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What is the best on-screen depiction of motherhood? Parenting columnist Amil Niazi picks the TV show Better Things and journalist Jane Marie chooses the 1958 movie Auntie Mame, leaving Aminatou Sow with the unenviable task of selecting a winner. Which of the two better captures the highs and lows of motherhood? How do you compare someone who chose to be a mom with someone who had motherhood thrust upon them? And how will Amil’s baby attending the recording affect Aminatou’s choice? As ever, it’s up to her to decide as she determines which TV show or movie best portrays motherhood.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Amil Niazi, Jane Marie, Aminatou Sow

Aminatou Sow  00:01

I’m Aminatou Sow, and I’m a writer who loves pop culture. So welcome to Pop Culture Debate Club from Lemonada, and the BBC. We bring on some of the funniest, smartest folks in the biz to go head to head over TV, music and movies that we love, and because I’m the judge, I get to choose the winner. There are countless portrayals of moms in the media. Lots of them are not great, but today we’re asking modern moms and writers, Jane Marie and Amil Niazi what their favorite picks are for TV and movies about motherhood.

 

Aminatou Sow  02:52

Today, we are discussing the best TV show or movie that depicts motherhood. Let’s meet our panelists. Joining me today is freelance writer and columnist at The Cut, Amil Niazi, welcome to the show, Emil.

 

Amil Niazi  03:04

Thank you so much for having me. I could not be more excited to be here.

 

Aminatou Sow  03:08

I am thrilled that you’re here and also with us today is Jane Marie. She’s the author of selling the dream, the billion dollar industry bankrupting Americans, and creator of the podcast, Finally, a show about women that isn’t just a thinly veiled aspirational nightmare. Jane Marie, thank you for being here. I’m so happy that you joined us.

 

Jane Marie  03:29

My absolute pleasure. This is so fun.

 

Aminatou Sow  03:31

You know what? It is really fun. So let’s get right into it. Amil, what piece of media, like movie, TV show are you choosing today?

 

Amil Niazi  03:41

Well, this is honestly quite hard, because a couple of them I wanted to choose, I was like, oh, I can’t choose that. There. That person is not good anymore, and now maybe we can get into that later. No comment, no comment. But for me, it has to be better, things created by Pamela Adlon. She stars in it as well. It’s about her as a mom of three, single mom of three, like working as an actor, trying to make it while she’s balancing family life. And I it just speaks to me on so many levels.

 

Aminatou Sow  04:18

Oh, okay, more on that very soon. Jane Marie, what are you bringing to the table today?

 

Jane Marie  04:25

Auntie Mame, who is actually just an aunt, which I, you know I didn’t, I wasn’t a person who, like, grew up wanting to be a mom. And I really like this film because it’s really, it’s about accidental motherhood, sort of or people who don’t seem motherly, becoming, you know, in charge of another human being, and just the weirdness of that gets expressed so clearly in this because she isn’t the mom, and we can talk about that, like, when the mom is the mom on a TV show or a movie, there’s certain rules. Yeah, you have to abide by, like, you have to, you can’t be. Be like drinking all night, like Auntie Mame does, or whatever.

 

Aminatou Sow  05:03

You know what? I’m gonna slow you down. We’re gonna get into that. The rules of our show are pretty simple. Your mission is just to win me over with your argument as to why your pick is, you know, the best depiction of motherhood in TV or film, Emil. I’m gonna start with you. So, so like better things. Can you tell me a little bit more about what the show is about?

 

Amil Niazi  05:27

Yeah so, as I said, Pamela Adlon plays Sam Fox. She’s the mother of three very different, really interesting girls. So of course, you know you they’re all bringing their own personalities and struggles into the mix, Max Frankie and Duke. One is a teenager, sort of struggling to figure out what she wants to do with her life. The other is, you know, the middle child, who’s sort of scrambling for attention and going through her own thing. And then the youngest is just a sweet, you know, kind of the that last vestige of babyhood that we get to hold on to, even though she’s a little bit older than than that. And then at the same time that she’s taking care of these three girls, she has her aging mother to look after,

 

Aminatou Sow  06:15

Multi generational.

