Kin and Household relationships

a movie, obviously, is not a report on any "real" case in the sense that an ethnography presents itself as such a report. However, a movie (like any other piece of fiction) can be analyzed anthropologically by tracing carefully its authors and what they use to produce an object that will then be accepted by an audience as a token of a type (i.e. a 'movie' (and not a documentary), a 'Holliwood' movie (and not an art movie, or 'Bolliwood' movie) that can be evaluated in terms of its particular appeal.

In this sense, Parenthood can be seen as a Holliwood movie using the common sense connotations of what can be included under its title, matters such as learning disabilities, love and marriage, sexuality, schooling, petty criminality, to set up idenfiable scenes with their identifiable components leading to a 'happy' solutions through comic means. For example

• masturbation and the discovery of normal sexuality (who can do what and with whom can they talk about it)

Last revision: June 15, 2002