Jeanine Basinger Quotes

“Movies with interfering in-laws and kids are often presented as comic, the ridicule bringing welcome relief to beleaguered married folks suffering offscreen at the hands of relatives.”

“The story of a marriage was an excellent way to fulfill the goal of discussing class without discussing class, and to tell an audience that they were upwardly mobile.”

“Deanna Durbin's movies are about innocence and sweetness. They're from a different time and a different place. Outside the movie house, there was Depression, poverty, war, death, and loss. Audiences then were willing to pretend, to enter into a game of escape. No one really thought that the world was like a Deanna Durbin movie, they just wanted to pretend it was for about an hour and a half.”

“It takes courage and resilience to be true to ourself. We have to know that we will be okay even if others reject or ridicule us. We have to know it won’t destroy us.”

“We aren’t teaching our children to thrive. We teach them to survive. It’s not the same thing. Resilience increases thriving without taking anything away from others.”

“The very nature of education encourages group think and a fear of getting it wrong. When you read what great leaders throughout history have said, the willingness to take risks and be wrong is what leads to their eventual success. The thing that separates those who become great leaders and those who don’t is that great leaders are resilient. When their plans do not work out they try again. They don’t stop trying until they meet with success.”

“In America, we have an education system where we mass produce high school and college graduates that leads us into a false sense of security that wise people who came before us figured out what we need to know to have the best possible life and that when we have completed our education that knowledge has been imparted to us.”

“In-laws were often used as plot devices to drive a happy couple apart, to destroy marital love and trust.”

“The true marriage movie involving in-laws and children is a story about how marriage is directly affected by external characters who impact the central relationship in various ways.”

“The ghastly mother-in-law is well represented by a little comedy film of 1952: No Room for the Groom, directed by Douglas Sirk, the fine German director more famous for his melodramas that humanely criticize American morals and values.”