The Family Meal

LEARNING INTENTIONS

To appreciate the significance of a family meals in narratives.

Discussion

Do you have a special place at the table?
Does someone sit at the head of the table?
Who cooks?
When is the meal an occasion?
What’s different then?
What are the cultural aspects of food in your family?
Does everyone have a job to do during the family meal?

A communion is any act of coming together.

In Chapter 2 of "How to Read Literature Like a Professor", Foster explains how eating is a form of communion. In books and movies, etc., there is more to food than just eating. Food, and the sharing of food, is a symbolic image of camaraderie and brotherhood. A successful meal indicates a strong relationship and successful methods of communication, whereas a meal gone wrong can foreshadow future problems or consequences.

It’s not about what’s for dinner -- it’s about who’s there having dinner, and possibly what happens while you’re there. Whether you witness a heart-warming speech or a chaotic mess of a meal where “family” means picking on each other quite a bit, scenes of family meals are meant to convey something important in each story .

Family Meal TROPES in film.pdf

Student Workbook

Print as A5 booklet

Family Meal TROPES in film

Family Dynamics

Meals that work as a “family portrait” - that convey a sense of togetherness.

The Awkward Meal

Things aren’t going great in the house and nobody wants to talk about it. In fact, the lack of genuine engagement is the most painful part. Often these awkward meals get uncomfortable not from people saying the wrong things, but because nobody can say the right things.

The Blow-Up

At some point the conflict simmering below the surface will boil over.

Conflict in the subtext

A disagreement that’s getting worked out without being directly addressed.

The Unspoken Secret

Sometimes there’s an elephant in the room that only one person knows about. These are the unspoken secrets and there are a ton of incredible meal scenes built around them. Somebody at the table knows something the others don’t and they circle around it like pushing peas on a plate.

Competition

A shouting match between family. A dinner table turned naked battleground for competition. Sometimes complicated by a balance between love and aggression.

Vying for Power

A hostile takeover of the family’s power structure.

American Beauty

The meal sequence in the Burnham household’s dining room.

How would you describe the methods of communication used in this family?

What thoughts, feelings and attitudes are effecting the way the family communicates?

Edward Scissorhands

The stillness of an awkward family dinner is broken at first by the clinking of metal as Edward, the titular character, uses his bladed hands to try and have a normal dinner with a normal family. The difficulty is an underscore to what he goes through in other parts of the film, but everyone’s attempt to treat him normally (apart from Kevin) makes it clear he’s primed for acceptance among some people.

Of course, like all strange characters, he has trouble fitting in elsewhere anyway -- especially thanks to his scissorhands. But Peg’s family treats him as normally as they can think to, and it’s as heartwarming as it is comic.

How would you describe the methods of communication used in this family?

What thoughts, feelings and attitudes are effecting the way the family communicates?

THE INCREDIBLES

The Incredibles are a family of superhumans, and with that premise comes a lot of playtime. Whether it’s introducing the struggles of “acting normal” or all-out sibling warfare that takes place between Dash and Violet, there is an opportunity for not only showing off these characters’ powers but also giving us a taste of what’s missing in their lives.

How would you describe the methods of communication used in this family?

What thoughts, feelings and attitudes are effecting the way the family communicates?

Boyhood

This scene from Boyhood isn't the easiest watch by a long shot. It depicts Mason (Ellar Coltrane) and his family subjected to stepfather Bill (Marco Perella) being an abusive, alcoholic douche, who throws glasses at them while screaming about his distaste for squash. The scene is the catalyst for the family falling apart and is almost too real.

How would you describe the methods of communication used in this family?

What thoughts, feelings and attitudes are effecting the way the family communicates?

Lars and the Real Girl

Family dinners don't come much more awkward than the scene in Lars and the Real Girl in which Lars (Ryan Gosling) brings his blow-up girlfriend along as his date and speaks to her and the others as if she were real. Yet while it's major cringe territory, it's also beautiful to see how the family humors him and joins in with Lars' fiction.

How would you describe the methods of communication used in this family?

What thoughts, feelings and attitudes are effecting the way the family communicates?

We Need to Talk About Kevin

This dinner scene has all the elements of a disconnected family meal: parents and children who can't communicate on the same level, aren't particularly concerned with doing so, and talking more out of necessity than desire. What's most concerning is the power play, in which Kevin has the upper hand while his parents, particularly his mother, are more fearful than anything else.

How would you describe the methods of communication used in this family?

What thoughts, feelings and attitudes are effecting the way the family communicates?

Mini Debate

Family meals are more trouble than they are worth

Family traditions are the glue that holds us together

A family that eats together stays together

TASK 5

Write a short discursive piece exploring the role that food plays in family life.

