Has anyone seen the movie The Magdalene Sisters?

[gollygee]

I'm shocked and horrified. I'd heard of these places but I'm still shocked and horrified.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0318411/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnxteD0yMHxzZz0xfGxtPTIwMHx0dD1vbnxwbj0wfHE9bWFnZGFsZW5lIHNpc3RlcnN8aHRtbD0xfG5tPW9u;fc=1;ft=12

[Elidor]

1. The movie was bad enough–

The interviews (on the DVD extras) were just awful. Another of my 10,000 reasons to kick fundies in the shins.

[Pithlet]

2. I had already heard of what happened there.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but the situation it depicts was real, and heartbreaking. Ireland isn't the only place it happened either. There were similar situations here in the good ol' USA, which is why when I hear Bush talking about bringing back home for pregnant mothers, it absolutely terrifies me :scared:

[MountainLaurel]

5. Yes

A few years ago I was googling my mother's maiden name, and came across a posting on an adoption board from a woman looking for her half-sister. Apparently, her 16-year-old mother had gotten pregnant back in the 1940s and had the baby, but it was immediately taken away and she was told the child was stillborn. As was the custom in those days, her father had signed over the baby to an adoption outfit that was little more than a baby broker. The woman only found out on her father's deathbed what had happened. She had since died, and the sister was still trying to locate the baby that had been taken.

[Pithlet]

13. Yep. Just another thing I think about when people talk

about the "good old days" when morals and values meant something. Bleh.

[FizzFuzz]

3. yes. I cried. Hard.

:cry:

institutionalized misogyny....I have no words.....

[pinkpops]

4. didn't see the movie but check this out -

http://www.netreach.net/~steed/joni.html

[gollygee]

8. Thanks

I'll have to check itunes for that.

[pinkpops]

23. The Chieftains album has all female guest singers

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. No, but I saw a documentary about the institutions on Sundance

It was called "Sex in a Cold Climate."

[Elidor]

10. Ah, that was the extra that came with the movie

Heartbreaking. I'll never forget the cruel faces of some of those nuns.

We actually have a similar situation going on now, though not as bad: predatory adoption companies that coerce vulnerable young women into signing away their babies under extreme duress.

[candy]

7. Yep---I saw it a year and a half ago-

Awful,but those "laundries" had been exposed and publicised on PBS a few years earlier.

Go see "Vera Drake" for another great movie-----all the anti abortion folks should see it.Imelda Staunton was nominated for a Golden Globe for best actress for the title role.

[gollygee]

9. I saw something on PBS about it

a few years ago. That was what made me interested in seeing the movie.

I'll check out Vera Drake too!

[candy]

15. Vera Drake is still at some of the small,local theaters that don't show

the big blockbuster films-----will probably be out on DVD by next spring.

The day I saw it I E-mailed both of my daughters and said it was a must-see. They have both seen it and loved it.

[Paul Hood]

20. Vera Drake just opened here, definately will see it. eom

[jonnyblitz]

11. I saw it. Unbelievable. It reinforces my atheism. n/t

[PassingFair]

22. Yup, yup

that movie pissed me off royally.

[stanwyck]

12. Saw it. Very disturbing.

We Americans have confidence that such restrictive, inhumane institutions would never function here. But they have and they could again. It's the self-righteous mentality that spawns these Dickensonian nightmares. Remember when parents were sending their kids to these "camps" to learn discipline? The tough-love camps run by people of questionable credentials with questionable methods? There was abuse. And deaths. Control freaks will stop at nothing to inflict their will. It's our independent thinking they hate. We must be contained. By force, if necessary.

[Bluebear]

14. "The Magdalene Laundries" - Joni Mitchell

I was an unmarried girl
I'd just turned twenty-seven
When they sent me to the sisters
For the way men looked at me
Branded as a jezebel
I knew I was not bound for Heaven
I'd be cast in shame
Into the Magdalene laundries

Most girls come here pregnant
Some by their own fathers
Bridget got that belly
By her parish priest
We're trying to get things white as snow
All of us woe-begotten-daughters
In the streaming stains
Of the Magdalene laundries

Prostitutes and destitutes
And temptresses like me--
Fallen women--
Sentenced into dreamless drudgery ...
Why do they call this heartless place
Our Lady of Charity?
Oh charity!

These bloodless brides of Jesus
If they had just once glimpsed their groom
Then they'd know, and they'd drop the stones
Concealed behind their rosaries
They wilt the grass they walk upon
They leech the light out of a room
They'd like to drive us down the drain
At the Magdalene laundries

Peg O'Connell died today
She was a cheeky girl
A flirt
They just stuffed her in a hole!
Surely to God you'd think at least some bells should ring!
One day I'm going to die here too
And they'll plant me in the dirt
Like some lame bulb
That never blooms come any spring
Not any spring
No, not any spring
Not any spring

[SarahB]

16. Yes.

It was a tragedy. :(

[CBHagman]

17. Yes, I made a point of seeing that.

The cast did an excellent job. For those who might wonder if Peter Mullan made things overly dramatic, the story goes that after he showed the film to some women who had actually lived in such institutions, they told him things were a good deal worse.

The Washington Post's religion section had a profile of two women, mother and daughter, who were reunited decades after the daughter was adopted. The daughter, brought up in the States by adoptive parents, sought out her mother, now in her 90s (!). At least there's some healing now after all those years of sorrow.

The story was that the mother had a love affair with a farmer (both of them were in their 40s), became pregnant, and thought they would simply marry. The family wouldn't allow it, and the woman was packed off to the laundry. She stayed there literally for years, and as she grew older, I think she was finally taken in by relatives.

What boggles the mind is the cruelty and punitiveness (and lack of a voice for the women) in the system. I've long noticed that some vocal opponents of contraception and abortion view premarital pregnancy as a sort of punishment. Never mind that several lives are involved in such episodes.

Unfortunately, the spiritual brothers and sisters of the punitive people who came up with the Magdalene laundries are very much alive and well in the U.S.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

18. Yes-it was horrifying

I can't believe that these institutions existed into the late 20th century.

[flygal]

19. My mom just rented it

She said it bothered her for several days. Another one that stays with you is An Angle at My Table

[Paul Hood]

21. The most shocking thing to me was how recently they

were still going. See Rabbit Proof Fence for another true story of abuse of young women.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

24. It was a heart wrenching film. Saw it about a year ago. n/t