Fittingly, on the heels of Mother’s Day, LOST devoted an entire episode to the relationship a mother has with her children. The LOST community of believers was as divided about this episode as the pitting between good and evil which has played this season. Some called this episode an epic failure…jumped the shark….too many unanswered questions. Or more succinctly, too many new questions raised without any answers and we’re only a few episodes away from the SERIES finale!
“Others” like me, were mesmerized by this episode and ranked it among the best ever. Although I will agree that the casting was horrible, the acting flat (I mean seriously if Terry O’Quinn doesn’t win the Emmy this year—they should just cancel that award show), and the dialogue at times was forced. However, the very “fabric” of the piece intrigued me and I spent the 45+ minutes watching absolutely glued to screen and the donkey wheel in my head was spinning.
Maybe it’s because I have a TON of mother issues. But, for a very long time I’ve had a fascination with the mother figure or more pointedly, the absence of strong mothers, in popular culture.
In fact, my first published and public work as a Shakespearean academic scholar was on this very subject. Hard to believe given his status and influence in English Literature, but Shakespeare, in his time, was considered a low base “artist” and rose to the status of a “pop icon.” Oh what People and US Magazine would do today to the Bard. His barroom brawls, mistresses, subject matter and cross-dressing at the theater!
One common theme in his works is the conspicuous absence of “mother.” There are only few “mothers” in his works, most notably Gertrude (Hamlet) and Hermione (not the Harry Potter character, the mother in the Winter’s Tale). Not very flattering characters.
More than a century or two or three later (okay I’m into words not math!), another low-base artist (animator) named Walt Disney rose to “pop culture” icon status…Is Disney not the GREATEST pop icon brand ever! In all of his works the mother is conspicuously absent as well. Bambi’s mom dies. the evil “step-mother” looms in Snow White and Cinderella, and where the hell is Ariel’s mother to warn her of the dangers of falling in love with a human in the Little Mermaid? And, those mothers who do exist, Aurora’s mom in Sleeping Beauty for example, are marginalized.
And, then there is LOST. Arguably the best show in today’s popular culture whose writers certainly don’t occupy the status of a JK Rowlings, Stephan King, or Dan Brown (the best sellers of our times). In the first episode there is the pregnant Claire who was warned about her having a baby raised by another, Rousseau who had her baby stolen from her and then went crazy, Eloise Hawking, a mother who seriously has some f-ed up motives, and the mystery of why woman can’t carry to term on the Island, etc.
Ironically, LOST devoted an entire episode (and a series to, Christian Shephard, Ben Linus, Anthony Cooper, Pierre Chang, and Charles Widmore) to “all the best cowboys have daddy issues” but it seems to me that all the best “princesses”—yes that is what all us daughters have been conditioned to believe we should become—have mommy issues.
Happy Belated Mother’s Day. Can’t wait for the finale.
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