I think it is unfair to lable Joanna as a villain...if she had stayed with her son and went off the edge and hurt him...people would say "why didn't she just leave if she was having these feelings?" I think she did the right thing by leaving and by letting Ted raise the boy..of course ideally a mother would not leave her child..but it is better to leave than to drown them in a tub or throw them in a river (it happens) ..just watch Nancy Grace..
shareThat's a bit of a stretch to insinuate that she might've physically hurt the kid. She left the kid in the dust without any explanation and let him go on feeling abandoned and couldn't even visit in the course of several months. Her explanation was that being a mother wasn't enough to fulfill her life and she needed more. In my opinion this woman didn't even deserve visitation rights much less custody
shareHer explanation was that being a mother wasn't enough to fulfill her life and she needed more. In my opinion this woman didn't even deserve visitation rights much less custody
I wasn't suggesting that everybody who's a mother should do nothing but stay home and do housework and take care of the kid. Most mothers these days do more than that and have a career and other interests. There's nothing wrong with that at all. But there's a major difference between adding other things in your life while being a mother, as opposed to running away to do other things INSTEAD of being a mother. She chose the latter. Clearly she put her own needs above the needs of her own child. There is no denying that. YOu want to blame that all on Ted, but I say that's a complete copout. What happened between her and Ted, we never really saw, but I have to believe there was certainly a better way to handle things then running away and leaving your kid with no contact whatsoever. I'm not a parent, but to me that is disgusting. I"m not defending Ted because he must not have been a great husband, but apparently the guy wasn't even aware of how she felt so that says right there she could've tried a little harder to come up with some kind of solution that was better than that, if not for her then for the sake of the kid. Everybody wants to keep saying "she tried and tried but he wouldn't listen". I say Bullsh-t. Then try harder. THere's a kid involved
share>In my opinion this woman didn't even deserve visitation rights much less custody
Ironically her type of woman is a very appropriate poster girl for feminists (who are all too happy to support the breakup families in the name of 'empowerment')
To a certain extent, but in this instance it wasn't as much as breaking up a family, but abandonment. There's also instances where you see celebrities championing single motherhood, which may be fine in some instances, (especially when you're a millionaire like the BS artists who are promoting that). But it's the break down of the family that has hurt our society in a lot of ways in my opinion.
shareEven back when the book and film came out (70s), people got divorced all the time. Indeed, the divorce rate was higher when the film was made than it is today.
Someone as unhappy as Johanna could have filed for separation, then a divorce -- while staying in town, and getting a job. I believe her job is described as "fashion designer"; what better place to restart her career than New York City? It's the epicenter of the fashion industry.
She could have moved out, and shared custody with her husband. This is a big "duh". The film is structured to make Joanna a "bee-yotch" and a bad person, and to make Ted seem like a hero and wonderful (if initially clumsy) dad. The ending is a cop-out, to keep the audience from feeling bad. It isn't realistic in the least. The two parents each spent (even in those days) THOUSANDS of dollars they could not afford, for a nasty custody fight, only for the wife to utterly give up -- kiss her son goodbye -- and leave for good. (There is no discussion of shared custody nor visitation rights.)
The overarching message of the film (a very popular one in 1979) was that "men are just as good parents as women" and "men will step up to the plate, if bitchy women just get out of the way". Well, it's now 45 years later, and 95% of children are still raised by their mothers. There are more children in the US growing up fatherless than in 1979 or any time in history. I believe there ARE many wonderful dads, but reality is that women raise children -- in rich homes, in middle class homes, in poor homes -- with only occasional assistance. I have seen this to be true EVEN in homes where the mother works full time, and the father is unemployed or has intermittent jobs. I've seen it where the mother earns 3 times what the dad does. She's still the one who has to know who the doctor is, what the kid eats, arrange for day care, etc.
