close to reality, it is horrifying. 

Erin Fenner is a legislative intern and blogger for Trust Women: advocating for the reproductive rights of women in conservative Midwestern states. She also writes for the Trust Women blog and manages their social media networks. She graduated from the University of Idaho with a B.S. in Journalism.

Motherhood in Film & Television: Three Generations of Mothering on ‘The Gilmore Girls’

Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham)
This is a guest post from Megan Ryland.
For me, no television mother springs to mind faster than Lorelai Gilmore of the long running show The Gilmore Girls. In fact, what is arguably so special about the show is that it offers a popular mainstream venue to focus on mothering, and especially the challenges of mother/daughter relationships. Of course mothers are a constant feature in the media (how else would mothers know how to behave!?) but teenagers are rarely depicted as having a positive relationship with their mother. Rory and Lorelai have a tight bond that remains the central focus of the show despite relationship drama for both mother and daughter. They also bring in the dual roles of mother and daughter when Lorelai interacts with her own mother, Emily.
Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel)
Lauren Graham plays Lorelai, an over-caffeinated, high energy manager of a successful inn. As her daughter Rory, Alexis Bledel is a teenager striving more for a Harvard acceptance letter than a date, who has inside jokes with her mother, and clearly thrives in this single mother household. Lorelai’s status as a single mother is important because we are reminded time and time again that Lorelai has created a life that she (and her daughter, and the rest of the townsfolk) finds satisfying and valuable. This is a very different portrayal of the consequences of teenage motherhood. 
Although coming from money and privilege, Lorelai left behind the trust fund life when she had Rory at 16. She rejected her parent’s assistance, refused to marry Rory’s dad, and struck out on her own. This further soured Lorelai’s already poor relationship with her own mother, Emily Gilmore, but has not led to Lorelai being a “Bad Mother.” There are many factors that allow for this, including racial, geographic, cultural, class, etc. For example, as a young white woman with the cultural capital of high class status, Lorelai is able to dodge stereotypes and the accompanying discrimination that a young woman of colour and/or low socioeconomic standing might face. This is an unspoken advantage that may allow viewers to accept Lorelai as a successful single mother. However, I still believe that the representation of Lorelai as a mother who has done a great job raising a child without the aid of huge financial resources or a masculine figure is a major plus for the show. And of course her position as a single mother remains difficult. In fact, the impetus of the show is that the lack of financial resources for Rory’s schooling brings all three generations of Gilmores back together, because Lorelai asks her parents to help pay for Rory’s elite education and in exchange her parents re-enter her life. 
Movie night with the Gilmore Girls
Rory and Lorelai have a very complex relationship. Rory is occasionally mothering Lorelai, but it is never a permanent role. Superior experience is always on Lorelai’s side and she is able to act as mentor to Rory as she grows up. Lorelai doesn’t always advise her in the most conventional ways, but I would argue that she rarely verges into juvenile territory while parenting. Her temperament is youthful, while Rory’s is much more mature for her age, but they remain a mother/daughter team, and a best friendship. Again, this sort of bond is rare. I think that it’s valuable for a show on a network aimed at young people (WB and then CW) to contain positive relationships between parent and child. 
In the first season, they deal with questions of how Lorelai can date as a mother, and how she can share the space that she has carved out for herself and Rory with a romantic partner. This is an important question, and one that is realistically complicated (of course, it’s also made unreasonably complicated by the necessary hijinks of television). Lorelai and Rory are given scenes where they discuss their needs, desires and challenges. Furthermore, Lorelai is accepted as a sexual being who can also be a good mother. I would call that a win. 
What is arguably more common on television is the relationship between Lorelai and her mother, Emily Gilmore. Many rants and screaming matches are conducted between them, as their relationship appears based in constant misunderstandings. However, despite estrangement and resentment, the relationship between Emily and Lorelai is arguably never unsalvageable. No one can really write off this bond, because Emily and/or Lorelai occasionally show that they do indeed care for and value one another. 
Emily Gilmore (Kelly Bishop)
Emily is first seen as a stereotypical suffocating, judgmental, harpy of an older mother, except when she becomes vulnerable and shows that she works hard to keep up appearances. She is bedridden when Lorelai runs away, she attends her granddaughter’s 16th birthday despite hurt feelings, and most of all, she is concerned that she might lose her family. She is far more complex than the typical older woman caricature and Kelly Bishop does a fantastic job with the role. Viewers can potentially sympathize with Emily’s ideals (often a product of her time and upbringing) and her feelings of exclusion from her daughter and granddaughter’s lives, even if they can’t identify with her strategies for keeping them close. At the same time, fans can also understand why Lorelai ran from the privileged life that she had grown up with, as well as the difficulties that accompanied that choice. 
Arguably Emily was a type of lone parent, as Lorelai’s father was a typical career man who barely had time to put down the paper or end the conference call for meals. Although Emily was privileged to have a number of servants and nannies at her disposal, the fathering provided by Mr. Gilmore appears to have been very limited. As the most involved parent by far, Emily’s mothering has not fostered an obvious bond, showing that this connection is not inevitable. What Rory and Lorelai have takes work and is very special. It’s not a natural given.
The show allows for an exploration of motherhood from a variety of angles. An important aspect is the interplay between the daughter and mother roles. Throughout its many seasons, all three Gilmore women are placed in daughter and mothering roles. For example, in one scene in the first season, Rory is missing after a dance and Emily accuses Lorelai of raising a child as wild and irresponsible as herself. Lorelai defends Rory and says that she trusts her daughter, acting as a daughter herself in a situation with her mother. However, when Emily leaves and a contrite Rory appears, Lorelai acts as the mother terrified for her missing child and admonishes Rory. The transition between daughter and mother happens in a few minutes and it’s not only beautifully acted, but also representative of the dual(+) roles that many mothers play. You are never just a mother. You are also a daughter, whether or not your mother is always present. You parent with a history as a child. It’s a fantastic scene and shows part of the complexity of a mother’s role.
Three generations of Gilmore Girls
The interactions between Emily, Lorelai and Rory Gilmore make the show Gilmore Girls a unique offering. Rarely do popular shows for young people focus on the relationships between generations of women, or the role (and challenges) of contemporary mothering. Race and class issues abound in the show, which should be unpacked, but as a forum for understanding some aspects of mothering and honouring mother/daughter bonds, Gilmore Girls is fantastic. 

