the film stepmom

[wheresthelight]

am sat watching for the first time in years and always thought it was quite funny before if a little creepy that the mum is coaching her kids to hate the stepmum but it is shit like this that makes some people think they have a god given right to attack us and portray us as evil bitches.

grrrr I used to like this film

Robert Redford, arguably the best looking man to have ever become an actor. I can't think of anyone hotter.

Paul Newman too Nicki.

Butch Cassidy is a great BOGOF deal of an eye candy film.

Just a touch Arse

Those seventies movies when they did them well were the best, The Sting, Kramer vs Kramer, The Deer Hunter. Just perfect movies with solid stories. I remember The Deer Hunter pretty much scene by scene from beginning to end, made such an impression.

You can't be that old Nick

Oooo Arse your back. Enjoy your trip>

I'm not but my Dad used to make me watch them because they were "REAL" movies.

He was right. With 'real' men.

Damn right!

I wish I was an old gimmer . I would have been around at just the right time.

What annoys me is Friends season 1. Ross's wife Carol leaves him to be with Susan. Then finds out she is pregnant with Ross's baby, and Ross is from then on expected to accept Susan as an equal third parent to his son or else portrayed as an uptight dick for having a problem with it.

That used to me so too riverboat. The episode where she says "well it's my baby too!" and where she and Carol decide to change the name . Who WOULDN'T have a problem with that?!

Exactly. I am a huge advocate for adults in separated/blended families all getting on and respecting each other, and for gay couples to be able to have children, but that show was just stupid in the way it tried to deliver that message. If they weren't lesbians it would never have been a feasible storyline.

That Carol/Susan relationship was very 2D generally though, hard to believe in. As though Ross was being wound up on purpose (or portraying gay relationships convincingly on screen was a bit beyond the writers. Or both.)

I saw an old film called Mother's Boys recently. It characterised the mother (Jamie Lee Curtis) as unhinged and the stepmother (Joanne Whalley) as an angel and was all round appalling popcorn nonsense. The Dad came out of it looking totally dopey .

I love Stepmom but it does make me cry!

I could identify with Julia Roberts when she turned up at the school as mum forgot, covered up for mum and then when Susan Sarandon arrived she didn't even thank her.

I also identified with Susan Sarandon when JR was giving the daughter advice about boys.

But they all worked through their feelings and found a way of being alongside each other and I think the mum character really had to work at making her peace with the fact that her children would grow up with their SM and not her.

"I have their past and you have their future" has me sobbing every time.

And the thought that having all found a way of being around each other, the mum then passes away .... .

I don't think anyone was particularly nasty, to me it just showed the multitude of emotions that can hijack you when you are thrust into a step situation.

I don't really understand the point that it's making it ok to be mean about sm? Surely it shows repeatedly that the mum is rotten but the sm keeps coming back, trying harder and generally proving she has earned the right to be a parent. ... to me that's illustrating that it isn't a wicked sm thing and being mean leaves you looking a bit silly and having to back track massively? Films are definitely subjective and I think there's an element of seeing what you want to see when you watch them.

Films are definitely subjective and I think there's an element of seeing what you want to see when you watch them.

Some will grasp at anything to make a point

I definitely don't see that film as saying its ok to be nasty about step mothers, I think it shows the Susan Sarandon character in a very bad light,that you have this other woman who is doing the best she can under difficult circumstances and without support from the childrens mother.

Flossy, what do you mean?

I just realized it looks like my comment is to you Today

I was agreeing with you. My comment was meant to follow on from yours as in some people will pick at anything to make a point like this film encourages SM bashing. Sorry at my cack handed way of doing it

Surely it shows repeatedly that the mum is rotten but the sm keeps coming back, trying harder and generally proving she has earned the right to be a parent...

Which could, by mums whose DCs have got SMs, reinforce a belief that they can be rotten and abusive with no negative effects on either the DCs or the SM.

Some mums are genuinely aggrieved if their DCs SM withdrawns, or even leaves the relationship, despite her own active encouragement of the DCs disrespect and/or poor behaviour towards the SM.

But, yes, all movies are interpreted subjectively. It's whether the subject matter of a storyline is upsetting/offensive to a significant enough proportion of the population that dictates whether or not it is released and/or successful. Right now, it's only a small propotuon of society that considers the fictional portrayal of emotional child abuse by a mother unacceptable. I can only hope that one day, this storyline will spark the same level of outcry as it would if it portrayed the mother regularly beating her DCs.

flossy it makes sense now!

I don't know wakey, I think the negative effects are shown but I guess it depends on what you take from it.