Sweet Home Alabama You Have a Baby in a Bar Quote
The Instagram account of my imaginary bestie Reese Witherspoon informed me this week is the 15th anniversary of the release of the pic "Sweet Home Alabama."
In this archetype rom-com romp, Southern belle turned Manhattanite fashionista Melanie Carmichael (Witherspoon) has it all. She'south merely debuted a buzzy fashion line encumbered with early-2000s trends to much acclamation. She has a fabled gay mentor, a cosmopolitan girlfriend with a British accent, and is about to go engaged to a dashing political scion of New York City played by Patrick Dempsey.
At that place's merely ane small problem. She's still technically married to her childhood sweetheart, Jake (Josh Lucas), and the city mouse must go back to the country in her black turtlenecks and Jimmy Choos to get a divorce. Forth the style, nosotros find culture clashes, hilarity, and and perchance, simply peradventure, a third-act plot twist, an unrealistically magnanimous jilted lover, and the true pregnant of love. Spoiler alarm.
The film is rated a pretty dismal 38 per centum by Rotten Tomatoes, but I revisited it with a glass of wine, equally my chromosomes would have me do, and Witherspoon's amuse is equally usual more than plenty to make the film worth watching. But this 2002 film has a lesson that will resound forever, and it has nothing to do with Jake and Melanie, or even Dempsey's enduring hotness.
It is this. Live your life similar Lurlynn.
Lurlynn, played by Melanie Lynskey, is a friend of Witherspoon's character's from loftier school. We are introduced to her as Melanie struts into the local honky tonk wearing her ain designer duds, and Lurlynn greets her effusively.
"Oh my God! Look at you, all fancy! You expect like yous just stepped out of a mag."
Melanie replies, "Wait at you! You accept a babe…in a bar."
That's the famous line, but I had forgotten the one after it, which is a veritable life philosophy for motherhood. Lurlynn, who is nonchalantly toting an baby during the preceding conversation, smiles unabashed and declares, "Hell, I got 3 more than at abode! This one'due south still on the tit, so I can cart him anywhere."
Yes, girl, yes. When they are yet on the tit, you tin can indeed cart them anywhere. And yous should!
There are a couple commendable things going on, here. This is non just a baby in a bar. A baby in a bar is also a mom living her life, out with friends, while taking care of a baby. She needs the semi-me time, babies like the white noise, and when they're little no one can hear them fuss, or even run into them if you lot're infant-wearing.
This baby in a bar is an endorsement of breastfeeding without shaming any other forms of feeding babies. He's breastfeeding, so she'due south got him at the bar. There is an appreciation of her situation, but no suggestion she would begrudge a formula-feeding mother her choices. She'd probably hang out with her at the bar. And, most importantly, Lurlynn exhibits not a hint of shame or second-guessing for the conclusion she has fabricated to have her breastfeeding baby with her in this institution. She knows who she is.
I cannot tell you how many young-mom friends of mine have referenced this scene as we talk about our adventures juggling life, friends, work, and family. Often, their maiden voyages outside the house with the baby are a boozy brunch with friends or a Th happy hour with a teensy newborn strapped to their chests. Whether they imbibe or not, the experience is a mark of a return to some normalcy and a declaration that they can, indeed, manage several different things at one time in this new phase of life.
In that moment in the film, it's unclear whether "Sweet Dwelling Alabama" wants us to see Lurlynn as a positive character, which is i of the things I appreciate about the movie. Although information technology has its share of tropes nigh urban versus rural life, it allows many of its citified Yankees and gun-totin' Southerners to exist something beyond a cartoon.
Witherspoon's character is mildly taken aback by Lurlynn'southward kid and lack of sophistication, only non appalled or rude. Lurlynn is profane and provincial, simply well-meaning. Melanie after lashes out at her old friends while drunk, denigrating their lifestyle. Despite Melanie'south condescending assault, it is Lurlynn who hands off her baby to her hubby— successful co-parenting!—and gathers Melanie's purse and property for her.
Later in the movie, we see Lurlynn at the local Catfish Festival, again calmly parenting, this time several kids, when Melanie arrives to atone for what she said at the bar. Lurlynn looks angry, but is quick to genuinely forgive—another indication she's non insecure about her life choices. Lurlynn quickly shushes her children, "Okay, y'all, yous need to eat and be placidity. We're gonna have us a little visit."
The two talk most life and ambition and the cleaved wedlock of Melanie and Jake, with Lurlynn sadly concluding while snuggling her own babe, "It'south funny how things don't work out."
Melanie looks at Lurlynn and her family unit admiringly and says, "It's funny how they do."
It's a actually nice moment, far from the cartoonish Mommy Wars dichotomy so often portrayed in movies. Later that dark, we see Lurlynn dancing with her husband, Clint, with whom she seems to have a warm, comfortable relationship.
The first time I watched this motion-picture show, I was supposed to place with the glamorous, career-driven, childless lead chasing love. And I did. Her Southern roots didn't injure, either. At present, I'm Squad Lurlynn, and I volition be every time I unabashedly have my baby to a bar or invite my new-mom friends out to exercise the same. After all, when they're on the tit, you can cart them anywhere.
Source: https://thefederalist.com/2017/10/05/fifteen-years-later-sweet-home-alabamas-baby-in-a-bar-is-a-lifestyle-not-a-laugh-line/
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