Megan Ryland is currently completing her BA, focusing on politics, women and gender. She writes about feminism, body image, and media analysis on her blog, http://beautyvsbeast.wordpress.com. She also releases the weekly show Hello City! Culture Cast, a Vancouver-based podcast that reviews movies, theatre, concerts and more.

Motherhood in Film & Television: ‘Carrie’

Jamie Lynne Grumet on Time
Recently there’s been major hullabaloo about Jamie Lynne Grumet, the 26-year-old California mom who proudly posed on the cover of Time magazine breastfeeding her 3-year-old son. Ridiculed, condemned and completely unorthodox, this shocking image continues to reverberate across the globe.
A similar effigy from the 1976 film Carrie has lingered in our minds for more than three decades. It’s near the end of the movie, when religious momster Margaret White (Piper Laurie) is at the end of her rope trying to jam some fundamentalist sense in her terribly feeble-minded teenage daughter, Carrie (Sissy Spacek).
For several minutes she’s imploring one strict value after the next on Carrie, desperately teaching her to repent for the sin she has committed. But when her daughter needs her the most, she is knee-deep in a sermon trying to shelter her from all the evil in the world. In a fit of rage, her telekinetic daughter mind-hurls several knives at her, stapling her to the wall in a perfect crucifixion. Her head tilted to her right in blissful silence.

“I should’ve killed myself when he put it in me…. I should’ve given you to God when you were born, but I was weak and backsliding, and now the devil has come home.”

A crucified Mrs. White
One could discern that Mrs. White was taken out of her misery, which enveloped her throughout her adult life and suffocated her maternal instincts. Or did it?
Often times we are quick to judge parents—especially mothers—whose values and beliefs differ from our own. We deify figures like Angelina Jolie as Mother Theresa or sacrifice them as we do both Jamie and Margaret. But both sides have their own story, and they both think they’re right.
On the surface, it’s so easy to criticize Margaret. But there is something so inherently evil yet desperately loving about Laurie’s pitch-perfect performance of the religion-stricken single mother. You know she wants what she thinks is best for her child, like all great mothers do. But she’s too terrified—or terrifying?—to really consider what she’s saying. She wanted Carrie to be God-fearing, like herself. She wanted her to not suffer the tainted feeling of self-disgust with which she was burdened every day. In essence, she wanted her daughter’s life to be better than her own, by not making the same mistakes she did.
But when Mrs. White saw her daughter developing breasts and getting her period, and even receiving interest to attend the prom, her maternal preference overwhelmed her. She had to intervene before her Carrie ended up shameful, deflowered and ungodly like she had become. It was imperative.
Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie in Carrie
However, she could never really convey her true intentions to Carrie. It was always about what Carrie shouldn’t be doing, even when Carrie herself couldn’t fully comprehend the course her life was taking. It was always about repenting, while never examining what the repenting was for.
Meanwhile, Carrie is relentlessly teased in her school for her extraordinary innocence, and became the object of a vicious stunt that escalated beyond both her and the perpetrators’ most barbaric imaginations. Her fate at school is exacerbated when news gets around about what her mother is like. While her mother’s behavior minimally explains the way Carrie is, it doesn’t end antagonistic remarks of her peers. They don’t understand why neither Carrie nor her mother are the way they are, but they do know that they must be against it.
It’s not until Carrie realizes that there’s something gravely askew about her mother’s parental guidance—really on account of her peers’ reaction to her mien—when the position of her mother’s stance becomes horribly acute. Margaret’s unusual parenting style made sense for a long while, before it was held under the light and scrutinized by those on the outside, and before Carrie knew well enough to attempt to break away from it. That was the precise time when Margaret discovered that her daughter had become the person she tried to prevent all these years, and that her long-time fear had finally come to fruition.

