Melissa Dodd
Professor Mendoza
Introduction to Film
25 April 2002
My Sister and Me on Grandma’s Lap
This picture was taken at my paternal grandmother’s house in Enid, Oklahoma. I’m on Grandma’s lap, and my sister Rhonda is on the floor. I believe this picture was taken around 1969 or 1970 because I look about two or three years old. It is after supper, and Grandma is reading to me.
This photograph is interesting to me because it reflects two points that Michelle Citron makes in her book, Home Movies. First, the person taking the picture is asserting control over the interpretation of the memory. Second, there are clues within the frame that signify what has actually been left out of the frame. The item missing from this picture is my mother.
My father took the picture in order to show me wearing the moccasins my maternal grandfather had just bought for me when we visited him in Holdenville, Oklahoma. My mother had remained there, while we went on to Enid. She rarely came with us to visit Grandma because they did not get along. Like her own mother, my mother could be moody, distant, and bad-tempered. Grandma, on the other hand, was somewhat meddlesome, but affectionate, and over-indulgent with us kids. Consequently, they argued over how we should be treated.
Grandma is pointing to the moccasins, which signify my mother’s absence. In some ways, the photo is a conciliatory gesture; my father is acknowledging his in-laws’ contribution to my happiness and well being. In another, less obvious way, it is an act of spite. Since my mother refused to be there, my father replaced her with his own mother in this happy family scene he has created.
Her absence is also highlighted by the presence of my sister, Rhonda, who was about nine or ten. When I was a baby, Rhonda and I were always in pictures together. Usually she’s playing “mommy” and holding me on her lap. She was very protective of me and would not let me out of her sight. Taking the role of my guardian often got her in trouble, especially when my mother’s temper flared. Here, she looks silly and relaxed, more childlike than she does in other family pictures.
Citron argues that since they are selective and often taken by men, home movies and family photographs assert a balance of power within the family and strive to promote the “good” memory of family: “parents in control, men in charge, families together” (15). What she does not overtly mention, however, is that these created memories are also punitive. It is the people, things, or events that disrupt the image of the ideal family that are banished from the frame. Importantly, my mother’s temper and her refusal to make peace with my grandmother led to her omission from my father’s carefully constructed scene of domestic tranquillity.
In the end, what is most significant is the fact that this manufactured memory works. Until I began to look at this picture through Citron’s eyes, I simply had a memory of my Grandma’s house—its warmth, and that it always smelled like bacon and Dr. Pepper. Unfortunately, this is not the whole picture. But this pleasant memory does not have to go away just because I now see things in more detail. By recognizing what is missing, I hope I can work to reconcile the fiction to the reality and come to a more complete understanding of my family’s dynamics.
Work Cited
Citron, Michelle. Home Movies and Other Necessary Fictions. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1999.
