It’s all about the mother/daughter relationship.

In Freud’s theories of sexuality there is an important phase in young development that occurs in both sexes. This is called the Oedipus Complex. In boys it is very simple: boys first love mom, then begin to see father as a threat and competition, and then begin to hate father.

In girls it is more complicated. In girls they first passionately love their mother, then move away from them and then transfer this love to the father.

Freud’s main point in this paper is analyzing and conjecturing about how/why this split from mother to father happens.

This love for their mothers is very strong and lasts much longer than it would in boys. The mystery is then, why the daughters eventually hate their mothers.

A big part of it comes from the castration complex. When a girl is little there is a point where she realizes that she does not have a penis (or what Freud says “the consequent superiority of the male and her own inferiority”). There are 3 lines of development that can come from this for the girl:

1. The girl turns her back on sexuality altogether
2. The girl becomes focused on the idea of eventually getting a penis. She begins to embrace her masculinity. In extreme cases she can become gay
3. the normal feminine attitude in which she takes her father as the love-object (the Oedipus complex)

There are many reasons why Freud guesses why daughters turn on their mothers:

• jealousy of others (father included) and an unsatisfactory love (from a childish all consuming love) makes the daughter find another love (the father)
• the girl blaming her mother for not being male/having a penis.
• Associating the mother for exciting then stopping her sexuality (when she’s young with her phallic masturbation by accident when cleaning the child)
• The mother didn’t breastfeed long enough

These all lead to the daughter eventually turning away from the mother and going towards the father. This really develops a woman’s sexuality. For instance, although she may choose a husband that reminds a woman  of her father, she eventually may treat her husband with hostility/love of her mother. There are still a lot of things that are unsure (some psychologist think that boys and girls Oedipus complex work the same way), so even Freud who is sure they are different, cannot say for sure what occurs during/after this split.

My Question:

In The Help we see many different types of mother/daughter relationships of many different ages. Do we see evidence of the young mother love and do we see evidence of the hated mother relationship?

Also is this theory complicated when there is more than one mother in the case of the help raising these children?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/movies/awardsseason/for-tate-taylor-making-the-help-was-a-tale-of-adversity.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

From The Help, a scene that really stuck out to me was the scene in which Skeeter and Charlotte, are positioned in front of the mirror in Charlotte’s room. This scene, one of the first encounters that we are introduced their relationship as mother and daughter. We see that Charlotte is pressuring Skeeter to try on clothes, jewelry, hairstyles that aren’t really her style, in hopes that she would wear such clothes on a date with a man. There are a few seconds where the camera is showing us the reflection of both Charlotte and Skeeter looking into the mirror where Charlotte is standing behind Skeeter. The use of the reflected image of the mirror suggests that what we see of Skeeter and her mother is symbolic of the way that Charlotte wants her daughter to reflect herself. Additionally, because Charlotte is standing behind Skeeter, she wants to exert some sort of dominance over her, as she peers down at her in the mirrored image but also as her body frames Skeeter’s body.

This is supported by Williams argument in Something Else Besides a Mother where she states,

“Clearly, the paralleled closeness and similarity of mother to daughter sets up a situation of significant mirroring that is most apparent in these films. One effect of this mirroring is that although the mother gains a kind of vicarious superiority by association with a superior daughter, she inevitably begins to feel inadequate to so superior a being and thus, in the end, to feel inferior. Embroiled in a relationship that is so close, mother and daughter nevertheless seem destines to lose one another through this very closeness” (479).

I  took this claim quite literally and applied it to The Help by singling out a scene that uses a mirror. Since Williams is speaking about the way that mothers seek to cultivate daughters to become their respectable mothers, the mirror is a cinematic way of suggesting a reflection without expressing it explicitly in dialogue. Throughout the film, we see Charlotte attempting to remain a superior figure in Skeeter’s life, although Skeeter exemplifies just as much superiority from going to college.  The scene that I mentioned is especially important in establishing the way the mother tries to keep her superiority before she inevitably accepts her inferiority later in the film.

I know tomorrow will be a bit hectic trying to work through our discussion of the 3 articles in addition to reactions to The Help, so I wanted to post my summary notes of Kaplan here on the blog. Kaplan’s piece serves a two-fold purpose; to educate us about the representations of mothers in Hollywood, and to address the attitude toward and full discussion (or lack thereof) of motherhood by feminist film critics.

The piece discusses how Hollywood films tend to relegate the Mother to the periphery of the film. They are not shown as complex characters who have conflicting needs and roles.

Kaplan outlines four paradigms of the Mother:

• 1. Good Mother: She is all-nurturing, and lives only through her family
• 2. Bad Mother/Witch: She demands her own life, takes control of the narrative & is therefore punished for her violation
• 3. Heroic Mother: She suffers/endures for the sake of the family; is slightly more central to the narrative than the Good Mother
• 4. Silly/Weak/Vain Mother: She is the center of comedies and is ridiculed by the members of her family

Additionally, Kaplan notes that the Mother is rarely single, and traditionally rarely combines motherhood & work. She argues that the narratives which do focus on the Mother do so only because she is resisting her “proper” place; the heart of the film is to work to re-inscribe the Mother back into her appropriate role as defined by patriarchy. In this way, films aim to teach us about the life that we should want (Kaplan gives examples of Stella Dallas to show how this function of film serves to indoctrinate us to desire a particular set up of social roles within a capitalist context).