 

Amil Niazi  06:16

Multi generational, sandwich generation styles. And the mom, of course, is like British. She comes with her own heavy baggage, and so they have this very funny, sort of caustic, but loving relationship. And Sam is working and she’s working in LA and she’s trying to be an actor, she’s trying to be a director. She’s trying to make enough money to house and feed her family, but also fulfill this, you know, the creative longing that she still has in her heart. And you know I mean, as a working mom myself, holding my baby as we speak, I just am so moved by depictions of that kind of life, the real life that so many of us are living, especially when they can also be funny and heartwarming and authentic, because that’s what I crave in my depictions of motherhood. And I just feel like so often it is just so wrong and so bad.

 

Aminatou Sow  07:13

I love the idea of a British mother specifically being something like a trope that makes it like, hard for you. I was like, you know, of all the immigrant parents that we see on television, that’s usually not the one that I associate with, like, ah, your life is hard. So I love that you like, I love that you brought that up.

 

Amil Niazi  07:33

But it’s such a shorthand for me because it’s like, that unfeeling, that kind of coldness that comes from how you were raised, the time period that you were raised in, you know, like you’re probably being raised by people who still have memories of a very difficult time in a very difficult place, and they just don’t know how to express affection. And I love it, in contrast to Pamela adlon’s character, because she’s so loving and so affectionate and so free and so it’s a very nice interplay between them.

 

Aminatou Sow  08:03

Okay, you’re making a strong case for for better things. But Jane Marie, you selected Auntie Mame, tell me a little bit more about, like, what the movie is about, the text and the subtext.

 

Jane Marie  08:16

So it is a film from the late 50s starring Rosalin Russell, and it is about a woman who it’s based slightly on a real person named Marion Tanner, who was a socialite, sort of, in downtown New York City in the early half of the last century. And she just kind of had one of those houses where artists and weirdos came in and out, and she would house people and have parties all night. Anyway, the film is about her nephew getting kind of dumped with her at I think he’s eight or nine years old or something, when he shows up in her life and she’s suddenly a mom. What I love about the film. First of all, it’s gorgeous. It’s gorgeous, like the costumes are gorgeous. The set design is gorgeous. There’s just so many beautiful things to look at and characters. But it’s a long film, and throughout it, Mame is like railing against this thing that happened to her. She loves Patrick, her nephew, so much. She wants the best for him. She loves him, but she’s an eccentric weirdo, and he’s super square. For me as a mom, I just so relate to that feeling of this alien showing up in your life who is nothing like you, but you love them so much, and you see all the virtues, and you understand, you know your role, that you have to, like, keep them alive and all of that stuff. But you’re also suddenly in this, like, intense relationship with this other being, and you just have to kind of change in a lot of ways or, you know, talk. To them about changing. But I It takes hours of this film to get to a place where you feel like Mame and Patrick are gonna be okay. And I feel like it’s it’s really representative of the kind of life cycle of parenting where things are good, bad, good, bad, and you get surprised all the time about the new challenge. There’s a new challenge every single day.

 

Aminatou Sow  10:20

I’m having such an emotional reaction to you saying all of that as I watch Emile in the Zoom like hug and like Love on Her baby. I was like, this is I was like, this is baby propaganda, and I’m not gonna stand for it. I am just I see what you’re both doing, and this household shall remain child free. I see what you’re doing, and it will not work, Amil. So opening argument like, make your case. Why do you think better things is the better depiction of motherhood here?

 

Amil Niazi  10:52

Auntie Mame sounds amazing. And I’ll admit now I’ve not seen it, but I want to. Jane has just convinced me to see it in that little […]

 

Aminatou Sow  11:02

2 hours and 20 minutes of your life to dedicate to it. Go for it.

 

Jane Marie  11:06

I probably dedicate 100 over the years.

 

