With Mother’s Day just round the corner, it’s a prime time to reconnect and bond with our mothers and other female role models and mentors over the coming weekend (or to try to, at the very least).
One of the alternatives to the usual flowers-chocolate-cake-dinner ideas for Mother’s Day that we suggested in our 2011 list is to watch a movie together with your mom – a movie that includes and addresses themes of violence against women which you may be able to digest and discuss together afterwards as a family.
In this article, we present a selection of 10 movies about mothers that may give you a few ideas about what to watch this weekend. Not all of them include themes of domestic violence and violence against women but at least one of them (Georgia Rule) deals with sexual abuse and it’s effect on the grandmother-mother-daughter dynamic. Some of them focus more on sister dynamics (Practical Magic). Most of them explore the the complexities of motherhood and of the mother-child relationship.
This list is part of our way of honouring the important role that mothers play in our lives and we hope it serves as a reminder as to why we need to take action as individuals and communities to stop violence against women, including domestic violence against the mothers in our lives.
It’s time to stop violence against women. Together.
————————————————————————–
Movie About Mothers 1 – Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
After years of mother-daughter tension culminating in a seemingly irreparable feud, Siddalee Walker receives a scrapbook from the “Ya-Yas”, her mother’s girlhood friends detailing the adventures of their childhood and youth in an effort to help Siddalee understand why her mother became the way she was.
Movie About Mothers 2: Erin Brockovich
Julia Roberts plays an unemployed single mother who becomes a legal assistant and almost single-handedly brings down a California power company accused of polluting a city’s water supply. What gives Brockovich’s story emotional heft is the the struggle she faces as a single mother balancing work and family.
Movie About Mothers 3: Georgia Rule
Georgia Rule follows a rebellious, uncontrollable teenager who is hauled off by her alcoholic mother to spend the summer with her grandmother. Her journey will lead all three women to revelations of buried family secrets including the sexual abuse faced by the teenager by her stepfather and how they pull together to face the abuser.
Movie About Mothers 4: Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is a 1967 American film starring Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn and was groundbreaking for its positive representation of the controversial subject of interracial marriage, which historically had been illegal in most states of the United States until the late 1960s. One of the strengths of the film is the mother-daughter relationship and the relationship forged between both mothers in the face of the racial prejudice of the fathers.
Movie About Mothers 5: How To Make An American Quilt
The story centers on the stories of several women in a quilting bee as they construct a wedding quilt as a gift for a member’s granddaughter, Finn Dodd (Winona Ryder). Finn is a Berkeley graduate student visiting her grandmother Hy (Ellen Burstyn) and great aunt Glady Joe (Anne Bancroft) in Grasse, California, over the summer to work on her master’s thesis and to decide whether she is truly ready to marry her fiance. During her stay the women share their personal stories of love, loss and relationships, which leads her to reflect on her life and where it is headed.
Movies About Mothers 6: Little Women
This 1994 adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic, Little Women, is great family fare about motherhood, marriage, growing up, feminism and sisterhood. Aside from Winona Ryder and Susan Sarandon, it features several current A-list actors when they were still making a name for themselves including Kirsten Dunst, Claire Danes and Christian Bale.
Movies About Mothers 7: Mamma Mia
For those of you who prefer lighter fare, this fluffy candyfloss musical comedy about a single mom, her soon-to-be married daughter and the three men who could be the latter’s father makes for great popcorn fare.
Movies About Mothers 8: Practical Magic
Sally and Gillian Owens are born into a family of witches and were raised by their aunts after their parents’ death, the sisters grew up in a household that was anything but typical–their aunts fed them chocolate cake for breakfast and taught them the uses of practical magic. This is a movie in the magical realist vein that explores the themes of relationship violence, sisterhood and motherhood.
Movies About Mothers 9: Stepmom
Susan Sarandon plays a terminally-ill mother has to make her peace and bond with her ex-husband’s life new wife (Julia Roberts), who will be her children’s new stepmother. Definitely keep a box of tissues on hand for this one.
Movies About Mothers 10: The Joy Luck Club
The Joy Luck Club is an adaptation of Amy Tan’s novel of the same name and follows the stories of four pairs of Chinese mothers and daughters as they try to bridge the generation gap between the China-born mothers and the American-born daughters while reconciling the pain and misogyny faced by their grandmothers. This is a complex film that tackles, among other themes, domestic abuse and rape.
————————————————————————
Want to treat your mom to something special this Mother’s Day without breaking the bank while helping The Pixel Project raise funds?
Dedicate a Song to Her!
For just $0.99, you can download our first Music For Pixels song – a cover of ‘The Rose’ by AHMIR, YouTube’s #1 R&B group and load it onto your mother’s computer’s iTunes or digital music player. Not sure about it? Listen before you buy here: