Let's hear it for all the mothers (and aunts!) who raised us — including the ones onscreen
Holding Space is a joint column by Anne T. Donahue and Peter Knegt that "holds space" for something or someone in popular culture. This is its second edition.
Peter: Anne, it feels like this might be exactly the right time for us to officially hold space in this column for something I know we've already both been holding space for… our entire lives. I'm speaking, of course, of mothers. Because it's almost Mother's Day! So I was hoping you would be down to celebrate our biological mothers, the mothers we chose and the mothers who chose us, as well as the mothers we love on screen, on stage, in song and on the page. Basically, I want us to have a little Motherfest.
Anne: Peter, I'm as obsessed with my mom as I am obsessed with our column (very), so this is the topic I've been waiting for. I live with my mom! I describe her as Sophia to my Dorothy — if Sophia and Dorothy were younger and watched an obscene amount of Food Network.
And we've always been close! I cried almost every day in Grade 1 because I missed her and wanted to hang at home (also because my first grade teacher verbally assaulted students on the regular and she scared me). It also meant that I learned to steer clear of any mom-centric pop culture. The Land Before Time? Took a bathroom break when Littlefoot lost his mom so I wouldn't ruin my cousin's sleepover by bawling. Bambi? I've never seen it, and I refuse to. Stepmom? Jesus Christ. Somehow it became one of my favourite movies as a teen, but I chalk 99 per cent of that up to the fact that I wanted to be — and still want to be — Julia Roberts in that role.
Peter: First of all, the fact that you and your mom live together is honestly so … aspirational. I have very often dreamt of that eventually happening for me and my own mother, because we should all be so lucky as to be in a Dorothy/Sophia situation. And I know that's not a situation that would work for everyone (including, in many episodes of The Golden Girls, Dorothy and Sophia themselves), but I feel very lucky that I have the kind of relationship with my mother where it would mostly work. And I'm so happy that you and your mom not only have that kind of relationship too, but are also living out its full potential!
Some things we also share are an aversion to movies where the mom dies and wanting to be Julia Roberts. And yet, I have never even dared to watch Stepmom, even though it came out when I was 14 years old, a.k.a. the height of my wanting to be Julia (a tendency that remains, it's just a bit more muted). I simply refused because, to me, that is a central plot far more terrifying than any legit horror movie.
That said, there is one movie where the mother dies that I have dared to watch repeatedly, because it just so happens to be … the movie my mom was watching when she went into labour with me: Terms of Endearment. Even though the sight of Debra Winger's young son bawling at her deathbed absolutely destroys me every time, I cannot deny myself watching the movie that officially launched my in-person relationship with my mother at least once a year, usually around my birthday.
But we have spent far too much time on the topic of mothers dying, and not enough about mothers living. Who are some of your all-time favourite mothers who don't die at the end of the thing?
Anne: I've never seen Terms of Endearment! Is this the year I right that wrong? Probably not, because I cried so hard at the end of Dying For Sex that my mom has banned me from watching death-centric content for the time being. (Good call, Dee.)
But living, wonderful, excellent mothers — and mother figures! Is it weird that I've always been partial to movies about mother- types instead of mothers themselves? Easily because I was so worried that any/all mom-based stories would end in heartbreak, so I kept emotional distance by gravitating toward movies and TV shows about women who fulfilled a similar-but-different role.
Like, I love The Parent Trap (1998), but I found a kindred spirit in Chessy. In A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, I aspired to be like Aunt Sissy, who lets Francie really mourn the loss of her dad. Loretta in Drop Dead Gorgeous is everything I aspire to be for my friends' kids! Aunt Meg in Twister! Hilda and Zelda in Sabrina the Teenage Witch! Even in The Sound of Music, Maria steps up for Liesl after she gets caught sneaking out, and I remember thinking, "Oh, I want to be like that!" (Even though I would be a terrible nanny.)
