boxlunches:glamaphonic:moniquill:No guys, I need to stop and talk about something in this movie and
boxlunches:glamaphonic:moniquill:No guys, I need to stop and talk about something in this movie and how fucking revolutionary it was; something that I haven’t seen in a movie before or since.This is a movie about a kid who leaves her birth family.Not a kid who find that they have a secret lineage or something that allows them to find their ‘true family’ - this is a movie about a kid whose true birth family is made up of bad people. So she gets out. And that is played as the right thing to do. She isn’t punished for it or made to feel bad about ‘abandoning her family’. There isn’t an underlying ‘but they’re your family and you have to love them’ or ‘they’re your family and they love you even if they don’t show it well or do hurtful things’ message of the kind that I see OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER in media. Matilda gets out and lives happily ever after because of it. We need a million more movies like this to counter the metric shit ton of movies that directly counter this message. #sometimes the family you start with isn’t a good one #but you can find your own #family is not absolute #blood is not absoluteGoddammit why did you have to go and remind me of how absolutely sweet this movie isListen up y'all, I’ve got something to say.Yon fuckers who will not stop telling me how I should just have some small relationship with my dad. NO! N, O. NO YOU FUCKING DEAF ASSHOLES LISTEN UP! I had a therapist who told me this “If I hadn’t met you, I wouldn’t have believed a child could go through what you did and be as stable as you are.” He’s been in the business somewhere around two decades. Let that sink in. Breath it in deep. My father fucked me up. My mom, a psychologist with a PHD and 25 years of experience, who knows firsthand what my dad’s like, still asks me at least twice a month if “maybe I just want to talk with him, meet him on the weekend?”. Let that sink in. That’s how deeply engrained the idea of family bonds as immutable is. I met a girl whose abusive father regularly beat her disabled brothers. Their social worker has no idea why they wouldn’t want to meet him regularly. None whatsoever. So if you don’t get it, or know someone who doesn’t, here’s a little tale. Jim has two friends: Harry and Phil. Harry and Phil don’t always get along, but it’s all good, they’re both great friends. Then one day, you learn Phil has been bullying Harry. Pretty bad too. So Harry leaves. Harry gets happy, learns how to live free. But Phil isn’t happy. He lost his chew toy. So Jim starts to see a new side to Phil. Phil starts to bully Jim. Bullies him real bad. And Jim finally gets up the courage to leave like Harry did. Runs. And he gets happy again too. Finally. But then, something happens. Everybody says “Why aren’t you friends with Phil?” “He’s found a new chew toy, he won’t hurt you now.” “You were friends once, right?”. Well here’s the thing. Phil’s a bully. And even if Jim could be friends with Phil, only meet him in public, talk to him only on his good days, maybe the holidays, JIM STILL DOESN’T WANT TO BE HIS FRIEND ANYMORE! Phil is a bully who abused him. Even if you could be friends with him, why the fuck would you want to be? This story tends to put things in perspective for people. And if it doesn’t, here’s few more things to consider. If someone asks you why you don’t want to have a relationship with your parent and they know about their abuse, ask them “Would you want your kid to have a relationship with them?”Ask them “Are there people, single people, who you would say should never have children? Well, those people grew up to not be single any more. They had kids. WHY DO YOU WANT THEM TO HAVE CHILDREN NOW?”One last thing, the most important. Family relationships are not privileged. They are not automatically better than any other. They are easier in some ways, deeper in others. When you have a blood relationship with someone, it makes it easy to make a connection. When you spend every day cooped up with someone for a few hours, it paves the way for a level of trust that you can’t find elsewhere. None of which makes these relationships immune to corruption. These relationships may have a higher “roof” than others. But the floor is just as low. I made my own family. Found people I could trust. Found people whom I have loved. I don’t need some narcissistic asshole to make my life complete. I never found someone to be a father figure for me. That’s sad. My life is the less for it. I just don’t see why it means I need a narcissistic master of psychological abuse in my life. -- source link