BAD GEOMETRICITY
Is it me or does anyone else want to hit this woman?
Every now and then in our pattern forming world, it’s time to create some new images, new archetypes if you will. Some of the old tried and tested archetypes have remained with us since the Greeks, some have had a bit of a rebrand to bring them up to date (more on this later) and some new ones have come into being.
The computer geek was not around at the time of Socrates but this is now a universal pattern we all recognize. We form an instant picture – introverted, clever, bespectacled. The ability to create an image without a mass of accompanying data is an instant clue to the entry of an archetype into the collective consciousness.
The Mother is a universal archetype. Unlike the computer geek, it has accumulated a number of faces over the years. The stoic pioneer (Katherine Hepburn), the cool friend (Susan Sarandon), the crazy witch (Sarah Palin). However a new twist on an old pattern seems to have emerged…
Who thought it was a good idea to invent ‘Soppy Mom’.
The wise women, the ‘raise a family on a couple of shoestrings and a bar of soap’ women, and all the gutsy heroines of old, must be rolling in their graves. Motherhood has had some strange Saatchi style revamp, reinforced by the truly dreadful copywriting skills of Hallmark cards culminating in the above poster.
It’s a conspiracy.
We need to bring back ‘normal mum’, the one without the doting expression. Hopefully this would have the double advantage of bringing back ‘normal wife’ so we wouldn’t have to witness the same patronizing smile turned on ‘hapless, hopeless husband’ in a variety of television ads and soap operas.
Motherhood is a job, not a free pass into sainthood. We all suffer when it has a hidden agenda. Self sacrificing mothers model victimhood. Men bashing feminists model aggression. Children copy the same pattern or adopt the opposite pattern, creating victims and terrorists…(and we thought they were all in the third world).
Stop! Step away from the halo…New pattern required.