“All the kids think I’m funny, and I don’t wanna be. I wanna be normal…. a whole person, before it’s too late for me to –“ [Margaret throws tea on her face, Carrie wipes it off].

Piper Laurie as Margaret White
Laurie’s perfect portrayal of a mother obsessed with her own ideals is mesmerizing to watch unfold. She’s like a pressure-cooker that slowly percolates until she eventually boils over and quietly explodes by the end of the movie. But she never loses her cool; she barely offers any inflection in her voice. She’s calm but deliberate. It’s the very thing which unsettles you when you watch her onscreen. You know her heart is in the right place, and that she—like most good mothers—just want her daughter to grow up better than how she saw the rest of the world.
But once her fear overpowered her rationale, once her masked hysteria was put on full blast through the halls of her daughter’s high school, she became victimized by her own steeple of values. She became the monster that you delighted in only when she was sacrificed for the greater good.
Clearly Margaret is not without her faults. As stated before, she wouldn’t impose these atypical morals on her daughter if she didn’t truly believe them to be right. That’s why we see her preaching the message around the neighborhood, to even parents of Carrie’s peers—she sees nothing wrong in what she does, but everything amoral about what everyone else does, which ultimately makes her out to be a frightening proselytizer when all she wants to do is protect them. When she can’t convince others to see her view, she is comfortable knowing that her daughter will at least be saved from the fires of hell. 
But by then it’s too late. Her daughter had been influenced by the kids at school, who nominated themselves as judge and jury in the case of Margaret White versus everyone else.
Whatever you think about the way in which other mothers choose to parent their children—and Lord knows some of them are real head-scratchers—is it ever okay for us to impart our notion of right and wrong on them? I wonder how Margaret would have fared if she was on the cover of Time with the cover line, Pimples are the Lord’s way of chastising you. 
Candice Frederick is an NABJ award-winning journalist and film blogger for Reel Talk. She’s also written for Essence Magazine and The Urban Daily. Follow her on twitter.

Motherhood in Film and Television: Mothers of Anarchy: Power and Control in the Feminine Sphere

This is a guest review by Leigh Kolb.

The ancient idea that men and women inhabit different spheres based on their biological makeup is rooted deeply in Western culture. In the Nineteenth Century, however, when the Victorian era dictated behavior and the Industrial Revolution changed work, scientists and civilians defined and embraced this idea of True Womanhood. Men’s and women’s spheres were separate—his was public and political, hers was inside the home and maternal. This is certainly not an argument that has died, and one would be hard-pressed not to find the same rhetoric at houses of worship and houses of legislation today. Many representations of women in media reiterate this ideology.

Motherhood is firmly rooted in the feminine sphere—inside the womb to inside the nursery. In the critically acclaimed television drama Sons of Anarchy, the gendered spheres are clear and present. Sons of Anarchy is oftentimes dubbed “Hamlet on motorcycles” since the plot line bears a strong resemblance to Shakespeare’s Hamlet (which is an important note for feminist analysis, considering Shakespeare’s own subversive feminism). As in Hamlet, Sons of Anarchy’s audiences and critics often focus on the protagonist, the “ghost” of his father, his nefarious stepfather, and the men who surround him. The excitement of politics, public tension, violence, and man’s inner struggle always trumps the inner-workings of the home and child-rearing. The power is in the public sphere.

Gemma threatens Wendy. She makes it clear that no one will hurt her son or grandson.

The Mothers of Anarchy, on the surface, have no control. In reality, they have all of the control.

The matriarch “old lady” (the endearing term club members give to their partners) of the California motorcycle club is Gemma (Katey Sagal). She is the Gertrude-inspired character who has married one of the original members of the club, after her husband was killed. Her first husband helped found the Sons of Anarchy motorcycle club after Gemma became pregnant with their son and wanted to settle in Charming, where her parents were from. She may not ride, but her instincts and desires steered the club from its inception. The town’s police chief refers to Gemma as “leaving Charming when she was sixteen and showing up 10 years later with a baby and a biker gang.”

This original group, which spawned numerous Sons of Anarchy chapters after its founding, is referred to as Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Originals (SAMCRO).
Tara and Gemma together saved baby Abel’s life, and Jax, his father, holds him.
In the pilot episode, there are explosions, murders, gun runs, back room decisions, and motorcycles tearing up the streets. Of course, one doesn’t need to analyze too much to see the clearly phallic representations of masculinity in motorcycles and firearms. It is also clear that the women in the episode are revolving around the hallmark of True Womanhood—motherhood.

Gemma’s son Jax (Charlie Hunnam) has a pregnant ex-wife, Wendy (Drea de Matteo). As Gemma is driving to check on her, Wendy is in the kitchen injecting herself with a syringe-full of meth. The camera pans out to a very pregnant Wendy with her hand on her belly, relaxed. This is a fallen mother. Gemma finds her in a pool of blood, curses at her, and rushes her to the hospital. At the hospital, Tara (Maggie Siff), a surgeon and Jax’s ex-girlfriend, is tending to Wendy and Abel, who was delivered via emergency c-section ten weeks premature. Immediately the audience is presented with the powerful mother and matriarch, the bad mother (and few things are worse in our society than a bad mother), and the professional mother, who is responsible for keeping Abel alive since his biological mother could not.

