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Mommy DirestThe worst mothers in America are at your local Cineplex.

By Moira Redmond
Posted Monday, July 22, 2002, at 11:14 AM ET
Ellen Burstyn plays Sandra Bullock's bad mama

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

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

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

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

Halle Berry's turn as a mean mama

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

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

Diane Lane as a hot mama

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

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

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

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

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Moira Redmond is a freelance writer and a former Slatester. You can e-mail her at .
Stills from: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Michael Tackett © 2002 Warner Bros.; Monster's Ball © 2001 Lions Gate Entertainment; Unfaithful by Barry Wetcher © 2002 20th Century Fox and Regency Enterprises. All rights reserved.
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Notes From The Fray Editor:

Are these bad moms real or imaginary? Who can say? The Fray. Still, beyond the good mother/bad mother debate, this Fray Editor was struck by the deep structural bond between Iduru's audience-centered "pro-catharsis" take on the Bad Mommy Movies and RGS's industry-centered "screenwriting by the book" version of the same. Finally, Thrasymachus and BML let us know what was missing all along.

Remarks From The Fray:

Is everyone in this discussion so isolated from reality in their little fantasy suburban lands that they think these kinds of mothers are pure fabrication by Hollywood? These kinds of mothers and far worse, do in fact exist. Hollywood script writers rarely pull this stuff out of thin air. I mean comparatively I would have given anything for a mother like half the ones mentioned in these categories. So would a few people I know. I think you guys and the writer of this article miss the point of these types of movies. The points are...#1)you are not the only persion who has been though this. Believe it or not when you grow up in a dysfunctional household you for a long time are convinced you are alone and that everyone else has functional normal homes. Then you begin to discover others and there is a tremendous sense of relief. #2) Some sense of understanding and reconciliation. Most of those who have suffered though abuse or dysfunctional behavior with their families will never know why, ether because the abusers don't know themselves why or because communication is so bad. So it gives "victims" a sense of closure and some explanation. #3) The realization that even though a person did evil things to you they are not evil. Separation of the perpetrator from the act. #4) You are a stronger person because of it. Dispite the fact that you went though something horrible and painful you are a better stronger person for it. I'm sure there are many other things that people get out of these movies, too. But these are the main ones I can think of. You know as cheesy as it sounds, I think these kinds of movies are very cleansing for our people in general.

-- Iduru

(To reply, click here.)

Hollywood, through its inequities, simplemindedness and masturbatory intentions has long been guilty of trivializing the issue of "toxic parenting".

It's as if each studio has made Susan Forward's
"Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy
and Reclaiming Your Life" required reading for anyone attempting a film on parent/child relationships. The caveat is that a pat emotional bonding or hopeful conclusion be included.

One can only conclude that due to a lack of imagination and/or personal grounding, films based on parent/child relationships must incorporate the following:
1) Parent must be either obtuse or emotionally
retarded.
2) Child must show tendancies of reckless behavior, but the stability to overcome them.
(Items 1 and 2 can be used for either comic or dramatic effect...depending on the required audience or Oscar intentions)
3) Painful and embarrassing conflicts must be focused on in order to manipulate the core audience.
4) Emotionally satisfying bonding must be achieved for a manipulative and dihonest happy ending.

I don't mind fiction or fantasy or happy endings. I just don't think Hollywood Therapy is
helpful or honest.

-- RGS

(To reply, click here.)


One Category Moira Forgot: The Mom Is Planning a Coup D'Etat Against the U.S. Government With The Help of The Chinese And Conspired to Have Me Turned Into A Brainwashed Assassin mother from The Manchurian Candidate.

Next to her, all other evil movie moms are model citizens.

-- Thrasymachus

(To reply, click here.)


I long for "Mom is an idiot." Seriously. I want to see screen mothers who smack their thumbs with hammers, lounge on sofas drinking beer, win pissing contests with their sons, drag-race in the middle of suburbia, tell offensive jokes at PTA meetings, get into fist-fights with snake-voiced bus drivers and generally raise their children to be no-account excuse-making slobs.

For too long, the role of stumbling imbecile parent has been filled by men. Down with the patriarchy.

-- BML

(To reply, click here.)

(7/23)

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