Donna Berzatto, a love letter
CW: Christmas in July; justice for bad moms
Have you heard of this show, The Bear? Honestly, that is what I feel like when I be recommending sometimes. If you are one of the few humans on planet earth who has not watched this most excellent series this will not be a spoiler (I don’t think?!) because the action of this episode is self-contained and more contextual than propulsive.
Well, the sixth episode of the second season of this very under-the-radar show is a star-studded bottle episode, a flashback to a very memorable Christmas that does the work of trauma math for short king Carmy. The trauma math to which I refer: a reason why we so often see Carmy staring broodily into middle distance=sad holidaze by bad mommy.
Here we have the rollicking Christmas Eve with an Italian-American family and friends of in Chicago, replete with stresses around the Feast of Seven Fishes, a brother’s simmering addictions, a classic personal story trotted out one too many times, a cousin who flew the working class coop returning home to subtextual “yuh think yuh bettah than me?” innuendo, and of course sweetie Carmy, a veal in the headlights to it all.
Jamie Lee Curtis gives her second best performance of a lifetime as Carmy’s mom, Donna Berzatto. The first goes to her deigning to appear in an episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills- so chic! But this performance MY GOD! There’s a bit of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf to it, as we see her come undone throughout the course of a drunken evening. She’s been sequestered in the kitchen all day, laboring over a feast no one asked for (but that they expect, don’t they???), growing more drunk and resentful each hour. The episode is her unraveling in the kitchen, punctuated with screaming food timers and cigarettes sucked. She yells, curses, cries, drinks, and berates her family. She is a timebomb they all handle with kid gloves. The episode ends with her plowing a car into the family living room, and laughing manically.
Clearly, Donna has some issues: alcoholism, potential borderline personality disorder, among others. We are meant to sympathize with Carmy. But that’s not what I felt watching. All my feelings were with Donna.
I have a mere seven years of hosting Thanksgiving (four with children around), and what I saw in Donna was a reflection of a truth I’ve never seen depicted onscreen: the loneliness and rage of being a mother at the holidays. (Given that Donna has probably hosted dozens for of years, her rage feels commensurate with her experience.) It is also true that I feel Donna so hard because I personally do not have a monstrous mother—though I have heard her emit a sailor’s dictionary of curse words from the kitchen at many a holiday, Mark Bittman, RIP. And I do recognize that I maybe sound a little sociopathic empathizing with the villain of the story—but didn’t you also feel bad for Alex Murdaugh? (KIDDING!)
The thing is we are not conditioned to empathize with difficult (fictional!) female characters the way we are when it comes to real-life wife and child murderers (“but his opioid addiction!”). We are meant to feel repulsed by her primal screams, her need for recognition and gratitude, especially at the oh-so-magical holiday times. Because holidays aren’t magical, my friends.
They are work. It is mothers (mostly) who make them that way, and it’s supposed to happen seamlessly, invisibly, and uncomplainingly. Those million little details, from a holiday menu to to gifts for the teachers to cookies for the neighbors to Christmas cards for the cousins no one thinks about all year till December, ad infinitum, not to mention ALL THE KID SHIT (and my eldest’s birthday is between Thanksgiving and Christmas, bless.) at the time of year when our Vitamin D stores are at the lowest and SADs are at the worst!!! There is still the expectation that this is our privilege to perform. And there are cute moments, and the children’s eyes on Christmas morning blah blah blah and my god is it exhausting. It is consuming and relentless.
And you’re supposed to look cute too??? The visual close-ups of Curtis pull no punches: the deep lines of her face reflect the tragedies small and large the character has endured, yet she attempts to perform femininity with long red talonlike fingernails and errant false lashes that fall apart when she cries. Even as an older woman, she is still not free of keeping up physical appearances.
Curtis’s performance is a rare glimpse into an authentic, inconvenient, and underrepresented lived experience for mothers: the resentment, the alienation, and the cathartic release of letting “you motherfuckers” (Donna’s family) know how you feel. If you have not felt some semblance of the feeling she depicts 1. You are lying 2. I don’t want to know you. This character is part of a lineage of difficult TV mothers- Livia Soprano, Lady Caroline Collingwood in Succession-- but the compactness of one day in a mother's life conveys a touchstone of truth. She makes the magic of the holidays visible, in all its ugly reality. I can’t say if this was the writers’ intention, but by god, JLC made it the realest.
I have informed relevant parties that if I am to host Thanksgiving this year, I will drive a car through our living room.
May all mothers everywhere get to drive a car through the living room once in their lives. May it be our giving-birthright.
Might I also recommend:
Lili Anolik on the cartoon villain Caroline Calloway
My baby mama Caity Weaver on the elusive Mr. Cruise
John Early’s comedy special
John Early’s 73 Questions with Vogue for old time’s sake
When you want real television criticism and thoughtfulness on all things look no further than Ruth Curry’s Coffee & TV
Turmeric ice cream from Malai especially with Helen
Sophie Calle book I found at Diamond Hollow Books
Odds ‘n’ Ends:
It Happened To Me: I ran out of deodorant today, of all days. AMA.
I’m slated for ketamine therapy (“research”) next week, do tell if you have any experience!
My second-born Love Lockdown is being rechristened Love in the Time of Incarceration for its paperback birth in November. Do pre-order in Barbie pink, and get at me if you want to do an event/interview/podcast!