Gemma’s maternal instincts are fierce and stinging.
These three pivotal female characters revolve around a baby, and they are portrayed inside—literally and figuratively. The women are inside when introduced to the audience—Gemma is in her car, Wendy is in her kitchen, and Tara is in the hospital. When Gemma wields her knowledge of and power over the club to Clay, they are in the bedroom. The male characters are largely outside—riding their bikes, working on cars, and scoping out new property.

Toward the end of the episode, the men of Sons of Anarchy are engaged in club warfare, and commit brutally violent crimes (involving guns, explosives, and vehicles) as they navigate the changing waters of their club’s purpose and see their territory shifting to guns and drugs.

Tara and Jax have a son, Thomas, and they together raise him and Abel.
Spliced into this plotline are the scenes from the hospital. Gemma has slipped Wendy a syringe with an order to commit suicide (she puts the syringe in a Bible after they pray—religion and piety is also in the feminine sphere). Tara is operating on Abel, inside of him, and starts his heart after it stops.

The masculine sphere is powerful, aggressive, and largely superficial. The feminine sphere, while perceived as less important and less powerful, deals in matters much closer: giving life, manipulating life, and sustaining life. When Jax comes to the hospital to visit his son, he is beat up and bloodied from his duties outside. Tara tells him to clean himself up, and then he can see his son. Tara—who gave Abel his heartbeat, not Wendy—is in control. It’s simply a matter of time before she and Jax are in a relationship and she is clearly an old lady in training.

Gemma looks at an old photo of her and John, Jax’s father and the co-founder of SAMCRO.
While the pilot episode can be examined by itself through a feminist lens, the entire series follows its women with the same watchful eye. What may sound like one-dimensional stereotypes in simple plot descriptions are actually nuanced female characters and plot lines.

Possibly the most obvious mother archetype in Western culture is the Virgin Mary. Sons of Anarchy does a commendable job of avoiding the virgin-whore dichotomy so prevalent in matters of femininity and motherhood. Gemma is a sexual creature and desires sex (one episode even deals with her battling vaginal dryness after menopause), but that isn’t problematic. The show manages to avoid the all-too-often inferred Oedipal nature of Hamlet and Gertrude in the Shakespeare original, showing that a woman can be sexual, and be a mother, and that’s OK.

In season two, Gemma is brutally raped by enemies of the club to divide and destroy SAMCRO. She is lured into the enemy’s hands when a young woman stops her on the road and begs her to check on her baby, who’s not breathing. Lured by her maternal instincts, Gemma rushes out of her car and into the woman’s van where there’s just a baby doll, and she’s knocked unconscious and taken to a warehouse where she’s assaulted. The way that she deals with the assault—secretive and ashamed, yet helped by Tara medically and emotionally—is painful and realistic. Tara was a victim of domestic violence, and the two come together not as victims, but as allies and survivors. When Gemma finally tells her family about the rape, they come together and are more united, not divided. As she explains the assault to Clay and Jax at the family dining table, Patty Griffin’s “Mary” plays softly in the background, conjuring the image of that original suffering mother; however, she is not the pure and perfect image of virginity; she is real, damaged, and whole. This is the True Womanhood, not that of silence and submissiveness. In this depiction, it’s clear that Gemma gains and keeps control and is not the one being controlled.

In an excellent piece at Yes Means Yes, a feminist blogger notes that “The strong women characters are not terminators with breasts, they’re real humans with full inner lives and complicated problems. The plots often explore women’s lives in ways that mainstream shows overlook. And the show humanizes women, like sex workers, who are too often presented as one dimensional.” Indeed, even the porn stars are human in Sons of Anarchy—not just human, but capable of mothering, and mothering well.

SAMCRO becomes affiliated with a porn production company, and club member Opie’s girlfriend (and eventual second wife) is one of its stars. Lyla has a son, and is compassionate in her role as step-mother to Opie’s children. Lyla is a caring mother, and also serves as a catalyst for conversations surrounding the topics of abortion and birth control. For motherhood shouldn’t just be about mothering children, but also about making choices about what’s best for the entire family (which sometimes means not having more children).

In season three, Lyla becomes pregnant and does not want to be (her relationship with Opie is not solid, and pregnancy would end her career in the porn industry, and she wants to work a few more years). Tara offers to take her, and she also is pregnant and decides she wants to schedule an abortion. The entire scene is without judgment or negativity—it’s a clean clinic, and a simple procedure. Tara references having an abortion at six weeks in her previous abusive relationship and that it was “not a baby” at that point. Rarely is abortion presented as realistic in popular culture. Feministing says of the episode, “Most TV shows won’t even present abortion as a viable option and if they do, it’s usually stigmatized and quickly discarded in favor of adoption or keeping the unintended pregnancy.” Later, when Opie discovers Lyla had an abortion and is taking birth control pills even though getting pregnant is her only way “out” of porn, he is angry. But it’s clear that the audience isn’t supposed to be.