Amil Niazi  11:13

But the thing is, for me, you know, after becoming a mom, I do crave as someone who loves television and, you know, just loves to escape in in different worlds, I am always sort of on the hunt for something that reflects me back to me in this experience that I’m having. Because it can be very lonely, very isolating. You can often feel like, does anybody get what I’m going through when you’re by yourself, you know, rocking and nursing this alien, like Jane said at three o’clock in the morning. And I really think when I’ve seen shows specifically try and do it, they always get it wrong, because I think they don’t have that balance of, yes, it’s hard and it’s chaotic, and you’re balancing all these juggling all of these things, but it’s also funny and tender and beautiful, and you are tangled up in each other’s lives in a way that is very fulfilling and exciting and rejuvenating. And I really think that better things captures all of that you feel like, okay, she’s doing it, and she’s making it seem like it is affirming for her, as much as it is draining and exhausting. She loves these kids, and they fucking love her too. And it’s just so beautiful to watch, and it just feels very real. And the fact that she does it while she’s got this like, you know, messy, beautiful hair, just a little cherry on top. And I just to add, I also love how much of her friends are in the show. Yeah, she needs those people to keep her going. But those people also love those kids, and those kids love those people. And I very much have that same thing as you know, I bring my friends into the house, and they get to know the kids, and the kids get to know them. And it just feels like we have this huge community. You need to still have friends, you need to still have a life. She’s just a real woman.

 

Aminatou Sow  13:22

A real mom. We love to see it. Jane Marie, same question to you, why do you think Auntie Mame is the better representation of motherhood here?

 

Jane Marie  13:31

Okay, well, first of all, I think it’s that Auntie Mame, she didn’t choose motherhood, which many of us don’t. I don’t think you see that very often the good point not all of us kind of set out to create a family or, you know, things surprise you, and you become a mother in a million different ways. I have plenty of people in my life who’ve absorbed kids from other families, and I have a foster daughter who’s 24 years old now, and came into my life in an interesting way. And I think you become mother to your children, but also you can play a mother to other children. I like that. She had to kind of examine her life a lot like, what was my priority? Okay, I was throwing all of these parties, I was traveling the world, I was, like, trying to find love, and it took her a while to understand and like, appreciate the gift of motherhood, which I think is so real, like for me anyway, and for a lot of my friends and people I know the realness is in the like, whoa. This is not what I was expecting. You never lose that she, like, loves Patrick, so so so much, but she is battling with her identity like that feels comforting to me that she had this whole life before a child showed up and. Then she has to negotiate who she is now with that child. So for example, in one scene, he brings a girl home from college who is just obnoxious, and she talks like this, and she says like, oh, what a bar, you know, that kind of stuff like she she’s obnoxious and gross, and Mame can’t stand her. But Mame has to look inside herself and go, okay, like, I don’t get to make all of his decisions. I don’t get to decide who he falls in love with. All I can do, really, is be supportive and love him.

 

Aminatou Sow  15:31

Yeah, I mean, it’s really interesting to me that you both chose, you know, like a show and a film where the kids are already real people, you know.

 

Amil Niazi  15:41

Yeah, I mean, it’s refreshing to see, you know, I’m not, I’m still kind of in, in the the young kid phase. My oldest is only six. I’m looking forward to, I’m and terrified of the pre teen stage, but I love to see depictions of it, so I can kind of figure out, okay, like, oh, I could do that. I might try that. I just re watched an episode of better things, where Sam’s eldest Max, is talking to a career counselor about, you know, colleges, and the counselor is being so real with her, she’s just basically like, if you really wanted to go to a good school, you should have started thinking about that years ago. So let’s talk about your real options Junior College. Have you considered that? And it’s such a wake up call for her, you know, she she’s sort of sitting around with her mom’s friends one night, and she just sort of blurts out that she is petrified that she has completely ruined and derailed her life by being social and having fun and not working hard and studying, and that her whole life’s been a waste. And I was like, God, how? How would I manage that? Those feelings in a kid, and I remember having them as a kid and not knowing, you know, if my parents could have said anything right to me, and the way that Sam handles it is so delicate and thoughtful and mature. And it just kind of gave me hope for when my kids are older and and I have to encounter something like that. And it was just a very, very beautiful moment between mother and daughter.

 

Aminatou Sow  17:16

Like my experience, I think of growing up and watching TV was always that, like, you could be this, like, cool career lady, or you could have a family, and, you know, that’s also like, a good thing, but so much of the mom stuff just revolved around raising kids. Like, I’m having a hard time being like, who was a mom who was, like, hands on present, but also, like, lived a very modern life and was part of a family unit like it. It’s tough.

