What Does Vada Really Learn About Her Mother?

The assignment was to write about someone who achieved something, and Vada could have chosen to focus on some of her protests or her theatre work, but she realised that her mother's greatest achievement was simply giving birth to her as a child was the thing she most wanted. For someone Vada's age to recognise that something as natural as having a child can be a great achievement for a person is very perceptive, and her project would have gotten to the heart of who her subject was and what their dreams were more than any of her classmates.

Do you seriously think her teacher would have said, 'Vada, I don't think you really learned anything about your mother, and despite making an important emotional discovery (and it was most likely well written), I'm giving you a C.' That's not something I can see happening, especially with someone like Vada who was a good student and the teachers probably liked her and recognized that even if she wasn't following assignments to the letter, she was doing good work.
Yes, it's a corny movie, but the idea that Vada wouldn't have made an A is not that bad.

Well, Vada also learned that she could sing, that people loved to hear and watch her perform, that she was incredibly well loved by pretty much everyone who knew her and that she was impulsive and romantic.

I'd say there's a fair amount to go on there, and besides most of that A probably would have been because of the emotion and passion Vada put into writing it. She wouldn't have got an A for a list of cold hard facts would she?

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If you can't be good, be careful

When I took classes at community college, I found that being able to write cohesively and without grammar mistakes is a rarity and can overcome sub-par content. It's easy to get an A when everyone else is dumb in comparison.

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Here's my signature.

What does Vada learn about herself, is the important question... In the first movie, she learns how to let someone go, and to not be so freaked out by death. In this, she learns about her mother, goes back home, but she hasn't changed much as a person. Practically zero character development, which is poor when she's the main character to build the plot of your whole movie around.

It was nice to see her again because she's a warm screen personality and Chlumsky performs her well, but this adventure doesn't build on anything that went before it, so we're left to wonder what purpose the story has except as a blatant attempt to make more money.

As far as the essay thing goes - it's not what you write, but how you write about it.







Born when she kissed me, died when she left me, lived whilst she loved me

I know!! I couldn't believe she got an A for that essay. For all the teacher knows, she just wanted to go on a fun trip to LA and could have made all that stuff up...she wrote about her mom, someone who wasn't famous for anything...its not like the teacher could prove any of her essay to be true.

If she wanted to write a fascinating paper, she should have wrote about her mortician dad!! That would have been very interesting!!

That her mother was some flighty 50's hippie wannabe who didn't tell her husband that she was already married. And she hooked up with him only because she wanted a baby and her other husband didn't. And given that she died in childbirth, she was with Vada's dad for like 10 months. Kind of ruins this whole big love her parents had and why he was so lonely and hadn't dated. We were to assume in the first movie that he had been married for ten years or so before Vada, but it was 10 months.

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You did just fine, Clarence. Now go git yo'self some hot cornbread!

What I always found dumb is how at the end Vada says she got an A on her paper; but seriously, what does she honestly learn about her mother in the course of the movie? Basically, her mother was an average hippie, had a rebellious nature, and was a kind-hearted person who liked acting.