MovieChat Forums > Cadet Kelly (2002) Discussion > Sadistic Mom?

Sadistic Mom?

posted 17 years ago by IndieSpirit92
17 replies | jump to latest

Is it me, or does Kelly have a REALLY cruel mother? Kelly is not a "brat", she's a creative, sometime spacey, girl, not deserving of the punishment she was given.

NYC is the perfect enviornment for someone like Kelly...A place for the artistic, the creative.

By forcing her out of this enviornment, Kelly's mother is discouraging her from expressing herself...I know she wants to be with her daughter, but she's going to be at school all week, and only come home on the weekends. They could have worked out a very similar arrangement if Kelly were to stay at her father's or friends'.

THEN Kelly's mother becomes pregnant with Sir's child. Kelly is 14 years old, and going from the center of her mother's attention to a servant, whose only purpose in the household is to change diapers, is a painful, cruel transition to force upon her.

[–] Ammie_ATeam 17 years ago

Yes,
I've just watched the movie and thought about the same things.

[–] xoxcaitlin_kissxox 16 years ago

It's called growing up. Kelly was immature, childish, and clueless. Sometimes, a parent has to use tough love to wake a kid up that the real world doesn't care how creative you are. You better work.

"I'd rather be his whore than your wife"
- Titanic

[–] mandy_leigh44 15 years ago

What I don't get is why Kelly couldn't have gone to a public school in the new town. Theres no way the military academy is the only option

[–] MyMovieTVRomance 8 years ago

What I don't get is why Kelly couldn't have gone to a public school in the new town. Theres no way the military academy is the only option

My thoughts exactly, all through watching this!

Please excuse typos/funny wording; I use speech-recognition that doesn't always recognize!

[–] freebird1987 8 years ago

I agree.

[–] squeemu 13 years ago

How is forcing someone who hasn't really done anything wrong to go to a military academy causing them to "grow up"?
The premise of this movie was absolutely idiotic. This girl would have disowned her parents so fast and she would have been right to do so.

[–] xeromem-brown 14 years ago

Her mom probably isn't being cruel, at least not intentionally. A Military Academy is not a place where a person with the personality Kelly displayed at the beginning is suited for. Kelly would have been in a heck of a lot more trouble than was shown in the movie from the minute she arrived. Not everyone is suited for Military life and trying to force them into it just doesn't work. It would just put them into a world of trouble. Nor was Kelly a problem child that needed straightening out.

Also if Kelly was to live in the barracks all week and only come home on the weekend it would have been no different than commuting to her old school so the mom's logic of 'family not leaving family behind' breaks down right there. If mom really wanted to keep close like she was trying to sound like she was, sending Kelly to a public school in the community where the *academy was located would have been the logical choice. Putting Kelly in that school was just to please the new hubby and bolster his pride, nothing more and nothing less. It was also obviously a move to get Kelly out of the way while enjoying the new marriage. Her mom is being more selfish than cruel but she just doesn't want Kelly to realize that.

Nuff said about reality this was just a DCOM movie and you know reality just doesn't apply there. All in all it's a fun movie to watch that the whole family can enjoy.

*FYI: Military academies are not located in the middle of nowhere. Even the most remote US Armed Forces training areas used for heavy artillery live fire training are in easy commuting distance of the nearest community. At the most that academy might be a 15 to 30 minute drive from the nearest city or town but probably closer.

[–] addnamehere 13 years ago

I thought she was a terrible, selfish mom. She wasn't thinking of her daughter, throwing an artist in military school for no good reason but to make her more "focused" is ridiculous. Send her to a better public school if anything, you don't send your child to military school just because they are self expressive and artistic. And why didn't they bother to even tell her anything about military school before she went there instead of letting her feel like a fool, and "Sir" couldn't do anything to help her out from Jennifer's reign of terror? The movie just annoys me really.

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] squeemu 12 years ago

So because her current school doesn't teach math and science, military school is the next logical step? Could she, you know, just be transferred to a regular school?

[–] oo0smily0oo 11 years ago

Definitely. Even when I was younger I thought her mum was being so selfish and cruel.

Pretty sad as well to think that this random guy can just show up, marry her mom and whisk them all away. Sir couldn't give a *beep* about Kelly, she wasn't hid child. And her mom played along with shoving her out of the home and into a military school.

I would have just left home....

[–] CountOroku01 11 years ago

She is a macho mom.

[–] scissorhands__emily 11 years ago

I didn't understand why they didn't seem to prepare Kelly for military school at all. She walked in there in street clothes and seemed really oblivious to how the school would be. I thought it was a bit unfair to just throw her into this environment when she is used to something drastically different. She went to an arts school that seemed extremely relaxed and like one of those schools with no rules. Now she is placed in an environment with extremely strict rules?

Sir was also a little harsh with her. It had been one week and he was saying she had no discipline. From what we saw of Kelly, she was a normal, carefree girl. She didn't appear very disciplined, but she also didn't appear to be some horrible kid. I also thought it was really wrong for Cadet Stone to rip her blanket. That could have had sentimental value to her and Stone had no idea; she just tore it up.

And the fact that Sir allowed Kelly to repel down the side of a mountain/cliff ledge was also insane. I kept thinking to myself "I wonder how his wife will react when she hears what he let Kelly do." All that said this is a Disney channel movie. They aren't known for super realism, and I still enjoy this movie for nostalgia and light-hearted fun.

[–] CountOroku01 10 years ago

Gotta support the troops no matter what...

[–] simplyshiny 10 years ago

I have a feeling OP is probably about 14 themselves. As someone else said, it's called "growing up".

1. Kelly is a teenager. Yes, she's artistic, but she's also braty. The Military school wasn't a "punishment" it just was what it was.
2. NYC is great for creative people, but again, she's a teenager. She can adapt anywhere.
3. Kelly could still express herself. Her room at home was very expressive.
4.

THEN Kelly's mother becomes pregnant with Sir's child. Kelly is 14 years old, and going from the center of her mother's attention to a servant

This is hilarious. I actually laughed out loud with this one. I'm guessing OP is an only child? I don't even know how to respond to this one besides incredulity. So her mother's life is supposed to revolve around her one daughter? She's not supposed to be happy and do what she wants have have another child (a sibling for Kelly)? I know I've been saying that Kelly is "only" a teenager and has to deal with it and adapt. But this is the one where I say she IS FOURTEEN YEARS OLD. That's plenty old enough to learn that her mother can love more than one child (isn't that a theme of the movie?) and plenty old enough to change a few diapers. Now if she was five (though she did act like it sometimes) I would understand a bit more.

___

[–] BabyGrape 10 years ago

I don't think Kelly was a brat. She got along with her mom really well. I agree with what a lot of posters said. Kelly was artistic and going to a specialized school for the arts so kind of dumb they would send her to a new school.

I just don't get military school, at least not the one in "movies". I've tried to do a little online research on what they're really like but I haven't learned much. But in the movie they're teaching military strategy to a bunch of teens...I guess that's useful if you want to be enrolled in JROTC but if you're someone who's interested in developing artistic skills, thats a waste of time for Kelly.

Also, if I were Kelly, I would just try to get kicked out of the school.

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