Just recently my daughter and I went to the movies and saw “Waitress”. Written and directed by Adrienne Shelly who,after a dispute with a construction worker in NYC, was killed by him in November.
The movie is essentially a letter to her own daughter Sophie explaining her apprehensions of motherhood. However, from all the reviews out there saying that it is delightful, erotic pie baking, hopeful, fun etc. movie that measures up to “Like Water for Chocolate” or “Chocolat” in its sensuous culinary metaphors, my feminist lens rears it multi-faceted perspective with a somewhat different assessment.
You can go to any search engine and find out what the movie is about but my take on its social ramifications through a feminist lens follows.
As I watched Jenna( Keri Russell) a woman caught in an unfulfilling, loveless marriage with a controlling and abusive husband, cower to him as a child would, just to maintain peace. When I watched him slap her after he rudely intruded on a wedding celebration of one of her friend’s, and loudly demanded and ordered her to the car because he found money she was saving to escape her marriage. Additionally, as I watched the forced sex scene where his begging coerced her into having sex with him lest she pay the consequences of his rage; all I could think of were the millions of women out there who associated with the terror and threat of violence at the drop of a hat.
All the women and children who fear for their lives because of a neurotic controlling power driven man, who can wield his weight through intimidation. All the women whose self esteem is non existent because they are told they would never survive without their abusive husbands. While Jenna did survive through the generosity of a benefactor, most women do not have that luxury. They are daily victims of police negligence, spousal abuse and often an unofficial house arrest by their husbands.
Globally, violence towards women is the number one issue for advocates. It has been the main theme of many world wide conferences, national organizations,(NOW being one of them) and socially responsible educators everywhere.
Even though the main theme of the movie was an unwanted pregnancy and how eventually the mother came to terms with it, this movie was not a light hearted, positively sexually charged flick. It brought up victimization, sexuality, power and control issues as well as the interlocking systems of oppression through class,and gender issues. While violence has no class or social or nation boundaries, what would happen if Jenna had an income that she didn’t have to fork over to her husband? What would happen if she had more self esteem? what would happen if she were more educated?
Additionally what further validates the perspecitve and upset me as well, was my experience 2 days after viewing the film. As I stood in a relatively long line in Subway in Prior Lake. A young woman in her early twenties with a son about 10 stood in front of me. Her husband barged through the door loudly telling her to “come on, he’s not standing in any line”. She replied that she wanted a sub and would stand there. his reply was, ” well I’ll fucking leave you here then”. Whereupon he stormed out. She was obviously upset and scared. The son immediately became tense and looked out the window to see if the man would indeed leave them there. Not 2 minutes later her cell phone rang and I could her his admonishments over the phone whereupon she tapped her son and said come on Tony we have to leave. This is not non-violent behavior and neither were the actions and long term implications that this movie portrayed.