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Constructing the Mothering Experience: Videos on Motherhood
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CONSTRUCTING THE MOTHERING EXPERIENCE: VIDEOS ON MOTHERHOOD
AND BABY MAKES TWO: SINGLE MOTHERHOOD. 29 mins. 1998. Films for the Humanities and Sciences, P.O. Box 2053, Princeton, NJ 08543-2053; phone: 609-275-1400; email: custserv@films.com; website: www.films.com. Sale: $89.95.
MOMS: A CELEBRATION OF REAL MOTHERS. 56 mins. 1999. Prod./dir: Louis Alvarez and Andrew Kolker. Acorn Media Publishing, Inc., 801 Roeder Rd., Suite 700, Silver Spring, MD 20910; phone: 800-474-2277; email: info@acornmedia.com; website: www.acornmedia.com. Sale: $19.95.
MOTHER LOVE. 58 mins. 1996. Prod.: Christine Fugate and Eren McGinnis, 1996. Filmakers Library, 124 East 40th St., New York, NY 10016; phone: 212-808-4980; email: info@filmakers.com; website: www.filmakers.com. Rental: $75.00. Sale: $295.00.
THE MINISKIRTED DYNAMO: A MOTHER DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIP. 55 mins. 1996. Prod./dir.: Rivka Hartman. Filmakers Library, 124 East 40th St., New York, NY 10016; phone: 212-808-4980; email: info@filmakers.com; website: www.filmakers.com. Rental: $75.00. Sale: $350.00.
These four films demonstrate the conflicted meanings of motherhood in society and through time. The most satisfying of the videos are a celebration of motherhood. Although appreciative of discordant discourses, each emphasizes underlying common themes experienced by women. The fourth, a briefer work, is a stereotypic expression of concern about the growing numbers of single mothers. Stated as a social problem seeking a remedy, the emphasis is on the importance of fathers rather than the unique experience of motherhood.
Mother Love and Moms are medleys of the mothering experience. Women of different races, classes, and generations speak, and economic and educational differences are displayed, yet the emphasis is not on differences, but on what is shared. Filmed over a two-year period in the small southern town of Pikesville, Kentucky, Mother Love has a strong regional flavor. Laden with southern mores, music, and God, the talk is about the mother/daughter relationship: struggles, expectations, loyalties, fears, and joys. As the women speak from their own settings,...