"Movies like Die My Love, starring Jennifer Lawrence, show an almost logical unravelling of a mum facing modern pressures"
"For the past half-century, mothers on screen have carried the burdens of entire societies, functioning as symbolic vessels for cultural anxieties about gender, autonomy and the future."
"A new wave of films, TV shows and novels breaks this tradition, presenting unravelling mothers not as metaphors but as real people living under untenable conditions."
For decades, cinematic mothers functioned as cultural symbols bearing anxieties about gender, autonomy and the future. Movies like Die My Love, starring Jennifer Lawrence, depict an almost logical unravelling of a mother facing modern pressures. A new wave of films, TV shows and novels breaks the tradition of metaphorical motherhood by portraying unravelling mothers as real people. These narratives ground maternal collapse in concrete, often systemic stresses—economic strain, social isolation, caregiving expectations and diminishing autonomy—rather than treating it as an allegory. The shift emphasizes lived experience and situational causes, making maternal breakdowns more human and less emblematic.
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