Another important aspect of this piece was the recognition that traditionally, feminist film critics have focused on the Mother from a daughter point-of-view. She mentions the tension and conflict that feminist film critics have, angry at their mothers for reinforcing and working within the patriarchal structure. However, Kaplan concedes that this is a repetition of patriarchy’s omission of the Mother.

At present, Kaplan says that there is a split between representing Mothers as the Old, traditional mother and the Career mother. The Career Mother, in her dedication to her career, loses the very qualities that are needed to be cast as a good mother. However, more recently fathers have been portrayed as nurturing, and are now allowed permitted to acquire feminine attributes.

Questions to consider:

1. Can you think of examples of each of the 4 types of Mother images?

2. Why is it problematic that until recently the perspective of the mother was left unexamined?

3. Can you think of examples that contrast old & new representations of mothers/fathers that show either a combination of motherhood & career (for mothers) or a nurturing fatherhood (for fathers)?

Monday and Wednesday was the first time I’ve actually seen The Help and I have to say it was a great experience. What I loved about the film is how it had different types of women characters rather than one singular like we have seen in the previous films. We have the high white elite, the “white trash”, the educated woman, and most of all the African American maids. It was so interesting to see how these women interacted with one another and how they shared the screen together.

It was nice to see a film solely based off the women’s lives rather than their dependence on men. If anything the men were apart of the subplot and most of the time gave “the gaze” or “power” to the women. I think this was a great way to show that women can carry a film, and do not need a male element to keep the story moving. I still feel that the best element of this film is all the different types of women. The high class New York contrasted with the Mississippi women. There is so much going on and it’s great to just see a film that has women in a variety of roles not just one non-linear character.

‘The Help’ is one of my favorite movies. It is one of those movies where no matter how many times I watch it I can always count on it to bring me to tears (multiple times).

The plot of this film is based on a true story and is an adaptation of a novel. The story is obviously very progressive for something that takes place in the 50’s. In “The Case of the Missing Mother,” Kaplan pointed out an aspect of the film that I love, but had never thought of before. Kaplan discussed how strong female relationships are things that disturb and intimidate the patriarchy. However, if these strong bonds persevere they can lead to great successes.

The female relationships in the movie are so powerful because they are completely mutual. Although the black, female characters appear inferior, they give the white women just as much as the white women give them. For example, in one of the final scenes we see how far both Celia and Minny have come: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j0c-W-xVlE They are both supportive of each other and make the other more confident.

The same is true for Skeeter’s relationship with Aibleen and Minny. Both give the other courage. Skeeter follows her dreams of “writing about something she cares about” and not succumbing to the “role” her patriarchal society expects of her.  Aibleen and Minny find the courage and power to speak out against the discrimination and unreasonable lifestyle they lead.

Men play little to no role in the film (in my opinion). The story and characters demonstrate the power female relationships have as long as they are not battered down by societal fears and expectations.

I still have not stopped thinking about the feminist sex scene since our discussion in class. Its been plaguing me really. What’s really been bugging me is the idea of the gaze being male especially the audience. I think it is not possible because of this. The thought that kept coming back to me was about banned books. When I was younger one of my favorite books was Olive’s Ocean. In high school I learned that it is one of the most banned books in this country. It baffled me. The books was banned for “sexually explicit content”. The most sexually explicit moment that occurred is the main character receives her first kiss and an awkward flirtation. Yet this does not stop the book from being challenged by numerous libraries and schools. I was 8 or 9 when I first read the book and had no issue with it. But others found the book horribly offensive. This is similar to the issue with the feminist sex scene. Someone will always be offended. A director can work as hard as they possibly can to avoid any instances of sexism but someone may still take issue with how the scene is filmed.

When we first started this discussion a clip from the movie Across the Universe came to mind. This scene is not exactly a sex scene. However it is clear that the two and possibly others do have sex. I think what is so great about this scene is the body positions. They are in water so there is no “on top”. They just float around equally. Additionally although they are naked, there is no showing of any genitalia on either Jude or Lucy. It is simple and clean and to me both characters seem  equal in their positioning, how much of their body is revealed and who is in control. To me this is as close to a sex scene as I could imagine where it is neither sexist and does not try to use equal exploitation as a solution to sexism either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrrSH6P7eDw

I’m really excited to continue watching the movie in class tomorrow. I think that so far the film is very interesting. It really focuses on a lot of different aspects. I feel like in a lot of what we’ve covered in class so far, the question of woman as a nurturer or as independent has been the main topic. I am eager to see how race now plays into this as well. Since I have never seen the movie before, I am also curious to see if Minnie’s relationship with her husband heightens. When we left class the other day, we saw her being abused by her husband, but that was it. I am wondering how, and if, we will see how Minnie eventually handles the abusive relationship that she has with her husband.

Sam

Something very interesting happened in class today. I have already seen The Help twice, so I thought there would be nothing that would be new or jump out at me. So I watched the film I tried to focus in on the dynamics of each of these women in relation to their children and especially the mothers/daughters. Yet as the movie progressed, it was a different relationship that really stuck out to me: the relationship between the wives and their husbands. What I noticed was that in the relationships where the wives were also mothers, the husbands treated them very indifferently or, in some cases, very rudely. They would be dismissive, abusive or in the very least unaffectionate. The one marriage that is used as a comparison is the marriage of Celia and Johnny. With no children, Celia and Johnny are extremely affectionate with each other and the movie heavily imply the strong sexual relationship between them.

I’m not sure if this was intentional or not, but it seems to be a comment on the lack of sexuality given toward the mothers. As if they could not be the sexual beings like Celia is, and also be portrayed as mothers as well.