Reds fanfic
- Thread starter E. Burke
- Start date
I heard recently of one of curiosities and decided to ask - in the Union give the bride a ring? And in general interested in the topic of family life and gender relations.
bookmark95
Banned
I was already preparing an update based on something that could radically alter family relations, but since you just asked the question directly, I might as well write it.
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What is Family? (1995)
Plot summary
Based of a true story. A custody battle in Louisiana over an orphaned child would spark one of the most consequential court decisions in UASR history and forever redefine family law and relations.
Synopsis
In 1968, Stephanie Roberts (Sarah Jessica Parker) is an early 20s single-caretaker living in a New Orleans housing collective. Her job is both acting as part time nanny and part time teacher to children of the collective when their parents are not around. To the children, she's become close enough that they call her "Mom II". Despite professionally required not to make favorites, Stephanie closest to Emily Purdy-Hirsch (Mara Wilson). Emily's parents, Michael Hirsch and Jean Purdy(Eugene Levy and Sally Field) work as military engineers, and spend much of the year traveling the country supervising construction projects. Emily, more than the other children, looks to Stephanie as a second mother since her parents often are pulled away from home.
Emily, however, excitedly awaits the return of her parents for Christmas. Only to learn that they died in a freak construction accident. Emily faces being shipped off to an orphanage on another side of the city, to her sadness, because she doesn't want to leave her friends and Stephanie. Stephanie, realizing her love for the girl, decides that she wants to adopt her and become her legal guardian.
Unfortunately, Emily's long-lost maternal grandmother, Elaine Purdy (Gloria Stuart) returns during the funeral. She never spoke to her daughter for running off with Michael, who conflicted with their conservative sensibilities. Despite not having been involved with Emily's life, they both want custody over her, and plan to make her leave New Orleans for Shreveport, where she can brought up as a "proper" lady. Stephanie, however, angry at the Purdies for forsaking her daughter and not wanting to lose Emily, decides to take them to court. There are clear differences between Elaine and Purdy. Stephanie calls Elaine "comrade Elaine", while Elaine calls Stephanie "Miss Roberts".
By Louisiana law, however, the next of kin is the one can gain custody of a child. Unfortunately, the family court judge in Louisiana, Herbert Monroe (Carroll O'Connor), is a conservative who believes blood relations matter more. He upholds the ruling, and he also writes that Stephanie's youth, political background and promiscuity makes her unfit to care for a child. Emily is forced to go back to living with her relatives in Louisiana.
With the help of Albert Bailey (John Goodman), a lawyer from the Clarence Darrow Justice Society, Stephanie decides to appeal the decision to the court in Debs, not just challenging the custody of Emily, but Louisiana next-of-kin custody as "violating the health and development of a child by putting blood above relationships." Stephanie shares with with Bailey her own miserable childhood in Alabama due to the abuse by her racist father and narcissistic mother, and how she was closer to her radical comrades then to her own blood relatives.
Stephanie: "Blood relations is a pile of shit. If blood mattered, the tsar, who had Romanov blood, would have been immune to the proletariat. My comrades treated me better than my so-called fucking mom and dad".
Meanwhile, in Shreveport, Emily finds Shreveport to be lonely and miserable. Elaine suffocates her by forcing her to overdress and putting her in makeup. The other children in her school find her ideas and viewpoint, which Stephanie taught her, to be odd and bully her. While going into her grandmother's basement to cry, she comes across an old picture of her grandmother with an elderly African-American maid. Elaine finds her, and talks about Delores (Eartha Kitt), who was basically her nanny while her parents worked. When Emily compares that to her relationship to Stephanie, Elaine starts questioning her custody over Emily.
Bailey's appeal finds its way to the People's Supreme Tribune in Debs, D.C. by December 1970, and it quickly becomes a national controversy. Radicals support Stephanie and conservatives support Elaine. Stephanie, Elaine, and Emily both find their lives made more difficult by publicity" The opponent of Stephanie on the bench is Warren Burger (Jerry Stiller), who strongly believes in traditional family roles. However, he becomes moved by Bailey's arguments, particularly by how much Stephanie and Emily have shared.
Warren ends up leading the decision (Roberts v. Purdy) in favor of Stephanie, declaring "tying family relations to blood cannot serve as the only link between individuals. How, thus do we define "family". Not just from a legal perspective, but from a social one. As a nation built off of the happiness of the proletariat, our laws must be designed to meet social realities and not a traditional viewpoint. Our nation is not built off of hereditary succession, so we don't run our nation according to bloodlines. The majority defines family as a bond formed not through old blood ties, love, sharing and compassion. Comrade Stephanie Roberts has show these things to Comrade Emily Purdy-Hirsch, and is thus considered family".