 

Jane Marie  17:43

This is what I love about Mame. What I love about Mame is she is her own person, through and through, throughout the film, even though she does suffer from some hubris and gets in trouble all the time from like, just trying to have a little too much fun or be a little, you know, too much the center of attention, she gets humbled a bunch, but I do like that she is modeling a life for her child that is one of freedom and creativity and expressing herself. And I feel encouraged by that story. I know it’s semi fictionalized, but I feel encouraged to continue being myself and prioritizing my own happiness and interests as a model to my child, and she doesn’t have to be like me. My child may grow up to be like a Mormon wife. I don’t know. She can be whoever she wants.

 

Aminatou Sow  18:41

Yeah, um, Jane, for Auntie Mame, is there something like, you wish people knew about it that they don’t know something that’s like, kind of under, undersold about it?

 

Jane Marie  18:52

Well, I think it’s that it’s a based on a true story like, I think that that is something people don’t really understand. They look at it as, like this, very highly produced, long, beautiful, old Hollywood film. And you can get the book, the character Patrick, he writes under a pen name, Patrick Dennis, but it is about this woman, Marion Tanner, go check out the book. It’s so weird. It’s so good.

 

Aminatou Sow  19:20

Okay, Amil, similarly, can you tell me, like, something about better things that you think was like surprising, or something that you wish more people knew about it, or something that made like a big splash when it came out?

 

Amil Niazi  19:33

Listening to Jane, these are quite similar stories. You know, that’s right. They’re both single moms. Pamela Adlon is the star, but she’s also the writer. This is based very much on her real experiences as well. It’s like an auteur project, and there’s not enough female driven sort of auteur projects where you get to be the person in charge of every. Thing, we’ve had plenty of men, you know, giving us the ins and outs of their lives and their brains. And it’s very nice to have a woman be doing that and and the fact that she then also brings in this authentic, you know, far from saccharin depiction of motherhood on top of it, I think is something that everybody should know.

 

Jane Marie  20:22

I think that better things also is like an updated Gilmore Girls. Is my vibe that say more […]

 

Aminatou Sow  20:31

It does totally.

 

Jane Marie  20:33

I’m not trying to make an argument for Amil to win this, but.

 

Amil Niazi  20:38

Throwing some, you know, some like, more ammunition her way, because so far I’m like, yeah, this is all tracking, thanks.

 

Jane Marie  20:46

Yeah, but it feels very much like Gilmore Girls, where there are those moments where you’re like, Oh, I know. Oh yes, yes, that is what it’s like, and it’s so it’s so real. Gilmore Girls is much cheesier, but I think audiences who like that would also like better things if they haven’t heard of it.

 

Amil Niazi  21:02

Yes, totally lore light. You know, I can, when I was going through my roster of like, okay, who are some good moms on TV, I considered Lorelei. Oh, I made the list. She made the list. But I always just couldn’t get past how annoying I found both of them and so I had to kick it off the list.

 

Aminatou Sow  21:21

Some things are just annoying, but, yeah, it’s funny hearing you say that also about Gilmore Girls, because I’m, like, the Emily Gilmore of it all, you know.

 

Amil Niazi  21:28

Yes, exactly the real British mom. I mean, I don’t have a cold British mom. I have a very loud Pakistani mom, but she’s, you know, got well, we’ll unpack that in a therapy session at some other point, but.

 

Aminatou Sow  21:42

I love this, and we’re going to take a break because I probably need to text my therapist about some healing the inner child stuff. It’s like, wow, you show up at work and all these triggers, they pop up everywhere, so let’s take a break.

 

Aminatou Sow  24:36

Okay, we’re back, and we’re cruising into our next round. It’s a lightning round. I’m going to quickly ask you both questions about your picks. Don’t overthink it. Tell me the first thing that comes to mind, and I’m going to be going back and forth between you. Are you ready? Sure we’re going to start off with you? Jane, Auntie Mame is always trying to instill the motto, live, live, live to her nephew. What’s the word that you would like to repeat three times to any young person in your life today?

 

Jane Marie  25:39

Oh, gosh, a three time, word three time, Live, Love, um, chill. And I mean that, like, life is not an emergency. And I want kids to know that, like, just take a second.

 

Aminatou Sow  25:52

Chill, I love that chill, Amil, so Sam in better thing says this gaggle of children when you were younger, do you think that you were a max, a Frankie or a Duke?

 

Amil Niazi  26:05

Oh, I was a max 100% I was a max. I was moody. I knew everything. My mom knew nothing. I was completely, unfortunately, a max like this is me. I am not you. And, you know, back off and get out of my face. And, yeah, that was tragically me.

