Monday, July 21, 2008

US Films

Following is a list of films made and set in the US that show, mention, or somehow refer to breastfeeding or breastmilk. I have not seen those in orange text yet, so cannot guarantee that they belong. Those in italics depict nursing animals, not humans. My intention is to exclude pornographic material from the lists, but since I have not seen all movies on the list, I cannot guarantee the content of all films. Underlined titles are linked to the Internet Movie Database (IMDB):

Above the Law (1988, USA)
Angie (1994, USA)
Away We Go (2009, USA)
Baby Mama (2008, USA)
Beastmaster, The (1982, USA)
Beloved (1998, USA)
Betsy, The (1978, USA)
Blue Lagoon, The (1980, USA)
Charlotte's Web (1973, USA - animated)
Charlotte's Web (2006, USA - live action)
Cold Mountain (2003, USA)
Crossing Delancey (1988, USA)
Cyrus (2010, USA)
Daddy Day Care (2003, USA)
Don Juan DeMarco (1995, USA)
Ex, The (2006, USA)
Fantasia (1940, USA)
For Keeps? (1987, USA)
Four Christmases (2008, USA)
Girl Can't Help It, The (1956, USA)
Grace (2009, USA)
Group, The (1966, USA)
Grown Ups (2010, USA)
Human Nature (2001, USA)
Impostor (2001, USA)
Informant, The (1997, USA)
Jenny (1970, USA)
Joshua (2007, USA)
Juno (2007, USA)
Kids (1995, USA)
Knocked Up (2007, USA)
Little Man (2006, USA)
Look Who's Talking (1989, USA)
Losing Isaiah (1995, USA)
Loverboy (2005, USA)
Mayor of Hell, The (1933, USA)
Maze (2001, USA)
Me, Myself and Irene (2004, USA)
Meet the Fockers (2004, USA)
Meet the Parents (2000, USA)
Mother and Child (2009, USA)
My Baby's Daddy (2003, USA)
My Best Friend's Girl (2008, USA)
Please Give (2010, USA)
Paint Your Wagon (1968, USA)
Precious (2009, USA)
Pretty Baby (1978, USA)
Price Above Rubies, A (1998, USA)
Quick Change (1990, USA)
Raising Arizona (1987, USA)
Rosemary's Baby (1968, USA)
Savage Grace (2007, USA)
Shoot 'Em Up (2007, USA)
Superbad (2007, USA)
Sweet Home Alabama (2002, USA)
Thieves (1977, USA)
Titanic, The (1997, USA)
Tomcats (2001, USA)
Training Day (2001, USA)
Unborn, The (1991, USA)
V for Vendetta (2005, USA)
White Chicks (2004, USA)
Who's Your Caddy? (2007, USA)
Women, The (2008, USA)



7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi. I'm a CU student. I attended your presentation last week. Great work! I was wondering if you have seen any movies where women of lower social classes, non-white women, or women of developing countries are portrayed breastfeeding, while women of higher social classes, or women of developing countries are not (or there is an underlined understanding that they would not). I'm thinking about how media could portray that breastfeeding is not something that wealthy, well-educated, first-world women would not do. Or that breastfeeding is something that women from "primitive" (using this word with some sarcasm) cultures do.

pml26@cornell.edu

Blakpurl said...

Hello Sarah,

My husband and I recently rented "Savage Grace", much to our horror. I had not previously heard about the exploits of the Baekland family. There was a scene, early on, of Julianne Moore's character nursing her infant son. She had returned from a night of drinking, partying and assumed infidelity. The movie had already established that the couple's relationship was one of constant power struggles that were often played out sexually. When she swooped up the child to nurse him, it was in seeming defiance to her husband and his frustrations over her partying.

And, it was disturbing.

Even more so once the later scenes of incest occurred.

[shudder]

sarahrg said...

Hello Blackpurl,
Thanks for your comments. I haven’t seen this film, but will put it on my Netflix queue. I haven’t yet seen breastfeeding depicted this way on film — sounds like breastfeeding is used here almost as a weapon/revenge -- punishing the husband by “punishing” the child. “Violence” can take many forms, and in this case breastfeeding, which which is often referred to as the penultimate symbol of nurturing, is being used as a veil for aggression.
Sarah

sarahrg said...

Hi Paula,

This is an interesting and important question. There are quite a number of international films that deal with the issue of wet nursing (usually a poor or lower-class woman nursing the babies of wealthy women). What I found in these films was that the wealthy/royal mothers were portrayed as wanting to buck conventions by nursing their own babies.

A few films deal with the dynamic you ask about in surprising ways - The Constant Gardener portrays a white British woman nursing the baby of a black Kenyan woman in the hospital after the stillbirth of the British woman’s baby and while the Kenyan baby’s mother lays dying in the next bed over. Cotton Mary depicts a British mom in India whose baby is fed by an Indian wet nurse with multi-layered race/class issues explored — worth seeing.

You should see Tsotsi, if you you haven’t yet. It is a South African film that portrays two different black S. African mothers with young babies — one well-off and one poor. The wealthy one formula feeds and the poor one breastfeeds and it is dealt with in an interesting way.

I’d be happy to discuss this with you in more detail if you like — I can give you many specific examples, but am not sure how much detail you are looking for. We could set up a phone date or something along those lines.

I do address this a bit in my article in the Sept/Oct issue of Mothering magazine (now downloadable through a CU library search).

Thanks for your interest.

Sarah

fulfam said...

I love this breastfeeding reel list! Is there a list for breastfeeding found in fiction literature? Thanks!

sarahrg said...

Dear Fulfam,

There is a fascinating list of literary quotes on the following web page, compiled by Dr. Jack Newman:

http://www.asklenore.info/breastfeeding/quotes/shakespeare.html

Sarah

Anonymous said...

There's an older movie with Bill Murry and Geena Davis called Quick Change that has a scene that mentions breastfeeding.