6 Movies You Shouldn't Watch on Mother's Day

As part of your Mother's Day celebration, you may choose to share a movie with mom. There are some wonderful movies out there, celebrating the miracle of motherhood and maternal self-sacrifice. Think I Remember Mama, Stella Dallas, Terms of Endearment, The Joy Luck Club-- to mention but a few. These are all special movies to share with mom on her special day. And then there are the... others. Movies you'd be better off without on Mother's Day. These babies take the notions of motherhood and saintliness and carve a big, deep, jagged divide between them. Don't believe me? Do take a peek for yourself. (If you dare, that is.)

Aliens (1986): "Get away from her, you bitch!"

There is a strong subtext of motherhood in Aliens. Ripley is a mom who outlives her daughter because she has been stranded in hyper-sleep for almost sixty years. So she becomes mom to Newt, the resilient little girl and only survivor in alienville. So far so good. But if you try to look at the movie objectively, isn't the alien queen a mother figure as well? The nest scene must be the hugest baby factory ever shown on screen. And while we are on Ripley's side and we'd hate to see either her or Newt devoured by aliens, shouldn't we also feel some stirring of compassion for the alien mom who witnesses her babies' horrible death (mass infanticide?) by Ripley's flamethrower? OK, so they are creepy, crawly babies who like to tear humans apart, but a) a baby is a baby, b) there's no accounting for taste, and c) surely we wouldn't want to be found guilty of lookism. Aliens navigates some murky waters of political correctness relating to the cultural stereotyping of motherhood. Trust me, you don't want to even stick a big toe in there. Especially not on Mother's Day.

Ed and his Dead Mother (1993): "My mother was a hardware man, and she taught me it was better to be a hammer than a nail."