SMH - Heckler

Just relish the food of life: pig in

October 28, 2009

Last week I ate a beautiful ginger and garlic crab at home with my family. We tore it apart with our hands, noisily sucked and chewed the flesh, stained our clothes with crab juice, and left a trail of dirty serviettes in our wake.

Food is enjoyed with reckless abandon at my house, and it makes me wonder why more of us don't eat our food this way.

We are trained from an early age not to chew with our mouths open, to sit up straight at the table, not to tear at food with our fingers - lest we offend fellow diners.

But what if everyone threw away their inhibitions about table etiquette? I'm sure many among us have the secret desire to put a plate up to their face and slurp the yolk from a sunny-side-up fried egg at a cafe.

How much more would we enjoy a bowl of spag bol at a restaurant without the constant interruption of wiping sauce away from our chins? Without glancing around anxiously to see if anyone saw you drop that noodle on to your lap?

I've found that people will admit to ''bad'' etiquette when eating alone at home, but would never take that kind of behaviour out into public. That they pick apart a cold chicken carcass with their hands is their dirty little secret.

I don't find that behaviour at all offensive - instead, I cannot bear watching someone painstakingly pick apart a pizza with a knife and fork. To me, it indicates a triumph of needless, priggish behaviour over good commonsense.

And think about this: it is cute when we see a toddler enraptured with his ice-cream as it dribbles down her chin. But when that toddler grows up, he becomes obsessed with stopping the drips, and keeping his hands and face clean.

To replicate that same joy we experienced as a toddler is to have our own behaviour labelled childish, uneducated - even savage.

We need not obsess over a little bit of mess, because hands, faces, clothes can be washed. Perhaps we need to rewrite the social handbook to focus on the joy of eating freely, rather than a detached dissection of food. Or invent a machine to remove ingrained soundbite memories of our parents' nagging voices about table manners. Nobel prize, anyone?

And one more thing. I'm going to Tetsuya's next week. I just hope they're tolerant of the three-second rule.

Donna Chang

Comments

Nothing irks me more than people dining in public with no table manners. Accompany this with their children being given a plate of food with absolutely no idea how to hold, let alone use, a knife and fork, and I lose my own appetite! How many times do you see children of primary school age picking up their food from the plate? Don't people teach their kids how to use cutlery anymore?

SDC | Sydney - inner west - October 28, 2009, 9:08AM

come on guys........I think it was a little dig at us all......not meant to offend....why are you all so seriouse!

And eating Pizza with cutlery?????? that is just od!

Vanessa | Sydney - October 28, 2009, 9:59AM

Sure, why not also encourage farting loudly at restaurants too? Particularly the smelly ones. And kids nappies should be allowed to be changed on restaurant tables. They should kill animals live at the restaurants too so you know what you are eating. To heck with it, why don't people have sex in restaurants?

What I'm getting at is, maybe, just maybe, not everything should be done in public. It's called being considersate, letting others experience their food without digusting sights and smells, and reducing the sharing of disease.

We don't want to see you eat with your mouth open and dribble ice cream on the table in the restaurant. Disgust aside, it's also unhygenic, as are the other things I mentioned above.

I don't want your diseases. Keep them to yourself.

Drew - October 28, 2009, 10:48AM

So you are happy to spoil nearby diner's food experiences or romantic experiences just because it makes you feel at home?

Talk about selfish. How old are you again?

Andy - October 28, 2009, 10:57AM

Hey Drew, they do kill animals at restaurants - fish, lobsters etc.

It's just that the animals are harder to pet...

greg | sydney - October 28, 2009, 11:32AM

Dining with others has always been a ceremonious occasion (breaking of bread, for example) so it is only apropriate that some rituals be implemented - employing utensils for some

dishes, fingers for others, and for the love of everything sacred refraining from outright mastication.

Erebus | Brisbane - October 28, 2009, 11:42AM

The comment about kids not eating with knives and forks reminded me of how I taught my kids to use cutlery.

I started serving them really hot soup. It's amazing how soon they pick it up after a few visits to the emergency ward... and after the blisters go down.

greg | sydney - October 28, 2009, 11:51AM Show more comments

Comments are now closed

Word Meanings from Heckler column ‘Just relish the food of life’ (Ginger Crab)

Prig - somebody who is regarded as taking pride in behaving in a very correct and proper way, and in feeling morally superior to others ( adjective – priggish)

Etiquette - the rules and conventions governing correct or polite behaviour in society in general or in a specific social or professional group or situation

Enrapture - to fill somebody with delight

Painstakingly - involving or showing great care and attention to detail

Tetsuya’s – a fine Sydney restaurant owned and run by a ‘celebrity’ chef

Weeknight Dinner Around the World (Published 2019)We asked 18 families to show us what they have for dinner on a typical weeknight.

Writing: “A typical meal in my house….” When you have the narrative, turn it into a short script for a one act play.

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