NOTE to jayhn1111: visitation rights, for either fathers or mothers, are not predicated on the parents job, or personality, or who is mean or not. The laws says a CHILD has a right to a relationship and time with BOTH of his/her parents -- in fact, that right exists separately from the child's right to financial support. Even deadbeat parents have visitation rights.
I never said it was. I'm not a lawyer and I wasn't speaking as one. I was speaking as somebody that got emotionally invested in the movie because it was a great movie. Everybody seems to be mad at the makers of the movie because the woman looked bad. So what. Sometimes the woman is the bad one.
sharejayhn1111,
I for one think your posts in this thread make a lot of sense. Thank you.
For me, the point is: No matter how much Joanna wants to be "something" in addition to being a mother (and that's probably fair enough), she has to bear the consequences of her actions and the way she went about them.
You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.
I think Joanna was a villain in the way she went about it! She just walked away from her sweet little boy without a WORD to him! And then sends him that diabolical letter saying "Well, I was your mommy for a while but there are other things."
No "Mommy loves you so, but she's feeling sick and has to be away for a while." etc.?
And the length of time she stayed away was horrific! A year and a half!!!!
Then she waltzes in bragging about being reborn and demands FULL custody of her son merely because 'she's the mother'. She was a serious bitch!
Ted was a jerkhole in the beginning as well, but at least he stepped up and did what he needed to do.
"I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus."
"Didn't he discover America?"
"Penfold, shush."
Yeah a better movie would have made her more likeable and him less likeable, so her behavior was at least somewhat understandable. From what the movie shows us she's just a complete monster. Running away and not talking to your child for a year and half then fighting for custody is outrageous. She follows this up by flaking out at the end when she finally gets what she "wants".
Just a cartoonish villain which ruins a potentially sophisticated story about divorce with children.
One of Ted's complaints is that she sent 'a few letters and postcards' and yet thinks that she can walk back in and pick up where she left off. Whether that means she literally sent only a handful of letters over 18 months, or if Ted's emotional and exaggerating, is difficult to say--though if she'd been back in NY for several months at the time she sued for custody, it seems likely she wasn't that regular about correspondence, or he'd have noted the address/postage mark. Either way, just wanted to point out that it seems she didn't drop off the face of the earth completely.
share>Yeah a better movie would have made her more likeable and him less likeable
And how does that make a better movie?
Typical feminist arguments, this and the OP
She didn't 'flake out because she gets what she wants'.
She 'flakes out' because she finally realized that she may NOT be the right parent.
That the life & circumstances she has might not be the right one for Billy after all.
And that she loves him enough to let him go to where he belongs, where he's better off.
I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus.
Didn't he discover America?
Penfold, shush.
I don't think the movie wanted us to see her as a villain. In fact, one of the things I love about this movie is that you see Joanna leave and abandon her family and you immediately hate her, but then as the movie goes on, all these secrets about their past, realizations of the way their life was are periodically uncovered. You start to understand Joanna more as a person, and sympathize with her reasons for leaving. That's how I saw it at least.
shareI thought that the whole purpose of the movie was to portray divorce in the most realistic light possible. No one is a "villain", at least in most cases. People's lives diverge, or one person cracks, and it is neither directly their fault nor the fault of the partner. People are incompatible, and they realize that being together is not the best option.
I sympathize with both Joanna and Ted. You'd have to be in a suffocating relationship to understand what it can do to people - sometimes you withdraw and act out in irrational ways because you feel so utterly trapped.
I think the point of the movie and for her character is that it is very easy to say "she should have done this" or "she should have done that" but not everything's black and white like that, and you really don't know what's going on inside other persons mind. We see that throughout the movie, Dustin Hoffman's character is so mad at his wife, but toward the end when she is on the witness stand, he sees that there was a lot more going on with his wife than he realized. That what she did wasn't right, but perhaps he could have done something to prevent it.
The whole point of the movie is: She's not all good, neither is he. He's not all bad, but neither is she. But they both love their son.
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