I've always known I don't want kids of my own, but even as a kid myself, I also knew I wanted to be somebody who could be a safe space for younger folks in the way these characters were. Or at least a person who would be like, "We all f--k up, and it's fine! Just be yourself, babe! I'm not here to judge! Now let's go to the Gap!" But then again, my Nana,mom and aunt raised me at the mall, so roaming a plaza and talking about feelings is rooted in my DNA. Kind of in the same way watching Stepmom over and over led me to be the only middle-schooler who was extremely into Ed Harris.
Peter: I promise you, you were not the only middle-schooler extremely into Ed Harris. (There's an extremely bad joke about teenage me seeing him in The Rock and The Firm that I'm just not going to make.) I also applaud you for even finishing Dying For Sex. I stopped with two episodes left and just decided to pretend that she must get miraculously cured.
But I am definitely with you on having a deep affection for mother-types, specifically aunts. I have two actual aunts that I absolutely adore (hi, Audrey and Tina!) and so many spiritual aunts from every corner of pop culture. The two that immediately spring to mind are Auntie Mame, who became my guiding light when I saw Rosalind Russell play her in the 1958 film adaptation of Patrick Dennis's fabulous book Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade, and Aunt Jackie, who Laurie Metcalf played to perfection in over 300 episodes of Roseanne and The Conners. Like my two wonderful biological aunts, both of those fictional women helped raise me!
There are also so many non-fictional women in pop culture I must tip my Mother's Day hat to for aiding me in my quest to become a fully realized being. Women like Björk, Whitney Houston, Madonna, Rosie O'Donnell, Betty White, Sandra Bernhard, Linda Ronstadt, Kate Bush, Margaret Cho, Maggie Smith, Joan Didion, Joan Rivers, Joan Cusack and Joan Crawford (Joans really are the best). These are all women I've never even met (except Madonna, once!) and yet these are all women whose imprint on my identity is undeniable.
Anne: My Nana rented All About Eve for me one afternoon when I was about 10, which shaped me — or at least set the stage for me saying very dramatic things at inopportune times.
Then there's Lucille Ball, Stevie Nicks, Mary Tyler Moore, Valerie Harper, Bea Arthur and Whoopi Goldberg — who I only knew as Guinan from Star Trek because my parents were Trekkies, but whose advice was always so perfect. I watched so many old TV shows because that's what my Nana and my mom and dad watched, so I tried to emulate these larger-than-life people who epitomized independence and wit and always said what they thought. Then I found Phyllis Diller, Elaine Stritch and Carrie Fisher when I was in my 20s, and they further reinforced that my favourite kind of grown-up was "a real broad." Also the Simpsons character who was christened "queen of the harpies" by her husband in couples' counselling. I think even as a child, I was like, "She's got gumption."
How did your maternal influences shape your own personality? Do you ever find yourself falling back on the traits you looked up to them for? I find that when I'm nervous or unsure of how to manoeuvre in a social setting, I'll cling to the comedy divas. Whether it's effective is another story, but I'll actively — mentally — channel, say, Bea when I need to step up and play the part of an assertive person. Or I'll channel Rhoda Morgenstern when I'm in a social situation where I don't know many people. Laugh at myself first, etc. But I might also just be coming off extremely unhinged by sharing this, so if I am … well, here we are.
Peter: We always hold space for unhinged in this column, though I don't think that's how you're coming across at all. Summoning the great Valerie Harper to alleviate social anxiety reads to me more like brilliance. Either way, I definitely know the feeling. For example, I have channeled each of The Golden Girls on countless occasions, depending on what I'm up against. Do I need to seduce? Brain, call Blanche. Do I need to be crass? Brain, call Sophia. Do I need to serve innocence? Brain, call Rose. Do I need to absolutely destroy a social situation with some wit and sarcasm? Brain, call Dorothy. They'll be there waiting for me forever — a maternal guiding light for every moment.
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