I saw "Philomena" yesterday. I'm still angry.

[CTyankee]

Last edited Mon Jan 13, 2014, 03:31 PM - Edit history (1)

It is a true story. What happened to Philomena in that Magdalen home was so incredibly cruel and heartless it stayed with me all night. Probably the hardest to take was the scene where she is forced to endure excruciating pain, a breech birth (overseen by the nuns) with no help and no pain medication, so as to punish her for her sin of fornication. Plus, the continuation of cover-up and lies of the convent, even as she searches, 50 years later, for her child. They weren't even sorry! They just continued the cover-up!

If you think you can take the pain and the sorrow in this film, it is worth seeing. Judy Dench is superb as is Steve Coogan who plays the cynical journalist who sees what is going on and really lets loose on the congregation of nuns who devised such a cruel system for young poor women who had no place else to turn when they got pregnant out of wedlock.

See the movie if you can. But be prepared for some real outrage.

[cinnabonbon]

1. Thanks for the rec

I think I'll try to watch it. Even if it'll be painful, it's important to support movies when they shed light on history like this.

[BainsBane]

2. Did you ever see the film the Magdalen Sisters?

I haven't, but from what I've heard it deals with the long-standing abuse in that convent.

[JNelson6563]

5. Yes, saw it. It's hard to watch but excellent.

First thing I thought of when I read this OP

Julie

[CTyankee]

9. I didn't see it yet. It disappeared before I got around to it.

Hope it comes back to a local theatre...we have such crappy movies at our cineplexes. Philomena has been relegated to a kind of art movie theatre where there is access to daytime showings only on the weekend. The audience I sat with yesterday was uniformly older, both men and women. So many of us left the theatre quietly shaken...we all lived through this era, though not in the U.K. It was incredibly moving to this crowd...

[niyad]

20. see if your library can get it for you

[niyad]

25. it wasn't just one convent--it was all across england and ireland, and even here in the US

a pretty decent article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_asylum

[rdharma]

30. I've seen it..... and it's a great movie!

[dipsydoodle]

3. Did you mean Steve Coogan

as opposed to Philip Cooledge ?

[CTyankee]

7. yes, sorry, I need more coffee this a.m.

He is so good...

[PassingFair]

37. L O V E him! Especially in Hamlet II

[TexasProgresive]

4. Does the film speak of the government's role in the laundries?n/t

[CTyankee]

10. no, that was missing. Perhaps the original story that the journalist wrote does...

I'm going to try to find it...

[TexasProgresive]

21. Here's a snip and link from Feb 2013

Ireland finally admits state collusion in Magdalene Laundry system
Taoiseach Enda Kenny fails to formally apologise for involvement over female enslavement causing more outrage

Henry McDonald in Dublin
The Guardian, Tuesday 5 February 2013 15.50 EST

After more than seven decades of exploitation and a 10-year struggle for justice, Ireland on Tuesday admitted its role in the enslavement of thousands of women and girls in the notorious Magdalene Laundry system, but stopped short of issuing a formal apology from the government.

A long-awaited report headed by Senator Martin McAleese said there was "significant state involvement" in how the laundries were run – a reversal of the official state line for years, which insisted the institutions were privately controlled and run by nuns.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/05/ireland-magdalene-laundry-system-apology

[Auggie]

6. You want anger? See 12 Years a Slave.

[CTyankee]

8. Exactly! Ugly, open, cruel, heartless all apply to both here!

Both movies are hard to take but very revealing.

[dipsydoodle]

11. My son told that yesterday.

The film really upset him and his girlfriend too.

[Auggie]

13. Same here. It'll stick with me for a long time,

like The Deer Hunter. Saw it once. Never again.

[niyad]

23. I am angry for what the patriarchy has done, and continues to do, to women. and I am angry

when people try to dismiss it, or say that their suffering is less than that of other groups.

[Auggie]

28. It's all heinous, whether ideological, for-profit or ego.

[Bluenorthwest]

12. Steve Coogan is the actor.

One of the best TV comedies of all time is his 'I'm Alan Partridge'. Seek it out and enjoy. He's one of my long time favorites.

[CTyankee]

15. His performance, along with Dench's, show how well the Brits do this.

So many American actors could learn LOTS from those two!

[sufrommich]

39. I love Alan Partridge! If you have Netflix,check out

Saxondale,another good Coogan series.

[mountain grammy]

14. I had a friend who lived it. 1965, 6 months in the "home for unwed mothers" run by nuns.

It was creepy and awful. She was lucky to have an uncle who was a well known physician at the Catholic hospital in Hartford, so when she went into a difficult labor, they took her to the hospital. Everything was secret. My friend and I lost touch about 20 years ago, but at that time she had had no luck in finding her daughter.
I haven't seen the movie yet, but I will, and if it's what I think it is, I will be sure my 25 year old daughter and her friends see it too. They must see and understand where the religious right wants to take us. We've been there before.

