England Made Me (1973)

Praising Black representation and condemning the power structures that suppress it, a mother delivers an impassioned speech to her distant son.

I understand that this would have been consistent with the language used by that generation, due to its role in the medical profession, however as someone who has family members with Down Syndrome I took it very personally.

What starts off as a success story for a single mother living below the poverty line, slowly begins to weave itself into a tangled web of greed, guilt, and destruction.

At least we got the original cast back, right? Not even that saves it. None of them could bring a sliver of hope to this special. Rather, they bring dread as we witness the light leaving from their eyes.

If you mix religious rituals with dark mythology, the result will be effective, and the story powerful in 90% of the cases. That is exactly what happens at the beginning of The Vigil.

Like all modern societal phenomenons, it started with a meme. This one highlighted that when there’s a mom in a Pixar film, she is almost without fail given striking curves that highlight the bottom half of her body following a minuscule waist. From Elastigirl to the skeletal Mama Imelda, the animation giant’s artists seem to have a fixation on making exaggeratedly curvy maternal characters.