Thursday, August 28, 2008

What is the real relationship between mothers and fathers and their daugthers?

Artist Candice Bretiz explores separately, the relationships of mothers and fathers regarding their children; Most specifically their daughters. The piece takes clips from multiple movies: "Mommy Dearest," "StepMom", "Father of the Bride," etc; and they black out the movies only allowing certain footage and one person to be viewed in their speaking. The piece brings up multiple questions regarding how the original meaning of something can be distorted when things are taken out of context.
In the first part of her work, Bretiz takes a display of 6 movies with "mother-like" figures in them. In this sequence of clips you hear from all six characters. They are either yelling, screaming, crying or talking about what it means to be a mother. What is interesting in this piece is that with the blacked out background of the original movie scene, you are left with what seems to be a sort of therapy session. The actors are in a way discussing the trails of being a mother to each other, what to do that is right and what to do that is wrong. But in each piece you see that the women contradict themselves because essentially they go against all of the "right" that they had been trying to display.
The same tool was used to display the fathers in the second part of Bretiz's piece. Except for where you may find the women to be screaming and yelling and getting mad at other people, it is almost as if the father's emotion and anguish is more internal. Like they aren't mad at their children, but more mad at themselves. This was displayed most in the Tony Danza piece where he is conveyed as sighing and getting upset when he finds out that someone he is talking to does not have children. It is as if he is saying, and generally parents do sya this, " Who are you to say anything to me when you have no children of your own?"
When comparing the two you almost see what many may identify as the reality of these parental relationships. The mothers are often more times aggressive to their daughters, whereas the fathers tend to coddle and want to hold on to the little girls they once knew. To the point where they get angry and act out of character as they are faced with their daughters growing up.

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