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What Makes a Family (2001)

What Makes a Family poster

What Makes a Family (2001)

Overview

Janine and Sandy are a lesbian couple who decide to have a baby, but after a few years Sandy dies. This tragedy is exploited by Sandy's parents to snatch the girl from Janine's care. But then, and despite having the laws against her, Janine decides to fight in order to regain custody of her daughter.


Starring Cast


Rating & Dimensions

Bias Rating
Analyzing...
Progressive

Political: Strong Left
Diversity: High
LGBTQ: Positive
Christianity: Negative

Viewer Rating
6.4

Overview

Janine and Sandy are a lesbian couple who decide to have a baby, but after a few years Sandy dies. This tragedy is exploited by Sandy's parents to snatch the girl from Janine's care. But then, and despite having the laws against her, Janine decides to fight in order to regain custody of her daughter.


Starring Cast

Detailed Bias Analysis

Analyzing...
Progressive

Primary

The film's central thesis explicitly promotes progressive ideology by focusing on a lesbian mother's fight for custody, thereby advocating for LGBTQ+ parental rights and challenging traditional definitions of family.

This film prominently features a lesbian couple as its central characters, exploring their journey to raise a child and the legal challenges they face from traditional family structures. The narrative directly confronts and critiques conventional definitions of family, advocating for inclusivity and challenging societal prejudices against same-sex relationships.

Secondary

This film centrally portrays a lesbian couple forming a family and facing a legal battle for custody. It depicts the protagonist's struggle with dignity and agency, ultimately affirming the validity of her family despite external prejudice and legal challenges. The net impact is supportive and validating of LGBTQ+ lives.

The film implicitly portrays conservative, traditional values, often associated with Christianity, as the source of bigotry and legal opposition against the lesbian couple. The narrative condemns the judgmental and exclusionary actions of Jan's parents, positioning their stance as problematic.

There is insufficient information available to evaluate the film's portrayal of transsexual characters or themes. Without plot details or character specifics, it is impossible to determine if such depictions exist or their nature, thus precluding any assessment of net impact.

The movie does not contain any action or adventure elements.

This film is an original TV movie, not an adaptation of existing source material, a biopic, or a reboot. The characters were created for this specific production, meaning there is no prior canonical gender to be swapped.

The film is based on a true story about a white lesbian couple. The main characters, based on real historical figures, are portrayed by actors of the same race as the real individuals. There is no indication of any character being portrayed by an actor of a different race than their established historical or canonical race.


Viewer Rating Breakdown

6.4

Viewer Rating

Combines user and critic ratings from four sources

User Ratings

IMDB logo
6.6
The Movie Database logo
6.2

Critic Ratings

Rotten Tomatoes logo
N/A
Metacritic logo
N/A

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