Tara ends up not having an abortion, but not because of a moral awakening. She is abducted and almost killed by SAMCRO enemies, and is able to escape by telling the abductors she’s pregnant. After the ordeal, she and Jax see the unharmed baby on an ultrasound, and reconcile. At first, Tara appears to be more submissive after being held captive and choosing to have the baby. As the series progresses, however, viewers see her coming to power in the club by her own choosing. She will mother SAMCRO sons—adopting Abel and giving birth to Thomas—and she will become the matriarch.

Tara is poised to take over Gemma’s position as matriarch.

As central as motherhood is to the various story arcs of Sons of Anarchy, one can’t help but notice that these strong female characters lack mother figures themselves. While Gemma had a mother growing up, she died from the family’s “fatal flaw” (a genetic heart condition). Tara’s mother died when she was young, and she inherited her father’s house and car. Father-son relationships are central to many of the storylines (certainly the relationship between Jax and his father’s letters, a.k.a. his “ghost,” and his relationship with his stepfather Clay; Opie’s relationship with his father, SAMCRO’s other founder; and Jax’s relationships with his young sons). In fiction, male protagonists are often driven by their relationships with their fathers—away from them or toward reconciliation. However, while audiences continue to see more female protagonists, those characters often have no mothers or are more influenced by their fathers or male mentors (The Killing and Homeland on television, for example, or Twilight and The Hunger Games in text and on film).

Of course this is not a new phenomenon. In Shakespeare’s works, “Fatherhood appears in full gamut, but motherhood, especially in the relationship of mother and daughter, is almost, though by no means quite, absent.” Hamlet’s Ophelia just had a father and brother to guide her (tragically), and no mother. Strong women are often portrayed as being on their own.

These reminders of the gendered spheres—men are in public, in politics, connected to their ancestors and to the world around them while women are inside, working in the home and raising another generation to fulfill these same gendered roles—continually romanticize the role of father and downplay the role of mother. So when modern women emerge on screen, even the most complex and nuanced characters such as those in Sons of Anarchy, there’s still the trouble of True Womanhood, at its core, not being rooted to power in connection. Instead, these women are lone wolves, seeking power where they can and how they can, because their mothers could not or chose not to—or perhaps because it’s simply not a narrative that’s at all woven into our culture.

In an interview, Sagal said of Gemma, ”At the core of her, she is a mother to all of these men. As tough and dark as she is – and she will slit your throat for the right reasons – she is big-hearted.” The undertone of this quote is that Gemma cooks big meals, cleans up, and protects her “men.” Tara also grows into the role, serving as an on-call doctor for the club, bringing men back to life who would have otherwise died or been arrested. They are biological mothers to their sons, and mothers to the Sons. While the spheres are in place, the reality of the series is that these mothers may be perceived as being without power behind closed doors while the boys are killing, being killed, and making business decisions, but the power the mothers yield is monumental. Gemma has orchestrated the club from its beginning, and the fourth season ends with Tara standing over Jax at the head of the SAMCRO table. The audience knows the mothers’ roles, but the men often seem oblivious. The same can be said for Shakespeare’s mothers (it’s widely believed that Gertrude had a part in King Hamlet’s death plot). The audience will have to wait, however, to see if Western culture ever gets it right and removes the spheres that give the perception that motherhood lacks the power and strength of a twin-cam Harley.

———-
Leigh Kolb is an English and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri, and has an MFA in creative nonfiction writing. She lives on a small farm with her husband, dogs, chickens, and garden, and makes a terrible dinner party guest because all she wants to talk about is feminism and reproductive rights.

Motherhood in Film and Television: Nine Months Forward, Three Centuries Back

Julianne Moore and Hugh Grant in the film Nine Months

This is a guest review by Tyler Adams.

Male Pregnancy

Nine Months, contrary to all expectations, is not about pregnancy. It’s about a man coping with a pregnancy. Yes. Here’s a film whose subject absolutely and biologically requires a woman – and it’s still about a man.

However, Nine Months does achieve sex equality of the most dubious sort – it’s insulting to men and women.

In the world of Nine Months, women have already accepted that their value lies primarily in their fecundity and that raising children is the only thing that matters. And now, it’s time for men to learn the same lesson.

Rebecca, whose unplanned pregnancy kick-starts the plot, knows full well the consequences of pregnancy. And she ignores them. She wants to keep the baby, immediately, after about five minutes of running time where she isn’t even onscreen.

To the film’s credit, it doesn’t demonize Rebecca for subtly, whisperingly alluding to abortion, but the film glosses over it too much to truly be considered ‘pro-choice.’

The conflict in the film’s first act is all about Samuel accusing Rebecca of getting pregnant on the sly. Yes. She tells him she’s pregnant and he turns it into an act of aggression against him. He blames it on her: condescendingly scoffing that birth control could be anything other than foolproof.

