My Mother
For this assignment, I picked my mother as the subject of my documentary. Basically, I picked out a few key stories from her life so that I could tell the viewer a little bit more about my mom that one wouldn’t necessarily know just by looking at her. I choose to film her in front of a wall that is located in the main entrance of our house which is filled with family pictures that we take every year; our family is very important to my mom, and I wanted my placement of her to reflect that. Also, since she is instrumental in getting us all together every holiday to take a picture that she then sends out to our family and friends, it seemed only fitting that she be filmed in front of the wall of yearly Christmas greeting card pictures. I wanted my mom to the subject of this documentary short because she doesn’t usually get to talk about herself all that often, she is usually recounting achievements of her kids or taking care of us, so that is why I wanted to see what she had to say if I just put a camera in front of her and started asking her questions.
As I reflect on my mom’s story, I conclude that I don’t see stories like hers being told in Hollywood or Bollywood (Indian’s Hollywood) very much. Yes, the once-in-a-while immigrant story, the domestic abuse story, the sexual abuse story, or the mother story, but if I were my mom, I wouldn’t really find representation of my story and myself in the media. Stories like moms are present in feminist literature and the like, but I really don’t think that style of writing is accessible to my mother, much like others like her. That is one of the reasons I struggle with overly-academic work is that I don’t think it is accessible to all walks of life, but I do recognize that in order for writers such as bell hooks to be accepted by their scholarly peers that they must produce overly-academic work, most of which, is supposedly is for the “common people.�
Thinking back to all the various theories and praxis that I learned in the beginning of this Media Making class, I look at my justification or turning the camera on my mom and what it means to me to be the person behind the camera. Actually, now that I think of it, most of the time media is being made via camera or videotape, I am usually the using the tool. Mostly, because I’m “techy,� but ever since I was a little girl, I have preferred to be the active media maker in my family. My mom? Not so much. When it came to my parents, my dad was always videotaping and adding himself into every scene by adding comments that were picked up by the microphone. I would like to think of myself as an invested media maker, I empathize with my mother’s pain and her happiness as we create new bonds that strengthen our relationship.
In terms of my personal reframing of my mother’s life and her everyday reality, I publically reveal her moments of pain, as well as the times of her greatest happiness. Michelle Citron, in her book, Home Movies and Other Necessary Fictions, she wrote about selective filming and how the “sunny side of life is preserved (pg. 19),� so only our happiest memories are recorded, but our most painful are not captured by a photograph or video because no one want to remember them. My mother has been through so much pain and sadness, but flipping through hundreds of pictures old and new, there is not a picture present in the albums that signify a sad or painful event. I wanted to represent my mom’s life accurately in my documentary short, yes, she has had many joyful events in her life – but she has also had plenty of sorrowful times as well. By reframing her life and including significant events that has caused her lot of pain, I hope that I made it clear that her stories of sadness are noteworthy and that they deserve to be heard.
Another aspect of my mother’s life that I (still) really struggle with is her relationship with my father. Looking through all the pictures of my parents together, one for each anniversary and special event, it was easy to imagine what an outsider would see. Someone who didn’t know my family wouldn’t see past the beautiful smiling faces to see the nights where my father hit my mom, the many times when he threatened to kill her, when he got so angry that my little brothers and sisters hid in the closets in our room for fear that he would come after us in his rage. They wouldn’t see his repeated attempts of attending anger management, apologizing to our family and my mom, swearing each time that he was sorry and he didn’t mean to cause the irreparable damage that he had done. Citron wrote about photographs being, “spontaneous and directed, authentic and constructed, documentary and fiction (pg. 19).�Looking at my parents pictures I see the love and good times in every picture, but I don’t see the second-half of that reality – I don’t see all times that she ran out of the house with barely the clothes on her back in fear of her life, I don’t see little children that adored their father crying for their mother pleading with him not to hit her. Maybe it’s better that the latter memories aren’t available for tangible review, but I know it’s imprinted in my mother’s mind, as well as mine; it is this paradox that is troublesome to me – I assume other families have their secrets as well, but what does this mean? I don’t really know.
This project has been a good reminder of all the sacrifices my mother has made so I could be where I am right now. At first I was frustrated because she didn’t talk about social justice as much, and she didn’t have much to say in terms of feminism and activism, but I realized, that’s not her reality, she hasn’t had the privilege to learn the justice-lingo or read up on theories, she has been living to survive and ensure that I can comfortably live.
I believe that my mother telling parts of her life’s story to me as achieved several things: First, it has brought us closer together because she shared things that she had never told me before. Second, she passed on years of experience and wisdom that I will use as continued inspiration to fight for social justice. Third, by sharing her pain she is able to heal however slowly. Joe Lambert in his book, Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community, wrote that, “We all have stories like these. We really must share them. Or we cannot heal (pg. 41).� This therapeutic style of storytelling is so effective in the healing process – which is how I justify recording my mother’s tears for this project and mine for that matter that fell as I interviewed this amazing woman and when I was editing this painful piece.
Personally, I pushed myself a lot in making this piece. I asked questions that I know where part of that gray area that family doesn't share with people NOT family. Even when editing this piece it was a challenge for me to stay true