I watched a documentary about Maxwell recently, I think on Netflix, and one of the things that struck me is that a big deal was made about how emotionally distant and abusive her father was. While I don't deny that growing up in such an environment would have shaped the type of person Maxwell became, and normalised some pretty toxic attitudes, there was a lot of emphasis on her being a "daddy's girl" who replaced one abusive male figure with another.
What bothered me about this is that it felt like a way to sort of assuage or distract from Maxwell's own choices and actions. It felt like a sort of deterministic argument that downplays her own agency and complicity: she was raised in a rich but damaging environment, and so she repeated that pattern of behaviour.
My question, then, is what are your thoughts on this sort of representation? How do we strike a balance between acknowledging her past and not using that as a way to excuse her behaviour? And, if it's not too personal, how do you feel seeing this sort of framing considering how your own trauma has shaped your current ambitions, which are the polar opposite?
llamallamaducksauce286 karma
I watched a documentary about Maxwell recently, I think on Netflix, and one of the things that struck me is that a big deal was made about how emotionally distant and abusive her father was. While I don't deny that growing up in such an environment would have shaped the type of person Maxwell became, and normalised some pretty toxic attitudes, there was a lot of emphasis on her being a "daddy's girl" who replaced one abusive male figure with another.
What bothered me about this is that it felt like a way to sort of assuage or distract from Maxwell's own choices and actions. It felt like a sort of deterministic argument that downplays her own agency and complicity: she was raised in a rich but damaging environment, and so she repeated that pattern of behaviour.
My question, then, is what are your thoughts on this sort of representation? How do we strike a balance between acknowledging her past and not using that as a way to excuse her behaviour? And, if it's not too personal, how do you feel seeing this sort of framing considering how your own trauma has shaped your current ambitions, which are the polar opposite?
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