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EARTH MAMA

What You Need To Know:

EARTH MAMA is a slice-of-life drama. Gia is a pregnant black woman and single mother living in the Bay Area around San Francisco. The State has taken away Gia’s other two children because she’s had drug problems. Gia’s in recovery and hopes to regain custody of her children soon. Her social worker is sympathetic, but she’s trying to convince Gia into giving up her new baby for adoption. Meanwhile, Gia’s pregnant friend, a self-identifying Christian woman, wants Gia to have the baby and take care of it on her own, in solidary with the friend. What will Gia decide?

Like too many “slice-of-life” dramas, the plot in EARTH MAMA wanders too much from scene to scene. The plot is cohesive and suspenseful enough to maintain a regular moviegoer’s interest. Also, most of the movie’s performances are pretty good. That said, EARTH MAMA has both moral and immoral content. The worldview is mixed, with some Romantic, slightly politically correct content and some morally uplifting, pro-life content promoting motherhood and adoption. EARTH MAMA is marred by excessive foul language, brief nudity and light drug references.

Content:

(PaPa, RoRo, PC, BB, C, AB, Fe, LLL, V, S, NN, A, DD, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:
Strong mixed pagan worldview, in a story about a young unmarried pregnant black woman and single mother in recovery thinking about offering her baby up for adoption, mixes Romantic notions (some of them vague and implicitly politically correct) about black women being victims of “the system,” but the movie is vague about whether that’s a reference to the foster care system and government “child protective services,” which have put the protagonist’s two other young children into foster care because she was arrested for using drugs, the social system in general, or both, mixed with strong moral pro-life elements looking favorably on motherhood and adoption but from the perspective of a pregnant woman who’s concerned about her child (the potential heterosexual adoptive couple are depicted as nice people, however, who are want to adopt a baby), and the pregnant protagonist has a close pregnant friend who’s a Christian who talks to her briefly about God and Jesus, but the friend is a little flaky and overly persistent, plus movie doesn’t mention biological fathers or even the back stories of the unwed mothers in the movie (it’s more interested in just filming the life of a woman who’s found herself pregnant again and having to deal with all the issues involved in her current situation, so there’s an implied feminist perspective regarding that

Foul Language:
About 38 obscenities (including 18 “f” words and some “s” words) and one possible Jesus profanity

Violence:
Light brief violence such as drivers doing circles with their cars during an illegal street rally party

Sex:
No depicted sex, but women are pregnant out of wedlock, but movie doesn’t discuss the fathers or sexual details

Nudity:
Upper female and rear female nudity in fantasy scene during a dream where a naked pregnant woman walks in a forest by a stream

Alcohol Use:
Some alcohol use in one or so background scenes

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:
Pregnant woman is in drug recovery and at a low point in her story steals some crack from her drug-dealing sister and smokes it; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:
Female protagonist sneaks into her sister’s room, protagonist and her friend attend an illegal street racing rally and party at night in one scene.

More Detail:

EARTH MAMA is a slice-of-life drama about a pregnant young black woman in San Francisco torn between giving up her baby for adoption or taking care of the baby herself. Though well-acted, EARTH MAMA, which doesn’t really mention fathers at all, sometimes sees its title character as a victim of “the system” and contains excessive foul language, brief nudity and light drug references, but it has a pro-adoption perspective and slightly pro-life attitude, so it can be viewed by some media-wise adults, but with extreme caution advised.

The story focuses on Gia, a pregnant young black woman and single mother living in the Bay Area around San Francisco and Oakland, Calif. The State has taken away Gia’s other two young children because she’s had a drug problem. Gia’s in recovery, and she hopes to regain custody of her children soon. Her social worker is sympathetic, but she’s trying to move Gia toward giving up her new baby for adoption.

Meanwhile, Gia’s pregnant friend, a self-identifying Christian woman, wants Gia to have the baby and take care of it on her own, in solidary with the friend who plans on doing just that.

What will Gia decide?

Like too many “slice-of-life” dramas, the plot in EARTH MAMA wanders too much from scene to scene. That said, the plot is cohesive and suspenseful enough to maintain a regular moviegoer’s interest. Most viewers probably won’t be able to tell whether Gia will decide to give up her baby for adoption, even though the movie sets up the question as having only two answers. Happily, the movie doesn’t seem to offer abortion as a possible solution. In fact, it’s fairly clear that Gia loves her other two children and enjoys spending time with them during her limited visitation sessions with them. Despite this positive element, there’s a scene later on in the movie where Gia faces a decision of whether to violate her sobriety by stealing and smoking one of her drug-dealing sister’s samples of crack.

EARTH MAMA has three other moral problems and issues.

First, the movie has excessive foul language, including nearly 20 “f” words. Second, there’s a fantasy scene with brief female nudity where a naked woman walks in forest, hence the title EARTH MAMA. Third, the EARTH MAMA has a mixed pagan worldview with negative and positive content.

For example, the movie has some strong Romantic content that views the black female protagonist as a victim of “the system.” There’s brief dialogue, for instance, where people complain about “the system.” The dialogue is ambiguous, however. It can refer to the foster care system and the government’s “child protective services” system that has taken the protagonist’s other two children away from her. Or, it can refer to society in general, where black women are treated badly. Or, it can refer to both.

Juxtaposed against this Non-Christian, slightly politically correct content is some morally uplifting content. Thus, for example, the movie is clearly a sympathetic portrait of motherhood, in this case unwed black mothers in cities all across the United States. The protagonist clearly loves her two children in the foster care system waiting to be with their mother once again. The movie also has a positive view of adoption, although the issue is told from the unwed mother’s perspective where the mother is anxious about whether giving up her baby for adoption is the right thing to do. Happily, the movie depicts the heterosexual married couple waiting for the mother’s decision in an overtly positive light.

Finally, the movie’s first-time Writer/Director, Savanah Leaf, has decided not to refer to fathers or tell the back story of its pregnant protagonist. Instead, EARTH MAMA focuses like a laser beam on the pregnant protagonist’s current situation. It’s more of a slice-of-life drama, not a social problem movie. As such, it’s designed to elicit conversation and sympathy rather than debate.

That said, MOVIEGUIDE® advises excessive for the mixed worldview, excessive foul language, brief nudity, and drug references in EARTH MAMA.


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