Elaine, however, humbly accepts the ruling and wishes Stephanie the best. Stephanie whose own opinion of Elaine has softened, decides to grant Elaine visiting rights every month. Elaine parts, warmly calling Stephanie "Comrade", while Stephanie calls Elaine (Mrs. Purdy). The film ends with Stephanie running back to daycare center in Debs where Emily has been staying during the trials and gives the girl a big hug, while her supporters throughout Debs applaud and cheer.
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Fun fact: the tradition of diamond wedding rings was created by the marketing team for the DeBeers diamond cartel to drive up their profits. Right down to the exact cost (one or two months' salary).
So I doubt that wedding rings would be a thing in Ravenland, and if they did they'd be vastly different.
(in the old days, you'd just give your SO any gift you wanted while popping the question)
"And the Oscar goes to..."
bookmark95
Banned
Did you learn about that from Adam Ruins Everything? Be honest.
If you're interested, this other video talks about how exploitative the whole marriage industry is.
Then again, I wonder what kind of weird wedding traditions can be created in the UASR. A wedding in an urban collective could be very different from a wedding on a kibbutz.
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Did you learn about that from Adam Ruins Everything? Be honest.
If you're interested, this other video talks about how exploitative the whole marriage industry is.
Then again, I wonder what kind of weird wedding traditions can be created. A wedding in an urban collective could be very different from a wedding on a kibbutz.
I actually knew that before I saw that episode, from a TV Tropes page about conspiracy theories (under the section "REAL CONSPIRACIES"). I do love the show, mostly because it's the kind of show I've wanted to make.
Did you learn about that from Adam Ruins Everything? Be honest.
If you're interested, this other video talks about how exploitative the whole marriage industry is.
Then again, I wonder what kind of weird wedding traditions can be created in the UASR. A wedding in an urban collective could be very different from a wedding on a kibbutz.
I wonder what Adam Conover is doing ITTL?
bookmark95
Banned
If UASRers are as condescending and annoying as people imagine, I think a person like Conover (or his fictional persona) wouldn't really be successful since a lot people would be like him. Maybe he plays the stereotypical left-wing America on FBU television.
bookmark95
Banned
Yeah, I realize a film like that could easily be considered "Oscar exploitation", especially with the ending that combines cheers with applause. But there is a reason why people would make a movie about it. But considering the UASR has an obsession with improving the human condition, I imagine all dramas would be like that.
But my update was me trying to imagine how much the Second Cultural Revolution could change social relations, and what could be the catalyst for that change. The First Cultural Revolution has already brought about gender equality and looser social restrictions decades before OTL. So what kind of taboos would fall apart during the Second Cultural Revolution? What about the concept of family itself.
It's not just a matter of same-sex marriage or adoption. The question people might ask is, does blood matter? Or "Is my flat comrade more of a family than my brother who I haven't seen in six months"? But people only really start asking these questions during a legal dispute, like when Jack Kevorkian made people think about "the right to die". So a legal dispute is what would push people into thinking about these kinds of questions.
I wasn't just trying to create an Oscar movie, I was making an assumption about the future of family relations in the UASR.
I suspect that the UASR would try to drop many traditional marriage practices following the Second Cultural Revolution, though it may initially be around after the first revolution due to inertia. The fact that South Africa goes Red eventually (I believe) could lead to their mines' nationalization though they could always pack up and move shop to Angola, the Congo, or most likely IMHO Rhodesia. Once the connection between De Beers putting the notion of a diamond ring as part of a wedding/courtship is widespread I don't really see it surviving in parts of the Comintern and I could see *Americans eschewing it out of a sense of solidarity with their new brothers and sisters in the Cape as well.
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It's also possible that the Revolution happens before the practice really became widespread.
bookmark95
Banned
The other issue is that diamonds, chunks of expensive rock dug out of the ground by poorly paid African miners, are an easy symbol of decadence and exploitation that Revolutionaries would despise.
What I thought you were referring to was one of those cheesy Oscar Bait movies, full of cliches designed to win awards, like mental retardation or always depicting some historical tragedy. Sorry.
Practice started in '38, so odds are PoD has removed it.
