Somebody’s Daughter and Somebody’s Mother: Mother-Daughter Relationships on Screen
By Film and TV Editor Mia Tobin Power
A line from the 2014 film Boyhood has haunted me ever since I saw it. Early in the film, the protagonist's mother Olivia says, “I was somebody's daughter, and then I was somebody's f***ing mother.” In a few words, she conveys an essential truth about being a woman in a patriarchal society: you are defined by your relationships to others (especially men) and how you serve them, rather than who you are. But mainly it affects me because it makes me think about my own mother. Thoughtful representations of mother-daughter relationships on screen never fail to make me emotional, and I have noticed that recently, this theme has become more common in film and TV. There is so much potential for emotion and catharsis within it, because (to me at least) mother-daughter relationships are one of the most intense. They are inherently wrapped up in - as Olivia alludes to in Boyhood - how women relate to each other and their own womanhood within the pressures of a patriarchal society.
Greta Gerwig is the most talked-about director of 2023 due to the success of Barbie. When I watched Barbie, I was pleasantly surprised at how important the relationship between America Ferrera’s character Gloria and her daughter Sasha was to the story. One of my favourite aspects of the film was how, in my eyes, it cemented Gerwig’s status as the queen of films about mother-daughter relationships. When I think about the representation of these relationships on screen, I immediately think of her 2017 film Lady Bird.
Lady Bird is a coming-of-age film about the titular protagonist’s final year of high school, ending just when she goes to college. While the film does depict Lady Bird’s various friendships and romances, the most important relationship in her life and in the film is that which she shares with her mother, Marion. Gerwig excels at crafting the complex relationship between Lady Bird and Marion. A scene early in the film wherein the two characters go dress shopping perfectly encapsulates their volatile relationship. Marion starts an argument with Lady Bird by commenting passive-aggressively on how she is supposedly dragging her feet, but in the midst of it, Marion discovers a dress that both she and Lady Bird love. Their shared excitement completely changes the tone of their interaction and the scene. Earlier in the scene, Gerwig writes, “Her [Marion’s] voice is so warm and friendly with other people who are not her daughter”, which sums up their relationship. (On a sidenote: if you feel like crying, you should read the Lady Bird screenplay - almost every line Gerwig writes, even the action, is so poignant and impactful.) Gerwig adds even more emotional depth to this complicated scene in the one that immediately follows it: Marion, still wearing her work uniform, stays up late to alter Lady Bird’s new dress for her, then hangs it up in her room without waking her.
Towards the end of the film, Lady Bird’s acceptance into a college in New York ruptures her relationship with Marion. The scene where she begs Marion to speak to her instead of remaining silent and ignoring her is devastating - it makes me cry every time, as do the film’s final minutes. Marion refuses to properly say goodbye to Lady Bird at the airport as she leaves for college, but she regrets it almost immediately; she tries to come back to see her one more time, but Lady Bird is gone. Soon after, Lady Bird discovers that her father has put an envelope in her bag containing the many letters Marion tried to write to her expressing her feelings, but which she could never finish. They all begin with a similar sentiment: Marion tells Lady Bird that she loves her, but that she cannot communicate it to her. In the final scene, Lady Bird leaves a voicemail for her parents in which she asks Marion, “Did you feel emotional the first time you drove in Sacramento?” Having gained a new understanding of Marion from her letters, she tries to connect with her from all the way across the country. The film intersperses shots of Lady Bird driving with similar ones of Marion, emphasising the two characters’ similarities and connection despite their current physical and emotional distance. It is the perfect ending to a film that loves its two main characters despite their flaws, and cares deeply about depicting a complicated and messy, yet realistic, mother-daughter relationship.
Halfway through Season 2 of The Bear, showrunners Christopher Storer and Joanna Calo present viewers with an episode that flashes back to five years previous, thereby recontextualising the series so far and some of its main characters. This episode, “Fishes”, depicts an incredibly chaotic Christmas dinner at the protagonist Carmy’s family home. In introducing Carmy’s mother Donna, Storer and Calo fill in a lot of his backstory - we immediately understand why working in a kitchen is so uniquely stressful for him. But to me, one of the most fascinating and heartbreaking aspects of the episode is the insight it gives viewers into the relationship between Carmy’s sister Natalie (usually called by her nickname, Sugar) and Donna. The episode begins, surprisingly, not with Carmy, but with Sugar, thus establishing her subjectivity and suggesting that the next hour will also chronicle her experience of her complicated family. In this first scene, Sugar’s older brother Michael instructs her not to ask Donna again whether she is okay, because it will only make the day more tense. Before we even meet Donna, Storer and Calo establish the fraught relationship she has with each of her children, but especially Sugar. Throughout the episode, we see that Donna respects her sons more than she does Sugar. She actively looks down on Sugar - in one powerful moment, Sugar’s nickname is revealed to have been given to her by Donna when she once accidentally used sugar instead of salt when helping Donna cook. Her mother and the rest of her family have never let her forget this one mistake.
“Fishes” is a true emotional rollercoaster, but in my opinion, one scene stands out as the most affecting and painful to watch. As the stress in Donna’s kitchen builds, she accidentally smashes a plate, which sends her over the edge. Sugar, on her hands and knees, tries to clean up the smashed pieces, she pleads with Donna saying, “You’re okay! You’re okay!” Donna, meanwhile, accuses Sugar and the rest of her family of not caring about her as she threatens suicide. It becomes clear why Sugar so often asks Donna if she is okay: it is an attempt to communicate to her mother that she cares for her. But Donna is not receptive to this demonstration of love; she believes that her family does not appreciate her and does not want to be proven wrong. Carmy and Michael do not understand Sugar’s intentions either, both because Donna is not as cold towards them as she is to Sugar, and because they have written Donna off as beyond communicating meaningfully with. Sugar, however, wants so badly for Donna to be a better mother, and to have a good relationship with her. Ultimately, Storer and Calo encourage us to empathise with Sugar by leaving us as unsure as she is as to why Donna treats her so harshly.
I admire Lady Bird and The Bear’s depictions of mother-daughter relationships for their complex emotional intensity. I find representations of mother-daughter relationships so moving because there is always a sense of recognition between the two women: the mother sees in the daughter a person she was, or potentially could have been, and the daughter sees in the mother a person she may become. The mother has been shaped by the patriarchal society in which she lives, which is a fate that she cannot save her daughter from. In both Lady Bird and The Bear, it seems as though Marion and Donna see versions of themselves in their daughters, lives they could have lived and women they could have become, but which they ultimately did not. In a relationship where the emotional stakes are so high, there is infinite possibility for catharsis, and thus for a great story.
