Guest Post by Cristina Escobar
“Roma” became the first film from Mexico to win the “foreign” language category at the Oscars on Sunday, and also nabbed best director and cinematography statues for Alfonso Cuarón. The story centers on Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a domestic worker based on the woman who helped raise Cuarón. The film follows her the year she gets pregnant and the family she works for is abandoned by its patriarch. As such, the central relationship is between Cleo and the newly independent matriarch, Sofía (Marina de Tavira). As a mother myself and a pregnant, Mexican-American one at that, I found watching and empathizing with Cleo and Sofía freeing. The film delves into what it means to be a mother, complicating the traditional story we tell about the role.
“Roma” takes place in Mexico, the land of la Virgen de Guadalupe. Our culture is built around the cult of motherhood. This is the role you’re supposed to aspire to, the one that should fill you with purpose, give you all the love you could want. Yet, I’ve noticed a certain invisibility since having my daughter. Strangers look at her and not at me. Conversations with friends and family start with her latest developments and only sometimes get to what’s going on with me. In many ways, she’s become my identity, at least on the personal level. That places a lot of pressure on the bond between a grown-up and a dependent, not-fully-developed human.
The truth is, motherhood is often a slog. It’s not just dirty diapers and sleep deprivation. It’s listening to “Baby Shark” on repeat, convincing a tiny human that we have to comb her hair every day, trying to get her to stop throwing her food. It’s knowing you could always be doing more/better and you’ll only get one chance at this moment with this irreplaceable child. Think of it as a high stakes game of doing the same task over and over again. And I’m not the only one who feels this way. Kids often don’t meet their mothers’ emotional needs — how could they? They’re children. And becoming a mother doesn’t suddenly turn a person into a long-suffering saint who always put her needs second.
Yet discussing the chasm between the myth and the reality of motherhood is taboo in everyday life and certainly rarely seen on the Oscar stage — can you think of a Best Picture winner about a mother? “Roma” explores motherhood artfully, making neither demons nor angels of its leading ladies. Throughout the film, Sofía oscillates between kind and cruel, in control and out. She snaps at her children and Cleo, cries and frets, and yet remains the adult who is ultimately in charge of providing materially and emotionally for her children.
Meanwhile, Cleo gets pregnant, is rejected by her child’s father, and has a stillbirth — all while cleaning the family’s house, nurturing its children, and doing their laundry by hand. Her life is both different and similar, capturing an unnamed truth about pregnancy. As an act that takes place within your body, pregnancy is inescapable while you’re in it but somehow also passive, easy to forget. In fact, unless you have a medical condition, there’s not much to do. I take prenatal vitamins every day and go to the doctor once a month. I sleep longer and eat more often. That’s it. “Roma” captures this experience by simply following Cleo’s body through the frame, showing her growing belly while not shrinking her life to her pregnancy.
This juxtaposition between Cleo’s personal and professional lives is what makes “Roma” so unique. Organizations like the National Domestic Workers Alliance have organized screenings of the film because it portrays domestic workers as they deserve — as human. Yes, Cleo nurtures the family she serves but that alone does not define her. She has a life outside of the household and one that does not always match their limited narrative of her as their caretaker. In a moment of raw emotion and clarity toward the end of the film, Cleo declares she didn’t want her stillborn baby — an unspeakable truth uttered aloud that makes her no less sympathetic. Nurturing alone does not define her. She’s so much more complicated than that.
Think of the moment when Cleo confronts her ex-lover Fermín (Jorge Antonio Guerrero) after his training with the paramilitary group. To get there, she had to travel far, convince their mutual acquaintance to point her in the right direction against his better judgment, and find her violent young man. Yet, while she waits, she does something that the leader of the group says is nearly impossible: a perfect tree pose. As a sometimes yogi myself, I can’t do tree as well as Cleo and neither can anyone else in the large crowd assembled. Her skill suggests an inner strength and peace that does not correspond easily to her role as an abandoned pregnant woman, her job as a “maid,” or her soon-to-be role as an observer of a massacre. Cleo doesn’t say much over the course of “Roma” but her slow smiles and self-possession speak of a woman with a deep internal life, one that we are only partially privy to.
Likewise, we see Sofía as a more dynamic human than the role of jilted mother may suggest. When she stops trying to win her husband back through frantic phone calls and appeals to mutual friends, she can finally thrive. Indeed, Sofía seems most happy when she’s gotten rid of her husband’s oversized car, gone back to work, and told her children the truth. She may not have the ideal family narrative — a united family all happy together thanks to the mother’s love — but she does not fail at life or mothering. Her children persist, each member of the family grows, and the love between them is clear.
It’s this new definition of motherhood that interests me. The one that allows women to be imperfect people who persevere not in spite of, but because of, how they fall short of the cult of motherhood. The narrative that admits kids are raised by imperfect people and turn out okay. The one that slays the myth but leaves the woman untarnished. The one that “Roma” portrays so beautifully.
Professional feminist and amateur woman, Cristina Escobar is a writer, activist, and co-founder of Mujeres Problemáticas, media reviews from the Latina perspective.