Then we get delightful dream sequences wherein Samuel imagines Rebecca as a praying mantis trying to eat him.

As Anita Sarkeesian points out in her excellent video ‘Tropes vs. Women: The Evil Demon Seductress,’ most praying mantis species don’t engage in sexual cannibalism. And neither do women. Except to adolescent men terrified of female sexuality.

Then there’s Samuel’s friend Sean, our childfree Straw-man. His girlfriend says she wants kids, she leaves when he says ‘no’ – a week later, he’s self-admittedly using another woman to ‘get him over the rough spots.’ He describes her breasts, calves, and skin like food, basically making her sound like a golem made of calzones, candy, and cake.

Bobbie, his ‘girlfriend’ is a stereotypically attractive young woman who literally never says a word during the whole film and has no narrative purpose other than temporary eye candy – so the film treats her about as well as Sean does. With Sean, the filmmakers are essentially equating child-freedom with misogyny. Hey, all women want kids, so not wanting to have kids means being anti-woman, right?

There certainly aren’t any major single, childfree, or independent women in the film. Gail is the only other main adult female character, and she has three daughters and one on the way. She talks to Rebecca about how ‘pregnancy is our profound biological right, something men can never experience,’ when Rebecca expresses her one, solitary note of doubt in the film (in a conversation that doesn’t even pass the Bechdel Test, given that it’s all about men and childbirth). This is pretty much the only time the film really deals with Rebecca’s perspective in a way that doesn’t relate to Samuel.

The idea is that it’s a woman’s duty to have children, which is ‘natural’ and therefore good, and a source of female privilege. Gail even frames this in feminist terms, as if Karen Horney’s ‘womb-envy’ concept was a step forward for gender equality (Enlightenment-era chauvinists celebrated women’s fecundity, too – Enlightenment-era feminists spent more time talking about women’s rights), and there’s anything empowering about the idea that women absolutely must have children regardless of their personal feelings, because, apparently, it’s the one advantage they have over men.

Rebecca calls independent single motherhood ‘fashionable,’ and ‘PC,’ basically dismissing it. She says she would rather have a family – as if a single parent family doesn’t count. All Samuel has to do is propose. Why she doesn’t just pop him the question is unexplained. Apparently, even the audience takes it for granted that that’s the man’s decision to make.

Nine Months is trying to celebrate motherhood through the eyes of a reluctant father. Rebecca’s feelings are barely addressed, and Gail doesn’t seem to know how to celebrate motherhood without also demeaning the childfree. She says of Samuel, ‘You have a baby, that means he’s gotta grow up. That’s what he’s afraid of. I mean, the baby’s the fun part…Look at all this stuff.’

She’s referring to the toy store merchandise. Yes. Apparently the joys of motherhood are not bonding with and nurturing other human beings, but buying them things. Gail has the ultimate conservative vision of motherhood – it combines chauvinism and capitalism!

Professional Parents

“What if the baby can see…your penis, coming toward it, that could scare the hell out of a baby…or what if your penis hit it in the head; it could cause brain damage…”

I’m not embellishing. That’s what Rebecca says, five months into her pregnancy, right before she and Samuel have sex. Rebecca is in her thirties, and – well, given the number of biological errors she made in two lines, I’m terrified of what else she doesn’t know about things you should and shouldn’t do during pregnancy.

What does it say about the state of women’s health education that this scene does not read as satire? And if it was supposed to be funny, well – maybe it could work as horror comedy, but I didn’t see any real commentary.

By the way, it should be mentioned that Samuel is a child psychotherapist. Or ‘kiddy shrink’ as Gail calls him. He’s a child psychotherapist and doesn’t know the first thing about pregnancy. He doesn’t know that amniotic fluid in the uterus protects the baby, and the cervix is blocked throughout most of a pregnancy, or you’d think he would have told Rebecca about it during their attempted sex scene.

He’s allegedly successful at his job, but all we see is his being clueless around children, insensitive around women, and ignorant about everything he should be an expert on. The man has to read a book like What to Expect When You’re Expecting, as if he’s never taken any classes on prenatal development. Well, he didn’t know that birth control is only 97 percent effective, so let’s just assume he’s never even taken sexual education at school.

We do see a competent, female gynecologist who more or less helps set Samuel on the right path, but for some reason, we spend a lot more time with bumbling Russian stereotype Dr. Kosevich. All the better to humiliate Rebecca with, I suppose, during her first doctor’s appointment, and later, during the world’s most farcical labor scene where Samuel nearly kills several people trying to get her to the hospital. Oh, and he starts a fistfight during her delivery. How you advocate birth while making it look horrible and playing it for juvenile laughs is anyone’s guess.

Marty and Gail are ultimately the people Rebecca and Samuel turn to for advice. No matter how poorly socialized their daughters are, they’re experts. A child psychotherapist like Samuel has to ask Marty and Gail for help, and as far as the narrative goes, they outrank a gynecologist. Even though Marty believes that you can tell the fetus’s gender by whether the mother’s carrying high or low, and that sexual positions influence sex determination. Although, the anti-intellectualism works well with the film’s overall sneering at creative and professional individuals.