 

Aminatou Sow  26:29

Jane, which of Auntie mames looks do you covet the most?

 

Jane Marie  26:35

Oh, my God, literally, everything, the house coat that she wears for, I think it’s a holiday dinner where Patrick’s girlfriend’s coming over for the first time. It’s like a, do you remember house coats, like you would it would do I remember them?

 

Aminatou Sow  26:47

Or do I still wear a house I am a house wearer? Say no more.

 

Jane Marie  26:52

It would be, you could put like a, like a jumpsuit underneath, or like a, you know, like a unitard kind of thing, and then this sort of kimono thing that like, or moo, moo ish garment over top of that, and it was just the most elegant thing with little cropped pants under. Oh so cute. I really love all of the looks from me, but I do think that one or the boudoir set that she’s wearing in the very beginning when she’s in bed with her friend Vera after a party and dialing down to the help, like, send up a Bellini Auntie Mama’s hung or whatever she says.

 

Aminatou Sow  27:30

Amil, tell me what you covet most. Sam’s like perfect terracotta Mexican tiled kitchen, or the Bentley of toilets that she has installed in I believe it’s season three.

 

Amil Niazi  27:44

I love the kitchen. I love a good kitchen. You know, I’m a very much a Nancy Myers kitchen obsessive, like it’s, I don’t want to sound cheesy, but it’s the hearth of the home.

 

Aminatou Sow  28:01

Jane, this is for you. Auntie Mame was based on on the real woman, Marion Tanner that you mentioned. She died at the age of 94 we love that her obituary listed several jobs that she held in her long and gorgeous life. Which one of these jobs is the real job that she had? Was she a cigarette girl at the COVID cabana? Was she a military nurse, or was she an ice hockey instructor?

 

Jane Marie  28:28

Cigarette girl, military nurse, and what was the third one?

 

Aminatou Sow  28:31

An ice hockey instructor?

 

Jane Marie  28:34

I’ll do cigarette girl.

 

Aminatou Sow  28:38

When Auntie Mame graduated from Smith College. She was briefly an ice hockey instructor.

 

Jane Marie  28:45

Good for her, you know, I almost guessed that, because she does sell ice skates in one of the scenes in the movie. And I forgot in the book if that was like a real thing or not. But yeah, that’s so rad. She’s so rad. I love this woman.

 

Aminatou Sow  28:56

Okay, Amil, last year, you were interviewed about the exhilarating high of saying no. So here’s my question, what was the last thing that you said no to?

 

Amil Niazi  29:07

I said no to some work over Christmas because I was pregnant and it was Christmas, even though I tend to say yes, too much. Now, I did say no to that, and it felt great every time I say no, I feel great. I’m like, I’m so powerful. I’m the most powerful person on earth. I just said no.

 

Aminatou Sow  29:29

Jane, what was the last thing that you said no to today?

 

Jane Marie  29:32

Actually, I was speaking at a conference, and I was supposed to present like, 15 minutes of a thing about multi level marketing and but the conference was running late, and I knew I had to be here with you all. And I said, You know what I’m gonna do is, like a real short version, five minutes in and out. Let’s do let’s get to the Q A, let’s have it over with. And the audience like it was remote. I was on Zoom, but they were like, yeah, awesome. Like you were so tired. I just was like, Yeah, I know. I’m so. To be here to do a specific thing, but I’m not going to.

 

Aminatou Sow  30:03

The exhilarating power of saying no, I love it.

 

Aminatou Sow  31:33

Let’s get into some more, like mom, like canon, specific stuff. Can both of you describe, if possible, in excruciating detail, what kind of lunch both of these women would pack for their kids?

 

Jane Marie  32:04

I can tell you what Maine would pack. It would be leftovers from the party the night before, or she would definitely be if, if she existed today, she would be the mom that, like, called out for sushi at the place down the block, and while he was walking to school, he had to pick up, like, his sushi lunch.

 

Aminatou Sow  32:22

Yeah, I’m like, the leftovers of last night’s like, 1940s party is my stomach is turning, yeah.

 

Jane Marie  32:28

Or she would just call somebody at the corner and be like, Patrick’s coming by in two minutes and just give him a bagel or whatever. She wouldn’t be in the kitchen.

