Norma Rae: A tribute to the working mother
Norma Rae is a 1979 film about a textile mill factory worker who joins a union to challenge her employers after her workplace compromises the health of co-workers and herself. At first glance it seems an unusual choice for a tribute to mothers for Mother’s Day tomorrow. Nothing new this week at the cinema presented itself as an adequate tribute to mothers, so I dug into film history for an appropriate one.
Popular film has a familiar trope for many female protagonists of a certain age – examining their worth as characters through the prism of their relationship with their children – but there was a deft message in Norma Rae that made me sit up as I re-watched it this week. The film is a loose depiction of a real incident which occurred in 1975 and in 2017 it still has relevance for poor, working women the world over.
Mother’s Day will find many poor mothers tomorrow reluctant to accept the coming of Monday, when they will return to poor paying jobs where their rights are diminished. Norma’s journey from being a pushedaround woman to the unwitting saviour of her co-workers is a heart-warming, but not sentimental one. Buoyed by a human rights lawyer and disheartened by the lack of a union, Sally Field’s Norma takes a defiant stand during rush hour, stopping work and holding up a sign that says ‘UNION.’
After being arrested and making bail, she returns home like a wounded soldier, and makes her way through the house. The scene that follows is the crux of my focus today. What now? Will she rail against the injustices meted out to her? Will she sob? Will she rave? No, she heads to her children’s bedroom.
She rouses them from bed and takes them to the living room. She is ready to confess her soul and tells them, “Your mom is jailbird. Now, you’re gonna be hearin’ that, and a lot of other things. But you’re gonna hear it from me first.” All three children are under the age of 11. At this point, they might not even understand the what and why of Norma’s treatise.