Word: momism
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...father of "momism" in Generation of Vipers, Polemicist-Novelist Philip Wylie has a certain reputation to live up to. In his own way, he turned the crank letter into a literary form. In that eruption 29 years ago, he added to the sum of human choler by announcing, among other things: "Gentlemen, mom is a jerk...
Promise at Dawn, based on Romain Gary's dutiful autobiography, takes little Romain from his boyhood in Russia to his early manhood in Paris. Beside him at every step is Mama (Melina Mercouri), who could give Sophie Portnoy lessons in classic and popular momism. Denied recognition as an actress, she seeks vicarious glory through her child. Mama forces her son to take violin lessons that he might be another Heifetz, ballet lessons that he might be Nijinsky reincarnate, French lessons that he might be a future ambassador. The woman's compulsion is infinite; when her son enlists...
Parks preaches rebellion against Momism to the best friend (John Leyton) who idolizes him. He persuades Leyton to pay half the rent on a seedy flat, uses it to enjoy Leyton's girl friend (Jennifer Hilary) and finally seduces Leyton's divorced mother (Jennifer Jones). Shortly afterward, The Idol explodes with the kind of gut-clutching Greek passion that seems altogether alien to the cool contemporary scene set forth in the rest of the picture...
...Having vulgarized Waugh, Director Richardson and his associates flail away at momism, nepotism, space-age technology, dirty old men, antiSemitism, anything. They treat the audience to a series of small, distasteful shocks, but as black comedy gives way to bald effrontery, even the shock wears off The Loved One seems as crude and pointless as a schoolboy's Halloween prank like tipping over tombstones or throwing a stink bomb into the parsonage...
After that, the clergyman and the social worker collected evidence that suggested an epidemic of momism in lower Manhattan. They found one mother who kept her son on the needle (and tied to her apron strings) by developing ear infections so that she needed him for a nurse whenever he made plans to hospitalize himself. Another woman bailed her boy out of jail while he was waiting to enter a hospital for addicts because she could not bear to have him wash his own underwear. Some mothers even encouraged their sons' habits by giving them...