THERE are similarities in the characters of Howard Wolowitz in the series “The Big Bang Theory” and Motti in “The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbruch”: a young Jewish man whose life is controlled by his mother.
It’s a bit ironic because the lives of young people in the West are synonymous with freedom. We in the East always hear that the young generation in the West always travels before us in the East. They have lived separately from their parents since they were teenagers and even had sex in their teens.
But the dominance of mothers in Jewish families in the West does not seem to be diminished by Western culture which is completely liberal and free.
Howard is told as the only son of his mother whose husband abandoned her. Howard was 11 years old when his father abandoned his new family. What is the reason? It’s not explained, but it became a lasting emotional wound for Howard.
Different from Howard, the father figure in the Motti family is still there and loyally accompanies the family but in the film is depicted as having a less strong level of dominance. The father may be dominant at the dinner table which seems to be the arena for enforcing patriarchal values and principles in Judaism, but in the everyday household, the mother is more dominant, especially in her relationship with her child, Motti.
Howard and Motti both struggle with the inner conflict of only sons: should they always obey their mother’s wishes and give up their freedom throughout their lives (or at least until their mother dies)?
At the end of the film, Motti is said to still choose to rebel by dating Laura, a non-Jewish German girl chosen by his mother. And because of that, his mother was extremely annoyed.
Meanwhile, Howard was luckier because he chose to have a relationship with Bernadette, who was Catholic but was approved by her mother, who, although very dominant, also loved him very much. (*/)
