Authentic man program criticism series#

As ecocritic Lawrence Buell says, ecocriticism is an вЂњincreasingly heterogeneous movementвЂќ (1).

Other international helplines may be found via resource will help you begin the process of understanding literary theory and schools of criticism and how they are used in the academy.Д®cocriticism is an umbrella term under which a variety of approaches fall this can make it a difficult term to define.

In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233).

In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit WomenвЂ™s Aid. The detail, the tenderness, the authenticity, the brilliant performances make the whole thing both a compelling drama and a potent testimony to the suffering of too many. And I could live without motherhood being presented as the great leveller between Alex and her client Regina, whose enormous house is the first she is sent to clean, which felt like a slightly retrograde step.Д«ut these are quibbles. The backbreaking nature of cleaning isnвЂ™t shown. At times Alex feels just slightly too patient and generous with her limited resources to be true. It is also good at showing the insidious forms and effects of emotional abuse (more rarely depicted on screen than physical abuse is) without insisting that Alex be an ever-broken Victim-with-a-capital-V. Even when, particularly in SeanвЂ™s case, it is hard for the viewer to feel sympathetic towards him. Alex and all those around her are fully realised characters вЂ“ especially her вЂњundiagnosed bipolarвЂќ mother Paula (QualleyвЂ™s own mother Andie MacDowell) вЂ“ gradually fleshed out and always played and treated with sympathy.

Authentic man program criticism series#

Often, we see the running total of AlexвЂ™s finances, ticking down to zero before she can secure what she needs to get the next dayвЂ™s cash вЂ“ food for herself, petrol for the car she needs for work, the co-pay for MaddyвЂ™s daycare вЂ“ let alone start saving towards a rental deposit.Д«ut over the 10 hours, the series walks an admirably fine line between showing us the reality of poverty in America (which is not to say that things are any better here) and creating misery porn. The slightest mishap, without the money or resources to correct it, can only snowball into disaster. It illuminates all the vulnerabilities that having children brings. It dramatises the precariousness of existence without a fixed abode, a proper income or family support and conjures a world rarely seen in real life or on screen. Alex picks her way through the demoralising labyrinth of forms, intrusive questions, document requirements, finding herself in one terrible Catch-22 situation after another until a combination of persistence and luck enable her to start a journey back to stability for them both. Embedded within it, however, is an unflinching anatomisation of the red tape that surrounds every effort to access the (already minimal) help supposedly on offer to desperate women and their children, and the unfitness for purpose of every aspect of the state that is meant to offer succour. What follows is a part rags-to-riches вЂ“ or at least to not-rags вЂ“ story, as Alex starts to piece her life back together via grit, shelters, the occasional kindness of strangers and a cleaning job with a rackety firm run by an unforgiving woman named Yolanda (Tracy Vilar). Inspired by Stephanie LandвЂ™s memoir Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay and a MotherвЂ™s Will to Survive, it tells the story of 23-year-old Alex (Margaret Qualley) who, with her two-year-old daughter Maddy (an extraordinarily appealing Rylea Nevaeh Whittet вЂ“ and I speak as one who finds the charms of all onscreen and most real-life children resistible) flees an emotionally abusive relationship with MaddyвЂ™s father, Sean (Nick Robinson). Replace the second вЂњmanвЂќ with вЂњwomanвЂќ (in Philip LarkinвЂ™s This Be the Verse) and you have NetflixвЂ™s new 10-part drama Maid in a nutshell.