Daddy Issues Quotes

“The father is appalled by the news of the engagement: horrified, angry, jealous, unable to conceal his wounded sense of having been displaced. He acts comically badly towards the fiancé; when his daughter and the new man kiss, he rolls his eyes, while the mother whimpers in admiration. The father identifies as a jilted lover, while the mother identifies with a romantic girlhood. The audience is presumably meant to do the same, in line with their gender. Later in the film, Martin bitterly acknowledges that 'my day has passed', likening himself to 'an old shoe, discontinued.'

But is the father's horror at his daughter's sexuality exactly that? Or is it a displaced horror at his own sexuality, his own desire? The commonness o sexual abuse of teens, and the ubiquity of the teen trope in pornography, would suggest that most men at least know what it's like to desire a teenage girl. Is the father's horror at his daughter's sexuality perhaps a disavowed horror at his own susceptibility to it?”
― Katherine Angel, Daddy Issues

“The father is appalled by the news of the engagement: horrified, angry, jealous, unable to conceal his wounded sense of having been displaced. He acts comically badly towards the fiancé; when his daughter and the new man kiss, he rolls his eyes, while the mother whimpers in admiration. The father identifies as a jilted lover, while the mother identifies with a romantic girlhood. The audience is presumably meant to do the same, in line with their gender. Later in the film, Martin bitterly acknowledges that 'my day has passed', likening himself to 'an old shoe, discontinued.'

But is the father's horror at his daughter's sexuality exactly that? Or is it a displaced horror at his own sexuality, his own desire? The commonness of sexual abuse of teens, and the ubiquity of the teen trope in pornography, would suggest that most men at least know what it's like to desire a teenage girl. Is the father's horror at his daughter's sexuality perhaps a disavowed horror at his own susceptibility to it?”
― Katherine Angel, Daddy Issues

“By refusing to reduce incest to merely a physical act imposed on a little girl by an adult male, Harrison reveals the necessity of the stable yet flexible, reality-dosed mirroring that Winnicott talks about; the gaze that enables a child to individuate, and experience a sense of self. She reveals the curtailing of the self that arises from the lack of good-enough parenting - parenting that Winnicott saw as both utterly ordinary and immeasurably skilled. Without it, enchanted in all the dark ways enchantment can take place, Harrison is compelled to be seen at any exorbitant, self-thwarting price.”
― Katherine Angel, Daddy Issues