Gilmore Girls is a TV Comedy/Drama that portrays the many sides to Rory and Lorelai's mother-daughter relationship that is suppose to depict a real life relationship. They have their ups and downs but at the end of the day, above all, they are friends. As discussed in journal 8, Shannon Keating thinks that this is more of an unrealistic relationship and that no mom is that cool, because her relationship with her mother was not even close to that of Rory and Lorelai's. Personally, I think that there are many mothers who are best friends with their daughters and vice versa.
The drama, Mommie Dearest, is based of an autobiography written by Christina Crawford about her childhood with her movie star mother, Joan Crawford. This movie is Christina's way of getting the last word. As we discussed in class, some people think it might have been wrong to make this movie because Joan could not defend herself, but I think it was okay. This is Christina's way of dealing with her physically and mentally abusive relationship with her mother.
Brave is an adventure which explores a very relatable aspect of a mother daughter relationship. Merida wants to make her own path in life, while her mother wants her to become a proper princess. The mother becomes so obsessed with Merida living up to her name, she even breaks her bow at one point, Merida's most prized possession. Merida's mom claims, "What I do I do out of love." But I think sometimes there comes a point where one's actions are no longer out of love but are out of selfishness. The lesson to take from this is that sometimes as a mother, you just have to let go of your pride and listen to what your daughter wants. And as a daughter, sometimes you have to put your stubbornness aside and listen to what your mother wants because mother's usually do know best.
In our discussion about This American Life: Mothers's Day we talked about some universal aspects of a mother daughter relationship such as that mother's are often taken for granted and that kid's imitate their mothers. Mother's are often taken for granted because many people just expect them to do things that are assumed to be fitting to the role when in actuality mother's do not have to do any of it. Mother's do the things they do for us out of love and we should recognize that. Another thing that kids become pro's at is imitating their mothers. This is done for many reasons such as to remind themselves what not to do, to show their mom what she looks or sounds like, or out of pure entertainment.
White Oleander, the intense drama, is about the importance of a mother's influence on her daughter. Astrid's mother, Ingrid, imbedded all these theories about how to live into her daughter's head. She told her daughter that she should not believe in Jesus and people that do are the enemy, to never show any weakness, to stay beautiful, etc. Even while Ingrid was in prison she managed to manipulated Astrid and the people around her. Astrid realized that her mother's influence and "words of wisdom" were not doing any good. She fell into a dark place for a while and her mother saw this. Her mother final realized, like in Brave, that what she was doing was no longer out of love but out of selfishness. She let Astrid go and Astrid found her way again.