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What's the Story, Mornin' Glory?
Mommie Dearest
Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway) is an actress who has everything that she wants, except one thing, a child. In her previous marriage she was pregnant seven times and lost each one of her children before birth, so she decides to adopt one. The adoption agency denies her request to adopt based on the fact that she's been divorced twice and she lives alone. Joan's boyfriend Greg Savitt (Steve Forrest), who's a Hollywood lawyer, pulls some strings and a baby girl is brought to her home. Joan names her new child Christina. A few years later she adopts a son who she names Christopher. Joan loves her children and wants them to have everything that she didn't and only expects the best from her daughter, but even the slightest imperfection results in a harsh punishment for Christina. Joan's need for utter perfection becomes an obsession as she is removed from her movie label and as Christina grows older and refuses to conform to her mother's idea of perfection.
You Learn Something New Everyday...
Zing!
"Helga, I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at the dirt!" - Joan to her house cleaner.
Survey SAYS...
Mommie Dearest is a flick based off of the biography of the same name written by Joan Crawford's adopted daughter Christina. I'm going to assume that the movie version of Mommie Dearest is not 100% accurate of what actually happened, but it seems to me that Christina Crawford only wrote her "tell-all biography" about her mother merely out of spite of not being written into her will. With the exception of Joan beating Christina with a wire hanger and then later trying to strangle Christina, Joan didn't strike me as particularly abusive. Sure, she was extremely controlling and rather OCD-ish about cleanliness, but I couldn't really say that she was abusive (in the sense that she's constantly being abusive about everything). Joan Crawford was a bad mother, I won't try to refute that, but Christina wouldn't have gotten such a bad end of the deal if she just did what her mother said. By today's standards just yelling at your kids is considered abuse, but unless they're leaving out some major moments in her life then I think Christina is overreacting just a bit. Heck, I had a more verbally and mentally abusive childhood then she did and I certainly never considered myself abused. What I don't understand is why Christina always pushed her mother so hard. She knows she's going to be punished. She seems like a smart girl and all, it just doesn't make sense that she would continue to push her mom the way she does. Even a dog understands that if acting a certain way is what gets them hit or yelled at then they'll stop the behavior. Her brother never pushed her buttons and he was never punished. Now, this isn't to say that Christina didn't have a crappy childhood and her mom didn't suck some major parenting balls because she totally did, but "scandalous" and "abusive" maybe not so much.
That Wasn't so Bad Was It? 
I was left Feeling: Amused |
Young children should be strapped to a bed at night.
