MovieChat Forums > Capturing the Friedmans (2003) Discussion > Weird obsession with Dad

Weird obsession with Dad

posted 10 years ago by !!!deleted!!! (24175281)
3 replies | jump to latest

Maybe I am wrong about all this but there are two things I noticed that raise red flags for me.

1. The sons have a very strange obsession with their father. They seem to treat him not only as a friend, but almost like he is a God in their eyes. In early adulthood it doesn't seem like that is very normal. Again I know that I could be misunderstanding the complexity of parental relationships but I don't know anybody who seem this obsessed with their fathers. And the way they attack their mother also seems to imply that they would stand with their dad no matter what. IS IT POSSIBLE that molestation could create that kind of attachment and emotion, not to mention stored up anger the boys seemed to have?

2. Also, I have heard in certain instance (and I may be wrong) that people who use baby talk, or have a kind of child like speech impediment are often reverting back to a time in their life while something significant happened. I've read that girls that talk baby talk naturally were often molested at a young age and thus permenantly setting certain aspects of the brain and motor skills on that age. Is it possible that because Jesse seems to have that kind of impediment and often uses a sort of baby talk in the archival footage (calling his dad Daddy all the time as well) that that could imply he may have been molested.

Just some thoughts

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] rachel-filmer82 9 years ago

Sexual abuse from a parent to a child leads to incredibly dysfunctional relationships. Abusers are masters of manipulation - they groom you to trust them, to favour them, to take their side and to withhold information from the other parent. Even if you are at an age when you know the abuse is very wrong, the manipulation by a parent is still extremely effective. Even if the children were not abused by the father, they were no doubt manipulated by him.

As for the baby talk, the first responder makes a good point - mostly it's not arrested development, just personality traits. However, as an abuse victim where no-one saw the signs, I think it's important to be vigilant.

[–] odoacer-1 9 years ago

Very interesting points.

After watching the movie and reading about this case, I believe the father did sexually abuse his sons. This created, in part, their very strong defense of him.

This is just my theory on what I saw in the movie. I am not expert in any of this, so it's worth what it's worth.

I interpreted the animosity of the sons toward their mother as an expression of their internalized anger that she did not stop their father from molesting them. So they believe she let it happen.

And after it did happen, that is all the boys had left to hold on to, the weird obsessive relationship with their father that was part of the result.

Their mother, by not keeping quiet after the fact, wronged them all by not acting when she could have done something about it. After the fact, she acted in such a way as to destroy what was left between them all. She should have stayed quiet then, because she missed her chance to do something about it: this is what I think the sons thought.

Regardless of precisely what happened when and to whom, this is a very sad and disturbing story.