Sean: “…the world is overpopulated; our society has too many starving children.”

Gail: “Well, I would say our society has too many starving artists…this was our parents’ home, but I don’t see you making any contribution…you keep this up you’ll die alone, like a dog, like a bum. Like Van Gogh.”

Sean is an artist, and Gail demeans him for it, because hey, we all know art doesn’t pay. Not like owning a car dealership like Marty, which is a much better contribution to society, of course.

Of course, Sean’s work seems irrelevant. Since he doesn’t ‘have’ a wife and kids, he’s not making any meaningful contribution to the world at all, according to Gail. She equates being single with being isolated, and being childfree with being childish. And the film takes her side.

When Sean argues that she and Marty used to have interests, and are now just obsessed with their children, she doesn’t even deny it. She just affirms that this is the way it should be. After all, earlier Rebecca instantly accepts that she has to quit her job as a dancing instructor – not just take a leave of absence; actually quit. Samuel, after his transformation, says ‘I don’t give a damn about me; I’m in love with my child.’ Apparently, parents of all genders should be denied personhood outside their children, and this is something all women want, and all men should want.

Girl Children

Ashley Johnson as Shannon Dwyer in Nine Months

Marty goes shopping for sports equipment as he’s assuring Samuel he’s having a boy, on no evidence. Apparently, all boys must be into sports, or they’ll be forced to be, and none of Marty’s daughters are athletes or could be.

When Samuel shows his distaste for being hit in the face or punched in the stomach by Marty or his daughters, Marty and the film insult Samuel’s masculinity. Especially when the daughters do it. When Marty gets into a fight with some Barney stand-in over some petty insults, Samuel doesn’t join in until he’s accused of being gay. It’s okay to be genuinely childish, apparently – like beating someone up in public over petty insults – as long as you look appropriately ‘masculine’ while doing so.

When Marty learns he’s having another girl, he complains (at the end, he relents and says, “I guess having another girl isn’t so bad.” Bravo.), and Samuel smirks about his good fortune in getting a boy. Earlier in the film, one of the reasons Samuel comes around and accepts the pregnancy is learning his child is a boy. The film obviously doesn’t value girls any more than it values women.

Samuel’s character arc is not about him overcoming his sexism – it’s about him ‘growing up’ by accepting fatherhood. When he reunites with Rebecca, he says he’s in love with his son, and is in love with her for having him – in love with her as a vessel, not a person, as Eve Kushner at Bright Lights Film Journal astutely observed. He never really misses her when she’s gone, never really asks how she’s feeling, or even has a real conversation with her – when he comes around, he comes around for the baby and not for her.

The film isn’t subverting the tropes that women, family, and children force men to lose personalities, that all women are content to be homemakers, that losing your personality is part of growing up, or that all people’s worth lies in childrearing – the film is just positively endorsing it all.

There’s nothing inherently bad about having children or getting married. One of the problems comes from the sentiment that you need a spouse and kids regardless of personal taste, or even regardless of the spouse and kids. The way many people talk about this is roughly: get a woman, or get a man, or get some kids. Any will do, apparently.

Children are not your unique children you can nurture and bond with – they’re just a burden that forces you to nobly suffer and mature. Marriage isn’t an outgrowth of a loving relationship between two complete individuals, it’s just an item on your life’s agenda to be crossed off, and establish you as an adult with a life worth living. Your spouse and children exist as objects related to you, and since that’s what you were looking for, that’s what you got.

It’s an attitude that not only reduces acceptable lifestyles down to practically nothing, but degrades the lifestyle it should be promoting. It’s a recipe for unhappy children, and unhappy marriages. Good thing Nine Months stops shortly after the nine months, and we don’t see our couple’s future. What we’ve seen – Samuel’s sullen patients, Marty and Gail’s children, as well as Marty and Gail – are evidence enough.

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Tyler August Adams is a Master’s candidate in Environmental Science and Policy, and writes decidedly unconventional reviews and reflections on the media at http://nevermedia.blogspot.com.

 

Quote of the Day: Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards

Manifesta by Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards

I’ve been reading the 10th anniversary edition of Jennifer Baumgardner’s and Amy Richards’ Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future, which was first published in 2000 and revised in 2010. One chapter in particular struck me, and in honor of Mother’s Day this past Sunday–and our upcoming theme on Motherhood, starting Monday (yay!)–I’d like to excerpt from the chapter, “Thou Shalt Not Become Thy Mother.”
The authors discuss the generational divide between mothers and daughters and the tension that often exists because mothers (within the past generation) raised children “with some hint of feminism in the air.” Their young daughters today, though, struggle to avoid becoming like their mothers. Here are two excerpts from the chapter that delve into that theme in greater detail:
Many daughters are scared of falling prey to the indignities we witnessed our mothers suffer. This fear is a challenge to younger feminists. Young women should understand where that fear comes from, rather than simply avoiding it. Unwrapping motherhood from the swaddles of patriarchy means that we will no longer have to work so hard to be different from our mothers.

