Tag Archives: The Great Lie

The Great Lie is one of Bastardette’s favorite adoption films. What’s not to like about a good old-fashioned Hollywood cat fight? Especially when its between inconveniently pregnant career woman of mature years with a butch haircut “Sandra,” and softly coiffed Maryland horse farmer of pap entitlement, “Maggie?” My initial viewing of the film about 25 years ago, pre-bastard consciousness, put me squarely on the side of Davis’ pappery and amommery. I mean, are we really supposed to root for somebody who prefers Tschiakovsky over motherhood? When I watched the film again in the mid-1990s, I’d turned completely around. Sandra was my new hero, who even as she acquiesces, still has the moral victory over whiney wifey, who’s gonna spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder. I can’t wait for “Peter” and “Pete, Jr.” to learn the truth 20 years later. If nobody else tells them I will! Here is what I wrote about the film in The Happy Family (part 3 of “Scarlet Women, Bastards, and Happy Families,” published in the Winter 2001 issue of the Bastard Quarterly. Re-written from the original to correct a mistake. A not-so-tolerable and often disturbing relationship is explored in The Great Continue Reading →