20th Century Women Monologues

The story of a teenage boy, his mother, and two other women who help raise him among the love and freedom of Southern California of 1979.

It's The Raincoats.

Yeah, it's like they've got this feeling, and they don't have any skill, and they don't want skill, because it's really interesting what happens when your passion is bigger than the tools you have to deal with it. It creates this energy that's raw. Isn't it great?

Whatever you think your life is going to be like, just know, it's not gonna be anything like that.

I gave him beer, and then I taught him how to verbally seduce women. Then we drove drunk, but I stopped that, and then he kissed Trish, and then we walked home.

You're not mad? You're mad.

You cannot let her sleep here if she's not having sex with you. It's disempowering.

I will stay in Santa Barbara. In just two years, I'll marry Dave. A month after I get married Carlotta will die. A week later, Max will die too. I will work out of my garage and show in local galleries. Against my doctor's advice, I will get pregnant, and by the time I'm thirty I'll have two boys.

They're a boy and a girl, and that they're monogamous for life, so if one of them dies, then the other one will die like a week later.

So I had this new idea for my photography that I was gonna take a picture of everything that I owned so it's a self-portrait of myself through the stuff that I have. Can I show you? So… bra, birth control, um, photography by Susan Sontag, shoes, underwear, a picture of a picture of my mom. I'm gonna do a bunch of 'em.

I think being strong is the most important quality. It's not being vulnerable, it's not being sensitive. It's not even. Honestly, it's not even being happy. It's about strength and your durability against the other emotions.

Abbie will take me to Planned Parenthood. And I will go on the pill. I will go to NYU and lose touch with Jamie and Dorothea, and I will stop talking to my mom, I will fall in love with Nicholas, we will move to Paris, and choose not to have children.

Love is supposed to be a feeling that you feel.People say that they're falling in love, but they're not actually falling in love.It's a fake connection that you feel with someone and marriage should never happen.

I think that I'm too close to you... to have sex with you.

I don't wanna just have sex with you.I want you.But it's your version of me.It's not me.It would be a lot better if you just wanted sex.You are exactly like the other guys.You just seem like you're all modern.

Home birth actually stunts the baby's growth personality.

Wondering if you're happy is a great shortcut to just being depressed.

Men always feel that they have to fix things for women, but they're not doing anything. Some things just can't be fixed. Just be there, somehow that's hard for all of you.

Having your heart broken is a tremendous way to learn about the world.

I think history has been tough on men.I mean, they can't be what they were,and they can't figure out what's next.

In March of 1999, I'll start to feel tired and confused. When I finally go to the doctor, he will say that the cancer in my lungs had already travelled to my breast and brain. I'll try to teach Jamie what to do with my stocks, but my instructions will be impossible to understand.

Wow. Well how 'bout Maximilian and Carlotta? You know, they deserve something grand if they're gonna be monogamous their whole lives.

It's 1979, I'm fifty-five years old, this is what my son believes in. These people with this hair and these clothes making these gestures, making these sounds. It's 1979, I'm 55 years old and in 1999 I will die of cancer from the smoking. They don't know this is the end of punk. They don't know that Reagan's coming. It's impossible to imagine that kids will stop dreaming about nuclear war, and have nightmares about the weather. It's impossible to imagine HIV, what will happen with skateboard tricks, the Internet. Before I die, I will prepare for Y2K. I put canned food and water in the garage. I put 16 000 dollars' worth of gold coins into a safe deposit box at the Bank of Montecito. I died before the new year. Dolphin shaped balloons floated over my head. They were playing Louis Armstrong on a boom box.

My son was born in 1964. He grew up with a meaningless war, with protests, with Nixon, with nice cars and nice houses, computers, drugs, boredom. I know him less every day.

What he likes is making bowls. He doesn't smell like oil and grease. His hands don't look like dumb mechanics hands.

That was my husband's Ford Galaxy. We drove Jamie home from the hospital in that car.

I put my hand through the little window, and he'd squeeze my finger, and I'd tell him life was very big... and unknown.

…music, movies. He'd fall in love, have his own children, have passions, have meaning, have his mom and dad.

I know him less every day.He said it was just a game.You breathe real hard and another kid.He said you're supposed to come to a few seconds later. But it took Jamie almost a half an hour to wake up.

Actually, it was, it was built in 1905, and the same family had it forever, but they lost all their money during the war, and then there was a fire and… You should've been here for that. Anyway, so, it was just a mess. They let it fall apart. Then a bohemian inherited it in the '60s, then a bunch of free spirits moved in, and they lost it to the bank.