I can imagine most weddings in the UASR are generally simple affairs, far removed from the expensive extravagance of OTL or even most religious affliations. Just an affirmation that you commit yourself to your spouse, in a simple, impromptu settings.
I think Oscar bait will focus on agitpop social realist works, films about the Revolution or the Second World War, or big historical movie about significant events or people in history, much as the movie you described here was.
I do not mean to strike the film's premises down, but I see the situation differently.
I actually don't see the revolutionary changes in family relations as something that will be determined by the court system that it can even go to the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal...that's the right name of the highest court of appeal. That's too...United States-like. Too infused by bourgeois sensibilities too. This is the UASR, a state in transition to full communist relations and where most of the differences of intergovernmental and intragovernmental procedure and judicial procedure have also became blurred. The old separation of powers is gone as well as the centralization of the bourgeois nation-state.
I see it as something that happens on a place to place basis and determined by Soviet law, rather than interpretations of a legal or civil code by the court system, given that Soviet democracy gives absolute political power to the Soviet congresses, which is more like to be seen in local government than at the highest levels, but it's fine. The First Cultural Revolution already set the tone.... the Second Cultural Revolution just makes the destruction of the nuclear family as hegemonic and seen as normal, rather than a controversial debate.
Common-law marriages, American-style, seems to be the development and Soviets may produce different family registration systems that will be standardized...or not, it certainly depends on the place. Certain Soviet jurisdictions may resist and preserve as much as the traditional family structures as they can, like using the block-grants by the federal government to implement welfare redistribution on a family basis, as well as complicated procedures on divorces and other measures, but this is where the younger generations come in and challenge such restrictions. That's the Second Cultural Revolution.
As already told us, the First Cultural Revolution seems more of a grassroots phenomenon in strong Red Soviet centers of the country while seemingly forced on the peripheral areas that were conquered by Red Armies during the Civil War.
Another thing about Soviet American judiciary, jury nullification is the rule, so judges do not really make the decisions, but juries coming from the general population that was trained in school to become part of juries.
In terms of child custody and other matters of family law, it depends on the place, but I do not expect such regression of communist developments by 1968 in urban America, even in urban South.
The determination of the child's best interest is certainly tricky... but I do not see the drama on developments on rulings in terms of child custody to develop in such a way.
You may also choose a different place for the film...but it's really different. It's not going to be that way.
I actually don't see the revolutionary changes in family relations as something that will be determined by the court system that it can even go to the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal...that's the right name of the highest court of appeal. That's too...United States-like. Too infused by bourgeois sensibilities too. This is the UASR, a state in transition to full communist relations and where most of the differences of intergovernmental and intragovernmental procedure and judicial procedure have also became blurred. The old separation of powers is gone as well as the centralization of the bourgeois nation-state.
I see it as something that happens on a place to place basis and determined by Soviet law, rather than interpretations of a legal or civil code by the court system, given that Soviet democracy gives absolute political power to the Soviet congresses, which is more like to be seen in local government than at the highest levels, but it's fine. The First Cultural Revolution already set the tone.... the Second Cultural Revolution just makes the destruction of the nuclear family as hegemonic and seen as normal, rather than a controversial debate.
Common-law marriages, American-style, seems to be the development and Soviets may produce different family registration systems that will be standardized...or not, it certainly depends on the place. Certain Soviet jurisdictions may resist and preserve as much as the traditional family structures as they can, like using the block-grants by the federal government to implement welfare redistribution on a family basis, as well as complicated procedures on divorces and other measures, but this is where the younger generations come in and challenge such restrictions. That's the Second Cultural Revolution.
As already told us, the First Cultural Revolution seems more of a grassroots phenomenon in strong Red Soviet centers of the country while seemingly forced on the peripheral areas that were conquered by Red Armies during the Civil War.
Another thing about Soviet American judiciary, jury nullification is the rule, so judges do not really make the decisions, but juries coming from the general population that was trained in school to become part of juries.
In terms of child custody and other matters of family law, it depends on the place, but I do not expect such regression of communist developments by 1968 in urban America, even in urban South.
The determination of the child's best interest is certainly tricky... but I do not see the drama on developments on rulings in terms of child custody to develop in such a way.
You may also choose a different place for the film...but it's really different. It's not going to be that way.
Well, Jello has implied that the communist developments differ depending on the place. Places like the South and the Mountain west tend be more conservative, even as of the ITTL 2010's, and presumably, some laws are just archaic in those places.