[CTyankee]

16. I worked with a social worker at a women's clinic here in New Haven back in the

'80s. She told me that in her private practice she saw lots of women who suffered greatly from having to have their babies and then give them up. Every year at their birthdays these women grieved terribly way after Roe.

[solara]

17. Joni Mitchell wrote a song about this

She tells the story and then sings her song.. the song itself starts at about 2:30

[mountain grammy]

18. Thank you so much for sharing that.

[solara]

24. I was very happy that I was able to post it

I really love that Joni was moved to write a song about this terrible experience

Lately, it sure seems like consciousness is being raised about the misuse and abuse of power, especially in organized religions

[glinda]

31. +1

[sufrommich]

40. Wow. Thanks for this,never heard of it before. nt

[niyad]

19. still waiting for francis to apologize for the horror of the magdalen laundries, and offer some sort

of restitution.

[Demo_Chris]

22. He would but he's too busy with important stuff like looking humble.

[niyad]

26. for those of you with truly strong stomachs (and LOTS of caffeine): the myths of the magdalene

laundries" by bill donohue (remember him??)

nowhere does he even mention the mass grave found in 1993, just to mention one point.


http://www.catholicleague.org/myths-of-the-magdalene-laundries/

[CTyankee]

32. OH, there was a grave scene in the movie that was devastating. The journalist wanders around

on the grounds of the convent and finds a cemetary of the young women, one as young as 14, and ones where both the woman and the baby died. It was untended and overgrown. He had to clear weeds away to read the inscriptions on the markers. It was pretty devastating...

[nomorenomore08]

38. Bill Donohue is one guy I wouldn't mind seeing fed to a woodchipper...

No point in using obscene language to describe him, because he is an obscenity.

[niyad]

42. the only trouble with your idea is that there is no way I would use that obscenity for mulch. would

worry for my garden with all that toxicity.

[nomorenomore08]

43. Didn't say it had to be *your* woodchipper...

[niyad]

45. no, you didn't. I was just thinking that one really could not do anything with that mulch.

[nomorenomore08]

46. Give it to a neighbor they hate? I dunno...

[PatSeg]

27. There were plenty of horror stories right here in the U.S. as well

These are stories we rarely hear because the mothers don't talk about them. They were shamed, belittled, and humiliated in ways that affect them the rest of their lives. Added to the humiliation is the intense pain of losing one's child, to never know what happened to him/her. The mothers were not entitled to express their loss and grief, because of their "sins", however.

We all know many women who lived this nightmare, but it is a rare woman who will discuss it. The system that stole babies from their mothers did a really good job of silencing them. I've been involved in adoption groups and I don't think there is a story I haven't heard. There was one woman who was told her baby had died. She never had any other children. The baby girl who DIDN'T die found her 25 years later.

[nomorenomore08]

47. And there are people in this country (even women) who literally want to go back to that.

Personally I think they should be committed to psychiatric care, but how do you do that with millions?

[PatSeg]

48. True

People who want to create a society that is the way they visualize it - Donna Reed or the Cleavers. No single mothers in public, they are just to be used as breeders for those who are more worthy, and then cast aside when they've served their purpose.

[nomorenomore08]

49. Right-wing Christians really do see women as disposable. Even as a 14-year-old boy I knew this

instinctively. I remember, back then, thinking something along the lines of, "They're against abortion because the fetus might be a boy!"

[PatSeg]

50. I don't know why I never thought of that,

but it does ring true.

For a long time, I really thought I understood people's opposition to abortion, but as these 'pro-lifers' gained more and more ground, I realized it was more anti-women than it was pro-life. Suppress and humiliate them wherever possible.

[nomorenomore08]

51. And once you realize that, you pretty much know there's no negotiating with these freaks.

It's the proverbial give them an inch, they take a mile.

[DonCoquixote]

29. Hey Pope Francis

You want some of the cred you are seeking.

CONDEMN the order that did this! Scatter the order to other orders, but forbid this order from ever forming again!

[CTyankee]

33. that was the infuriating part of this movie, where the nuns are still covering up 50 years later but

acting all sorrowful for what Philomena went thru...

[nomorenomore08]

44. +2

He really should. Especially if he wants the anti-woman stuff to be considered "less of a priority" as he's suggested.

[marew]

34. There was a documentary on the Magdalene Laundries shown on US TV Years ago

It was so terribly sad and horrific. I did see the movie also.

In reality, one girl was sent there only because she was 'too pretty' and might invite male attention. A number were not pregnant but had "sinned." The last Magdalene home was closed only in the 1990s. It was 20th century slavery.

[ismnotwasm]

35. I have a hard time sitting through those kind of movies

I can read the book though.

[CTyankee]

36. I was not prepared for the brutality, based on the ads for the movie.

And since I love Dench and love to see her work, I was persuaded to go. If I had known how hard that scene was to take, I probably wouldn't have. From now on, I am going to read a few more reviews before I make my decision.

[sufrommich]

41. I'm glad I'm not the only one. I'm reading this

very interesting thread knowing I'll never be able to watch this movie.