 

Aminatou Sow  32:36

Fair enough. What about you, Emil?

 

Amil Niazi  32:38

I think Sam is, like, trying very hard to make a sandwich. Maybe it’s like Turkey and mustard. She’s cutting the crusts off. She’s, you know, putting in the granola bar, but accidentally it’s got peanuts in it, and she keeps forgetting that you’re not allowed to have nuts at school. It’s something that I do all of the time. And then when she sees the face her kids make, she just grabs 10 or 20 bucks out of her wallet and goes, here you go. Just buy something.

 

Jane Marie  33:11

Like there were many years where my mom only sent me with, like, one of those little Tupperware widget things with teeny tiny and would be like relish in there for the because it was hot dog day.

 

Amil Niazi  33:22

No, because it was hot dog day, it was for the hot.

 

Jane Marie  33:24

Okay, that’s fair for the hot dog. Or I would, yeah, okay, so it would be like that, or it’d be barbecue sauce for, like, chicken day, or whatever, like, I’d get some good salsa for the burrito day and that kind of thing. But all I had was this little, tiny container. And then when my grandparents babysat me, Ruth. Ruth, she grew up in the Depression. She would make me peanut butter and Miracle Whip sandwiches, but then my grandpa would draw really cute pictures on the outside of the paper bag, and I would feel guilty not eating the Miracle Whip and peanut butter sandwiches, since they both went to so much trouble. And so I decided I’m not. I just that’s I’m not doing that.

 

Amil Niazi  34:00

For a while, my mom would like, give us, like, good Pakistani food to take, you know, like, delicious aloo tikki sandwiches. And I’d be like, Oh, then people are gonna know I’m ethnic and like, you know, like, as if they couldn’t tell.

 

Aminatou Sow  34:14

I know, but they they will know you by your lunch, you know, like they will know you by our lunch. Immigrant kid problem it is, I know what you mean. I know we’re gonna look at my weird lunch and they’re gonna know I’m different, mom.

 

Jane Marie  34:28

I’m just jealous of your whole experience growing up.

 

Amil Niazi  34:33

Wow, someone being jealous of the American school situation is hot lunch.

 

Aminatou Sow  34:39

Yeah, I’m like, I’m shivering over here. That’s not possible, okay, you’ve both made some like, very smart and emotional points about your choices. I am feeling torn, because I think there’s something like so modern about what both of these two women are doing, and they. Live in these diametrically opposed times, and they share so many more similarities than not. But you know, this is your time, like you have the floor for an uninterrupted closing argument make the case a meal for watching better things.

 

Amil Niazi  35:16

Well, the thing is, you know, like I said, it is funny that they’re both single moms, because that that could have been my ace I could have played. But it’s very rare to find a show about, specifically about motherhood, that really captures the good and the bad, the fact that, you know, I just think it’s so real. And it’s speaking of speaking of real.

 

Aminatou Sow  35:47

I see that you brought your baby as a prop to try to convince me and.

 

Amil Niazi  35:51

My ace card right here, I see where you’re doing it dastardly.

 

Aminatou Sow  35:55

It is dastardly. Good strategy.

 

Amil Niazi  35:58

No, I you know, I was saying there are shows that I think, try and capture the experience of being a working mom, of, you know, trying to manage your life. And often they get it so wrong. The mom is super rich. She has a husband that’s helping out. You know, it’s just sort of like, whose life is this supposed to be, and what I think better things does so well is show trying to have a rich and fulfilling social life, trying to have a rich and fulfilling professional life, doing all of those things at the same time as you are starting to see crow’s feet In the mirror and gray hairs and gray pubes and wondering if you’ll ever have sex again. And I think better things captures all of those things really, really well, and it makes you laugh and it makes you cry, and that is all I want from anything like, let alone from a show that is is about motherhood. So for me, this is the the pinnacle of parenting. Television. Drop my microphone.

 

Aminatou Sow  37:08

No mic. Drop. We love it, but boom. Jane Marie, state, your final case.

 

Jane Marie  37:14

Well, that was really good, Amil, I mean, you should win, especially while holding.

 

Aminatou Sow  37:20

You should have brought, you should have brought kids.