As it is, we are more likely to notice what our mothers are doing wrong than what they are doing right. We notice if Dad treats Mom like shit, if homemaking appears to be a fake job, or if Mom worked outside the home and was never there to ask us about our day. We may think that when Dad does “Mom’s chores”–picking us up or doing the dishes or cooking–he’s a hero. We notice if we look to Dad for decision making, and to Mom for love and comfort and mending. If the marriage falls apart, we notice if Mom doesn’t know how to write checks, or dates jerks, or if her lifestyle becomes markedly poorer. We notice the passive-aggressive ways that she may work around powerlessness: the boyfriends she takes on to escape her unhappy marriage, the guilt trips, or the migraine headaches that befall her just before the guests arrived every holiday. Throughout or lives, we make mental notes, and swear on our mothers’ lives not to let that happen to us or do what they did. This includes the most trivial sins: we’ll never embarrass our kids, we’ll never have our hair done every Friday at the same time, we’ll never have a comfy-but-ugly outfit that we change into every day after work.

Our expectations of our dads are so much lower than our expectations of moms that dads don’t get such a bad rap from their daughters. We also let them off the hook because their lives appear more liberated–more like how daughters are told their lives should be. (pages 208-209)

 ———-

One True Thing, a Hollywood tearjerker based on a novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Anna Quindlen, successfully analyzed this generational repulsion. In this 1998 film, Renee Zellweger portrayed an ambitious New York City journalist, Ellen Gulden, who returns to her suburban home to care for her terminally ill mother. “The one thing I never wanted to do was live my mother’s life,” Ellen says. “And there I was doing it.” Meryl Streep, as Kate, zaftig and radiant in the housewife role, throws elaborate theme parties and makes a tabletop mosaic from her broken dishes. Creative and delightful as she is, Kate’s domestic achievements are nada compared to the father’s life as a sought-after English professor and would-be novelist (portrayed by William Hurt). After walking many miles (and scrubbing many toilets) in her mother’s shoes, Ellen learns that her mother’s accomplishments–her ability to bring the community together and make her family comfortable–far surpass her father’s inflated dreams of his own literary importance.

“You spend all of your life thinking about what you don’t have, and you have so much,” Kate warns her puffy-eyed ungrateful daughter just before she dies. In that moment, any daughter might be shocked (as we were) into recognizing that we view our mothers in light of what we think they lack–youthful looks, brilliant careers, respectful husbands–not what they have. Finally, Ellen learns that her mother has actually chosen and fulfilled with joy the very life that Ellen had learned to disdain. The film isn’t a call to join a kaffeeklatsch community group or bake up a storm as a one-way ticket to feminine authenticity. It’s a warning to mothers and daughters to take a clear-eyed look at each other, rather than stealing glances and making notes about what not to do. One True Thing teases out a feminist challenge: to understand the choices our mothers made, knowing they were made in a context we will never experience. For mothers, the challenge is to realize that their daughters came of age in an entirely different era, one that makes their lives fundamentally different. (pages 213-214)

The book is fabulous. Buy it.

Call for Writers: Motherhood in Film and Television

We decided that, in honor of Mother’s Day, May would be the perfect month for our Motherhood in Film and Television series. Many films and television shows don’t do a great job of portraying mothers; they’re often shown as either entirely absent from their children’s lives or completely overbearing nurturers–an example of what we like to call (s)mother love. But some films and television shows manage to convey the complicated experiences of motherhood by creating three-dimensional characters who connect with their children in complex ways. 
We want reviews of films and television shows that both positively and negatively capture motherhood. We want to explore what it means to be a mother, including how step-mothers, foster parents, single mothers, gay and lesbian parents, primary caretakers, women-run households, etc, fit into definitions of “motherhood.” We welcome critiques of downright awful illustrations of mothers (Monster-in-Law, anyone?) as well as praise for more nuanced examinations of mothers (as in Pieces of April–one of my personal favorites). We want to see representations of motherhood in different cultures and how the rules of what it means to be a “good” or “bad” mother may vary.
Our culture in particular obsesses over mothers. We sexualize them: MILFs. We chastise them: no breastfeeding in public! We ogle them: celebrity baby bumps, for instance. And we blame them for pretty much everything: check out Katha Pollitt’s piece “Wisconsin GOP Legislators Go After Single Mothers” for a recent example of this horrifying conservative (gasp!) phenomenon.
In short, this is a wide-open theme, and we welcome all proposals that examine motherhood in film and television, however one chooses to interpret it; there are, after all, no strict definitions. You can find a slew of lists online that might give you some ideas on where to start, and I’ll link to a few here:

Here are a few basic guidelines for guest writers on our site:
–We like most of our pieces to be 1,000 – 2,000 words, preferably with some images and links.
–Please send your piece in the text of an email, including links to all images, no later than Friday, May 18th.
 
–Include a 2-3 sentence bio for placement at the end of your piece.
Email us at btchflcks(at)gmail(dot)com if you’d like to contribute a review. We accept original pieces or cross-posts.

Submit away!