life imitates art

I was amused to recognise one of the characters from West Coast by Kate Muir. Athene, the faux boho, who wants to be different and artistic but quickly reverts to the privileged life of comfort, of niceties, of creating an all white ivory tower. Athene, who must have a natural holistic waterbirth accompanied by healers, must live in a large white house that is an ode to her ideals of purity and motherhood, and who attaches herself to a partner whose values she would claim to not agree with. Who finds herself a therapist who affirms and agrees with her privileged anxieties instead of encouraging her to be grounded. What made the character ring true is that she started off likeable, slightly bolshie but too soon gave up the fight to be her own identity, and lived off the reflected glories of her partner and children. Let this not be mistaken as a statement on motherhood-more a statement on character development laziness amongst people who visibly struggle with finding their own identity.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anniversary of Grandad

When my youngest was young, eldest thought he was Grandad reincarnated (same day of earth arrival). As it happens, Grandad died on my nephew's birthday, which we celebrate this year at a pub that is okay but nothing special, compared to gaslight , as enthusiastically recommended to Guy.  Nephew agreed people who barrack for the Crows are like flat earthers. I like Melbournite's admiring my Tigers scarf.  SIL came by to pick up youngest who offered to help with chores if I didn't make him leave and told her he'd made himself baked beans and a chip butty, like a before character on a heart attack advertisement.  Meanwhile eldest unhappy ever since he headlined, I feel like a bad parent for sending him to a Car clew camp. Right now, he's chatting on the phone about something being 'bad', his friend is asking 'how bad' he's saying, 'pretty bad', but I can't tell if he's talking about his pash rash or cello practice or a faux pas.  (Up...
Read more

Little gems

This evening, I was reading to the kid. Every book I read at night time (and many books I read in the day) are about going to sleep. The message is getting through. When I read out the catchphrase "Do you need to go to sleep?" he closed his eyes and made pretend snoring sounds. So much fun! He had a busy evening rearranging baking trays and lego displays and trying to build the tallest lego tower that wouldn't fall over and eventually I found art invites and lego in the oven. I also decided to empty my handbag. Open bills. Sort my life out. Try and get back on track. This is all prompted by asking a colleague for something from her handbag (I shudder to think what-hopefully money, hopefully not a tissue) and seeing her sort through clutter that included the voting slip from 2010 Federal Election. Anyway, I found a diary entry, scribbled on paper, which I may have written here in different form: "Different films I've liked that have been 'mood' number...
Read more

Little Women and Family Albums

I was watching Little Women, the Greta Gerwig version with Laura Dern and a cool girl that plays Amy, production captured the organic texture of houses and textured colours. This version is not linear, and I was multi-tasking by taking to family photos with the scissors, not to excise people, but resize photos taken by a rellie pointing camera blindly, collecting from store with high hopes, only to discover they're no Max Dupain. 
Read more