 

Jane Marie  37:22

I’d rather die never again in my life. What I think Mame does for me, first of all, any television or movie, show, movie or a show, I want to be a little bit unrealistic, like, I need a little bit of escapism as a mom like I just don’t want the complications of human interaction in my entertainment choices. But with Mame, I feel like the idea that motherhood, that there are people who do not like spend their life looking forward to it, don’t feel like they’re destined to be a mother, like it really depicts what happens if, if it’s dropped on you, and how you can your heart can grow and change how different you can be from your child and still show them support and love and be proud of them, Even if they’re making choices that you wouldn’t make, and she does it while still maintaining this really rad lifestyle. I feel like maybe it’s not the most common idea of motherhood or the most totally relatable, but I needed to see it. I needed to see it to know that I could continue my real life and be a mom that loved my child very much, but not like you know, have my world revolve around my relationships between me and my daughter, me and my mother, and thinking about mothering so much. I feel like MAME did it while kind of remaining her own person in a different way. So, yeah, I don’t know. I think it’s good. I think for all the single moms out there, it’s a good one.

 

Aminatou Sow  39:12

I want to say thank you to both of you for giving me just like a just a delightful last hour, and thinking very critically about what you know, like, both a depiction of motherhood looks like, and also just making space to talk about something that I think doesn’t get a lot of, you know, doesn’t get a lot of, like, intellectual heft sometimes. And I just really appreciate that. And I’m having, I’m really struggling with, like, picking a favorite, because I think that you both have made this case for, like, motherhood is weird and it’s wild, and there is not, like, one way to do it, you know, and also, like, kind of your kids get to decide in the end, like, you were good parents, and then we’re not. Lot, and whether you like, showed up for them in the ways that they wanted. And so I’ll say this, we play by European rules here, and I get one of these cards, like, for the entire season of the show, but it’s a tie for me. Wow, I am so completely in love with the idea of Mame as this, like, very modern woman in a time that was not modern at all. And, you know? And in some ways, I’m like, yeah, like, women like Mame are why women like Sam can do, like, stuff that they’re doing, those two things to me, are very much in conversation, you know. And I also, like, on this show, like, we do not pit women against women. So I will say it is a tie. It is the only tie we will have all season.

 

Jane Marie  40:45

Amil, are you pissed? Are you pissed though, amil, you did such a good job.

 

Amil Niazi  40:48

I love that, it’s a tie. I think it deserves to be a tie, because I would actually be sad if I won.

 

Aminatou Sow  40:56

And here’s what I’ll say, Emil, you’re gonna watch, Mame, and I’ll tell you this, that movie. Wait to watch that movie is very problematic when it comes to like, questions of race, right? And so I’m like, check back in when you watch it, and if you feel like you were robbed, we will relitigate that. But I appreciate both of you. Thank you so much for making the time today, and I hope that we’ll reconnect very soon.

 

Jane Marie  41:23

I’m being.

 

Amil Niazi  41:24

Oh my god, kisses. Are those kisses for us?

 

Aminatou Sow  41:27

[…] blowing kisses to many children, and I feel like, you know, I’m again, I’m sorry that your strategy did not work. You’re gonna have to walk away with I mean, it makes me feel sharing the glory.

 

Amil Niazi  41:38

What is why did I have a baby, if it wasn’t gonna get me to win thing arguments on podcasts, it’s a little disappointing, but I’ll take it.

 

Aminatou Sow  41:54

Thanks to Amil Niazi, and Jane Marie for coming on the show, and thanks to all of you for listening. If you want to hear more of Amil and Jane, check out Amil’s parenting […] The Cut and Jane Marie’s podcast, Finally, a show about women that isn’t just a thinly veiled aspirational nightmare.  There’s more Pop Culture Debate Club with Lemonada Premium.Subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content, like the comfort food pics of Hrishikesh Hirway and Dan Pashman, my guests from the movie feast you’d most like to eat episode. Subscribe now in Apple podcasts. Pop Culture Debate Club is a production of Lemonada and the BBC.  I’m Aminatou Sow the show is produced by me, Joanna Solotaroff, Kryssy Pease, Lamar Wood and Dani Matias. Our mix is by Noah Smith. Rachel Neel is VP of new content. Our SVP of weekly content is Steve Nelson. Commissioning editor for the BBC is Rhian Roberts. Executive Producers are Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer.  Follow Pop Culture Debate Club, wherever you get your podcasts.