What does the phrase "Mommy Dearest" mean?

Answer 1

It's taken from a movie by the same title based on a book by Joan Crawford's adopted daughter. Joan Crawford abused the poor girl and forced her to call her "Mommy Dearest". People use it as sarcasm, in reference to this.

Answer 2

In the 1980's there was a movie called "Mommy Dearest" that was about Joan Crawford, by her adopted children Christine and Christopher. She required them to call her Mommy Dearest and she was supposedly a very abusive mother to these children. She tied Christopher in bed and Christine was beaten with wire coat hangers.

Answer 3

Dearest Definition

Answer 4

Mommie Dearest is a memoir and exposé written by Christina Crawford, the adopted daughter of actress Joan Crawford. The book was published in 1978.

The book depicts Christina's version of her childhood and her relationship with her mother.

Among Christina Crawford's statements in the book:

Christina contends that she was victim of child abuse during her mother's battle with alcoholism, including sexual abuse that occurred at the hands of one of the women that worked for her mother.
The book suggests that Crawford was more concerned about her motion picture career than the well being of her four children, and suggests she may have adopted them for publicity purposes.
Besides a long list of affairs with men - whom Christina was required to call "uncle", she suggested that her mother was involved in liasions with other women.
Christina recounts several evenings where Crawford's behavior was unbalanced, and at least one encounter with her mother where Crawford physically attacked her. Among some of the incidents that Christina recounts in the book is a tirade that she alleges occurred when her mother was looking in Christina's closet. Crawford discovered some of Christina's clothes hanging on wire hangers, instead of higher-quality hangers, and allegedly launched into a tirade that has become known as the infamous "No wire hangers" moment.

Answer 5

Define Dearest

Answer 6

It is a phrase from nineteenth century Britain, derived from those who were regarded as the height of snappy dressing in the Regency period. (In its turn, that word came from buck in the sense of the animal, and had a slightly older meaning still that suggested male gaiety or spirit, with unsubtle suggestions of rutting deer.) In another sense buck up first meant to dress smartly, for a man to get out of those comfortable old clothes and into something drop-dead gorgeous. Since to do so was often a pick up to the spirit, the phrase shifted sometime around the 1880s to its modern meaning. It seems to have been public school slang to start with, probably from Winchester College, and rather stiff-upper-lip British. It could suggest that the person being addressed should stop acting like a wuss, ninny or coward, as here from Edith Nesbit’s The Wouldbegoods of 1901: “Be a man! Buck up!”, and was something of a cliché at one time in stories of Englishmen abroad bravely facing adversity. From the early years of the twentieth century, it could also be an injunction on somebody to get a move on or hurry up; here’s an example, from D H Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers of 1913: “ ‘Half-past eight!’ he said. ‘We’d better buck up’ ”.

Answer 7

The term is used as a back handed complement for an abusive mother. Made legendary by the movie of the same name - based on the memoires of Christina Crawford, adopted daugher of film starlet Joan Crawford.

Faye Dunaway played Joan Crawford, and I tell you, it makes you want to hug your own mother, because this bitty was crazy!!

Answer 8

This is from the movie of the same name-biography of Joan crawford as a mother & actress

Answer 9

I would say it's a sarcastic term. Like in the movie, the mother was abusive.

Answer 10

I THINK IT WAS JOAN CRAWFORD`S DAUGHTER WHO CALLED HER THAT. JOAN WAS TERRIBLY ABUSIVE TO HER KIDS. THEY MADE A MOVIE ABOUT IT, NAMED THAT. SCARY...