Saturday, September 16, 2017

Ursula: Almost Famous


            

In one of my favorite movies, Almost Famous, there is a mother figure who reminds me somewhat of Ursula Buendía. Elaine, the mother in the film, is obsessed with maintaining a standard in behavior and education, and is ridiculously disturbed when her daughter, Anita, comes home with a Simon and Garfunkel album. Elaine argues that rock only propagates debauchery, and shortly after Anita leaves home to be a stewardess. Elaine’s son, William, listens to the records that his sister left, and gets really into the music, and after a while of minor music articles, lands a gig for Rolling Stone magazine. Here, he travels with a band called Stillwater all around the country and experiences just about everything that his mother tried to guard him from.


Similarly, I think Ursula tries to keep debauchery away from the Buendía household, but the kids of the house often go out and find it anyway. The crazy ideas, like what William and Anita’s love for good music was for Elaine, also spread easily throughout the family. Ursula tries to keep the wildness to a minimum for a while, but like Elaine at the end of the movie, seems to accept that some of these things will just happen.

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