15 Years Ago, ‘Mamma Mia!’ Showed Us How Family Abolition Could Change Everything

Still, Lewis insists: “Transitioning out of the family will be tricky, yes, but the family is doing a bad job at care, and we all deserve better. The family is getting in the way of alternatives.”

Most people know the traditional family system is broken and are searching for solutions—finding a “chosen family”—but feel uncertain of what that might look like. Mamma Mia!’s messaging is subtly reassuring in this way. Donna, a single mom and working mother who had a baby out of wedlock, is not the only adult in the film who shirked the traditional family structure. Her best friends Rosie (Julie Walters), a single food writer, and Tanya (Christine Baranski), a trophy wife fresh off her fourth loveless marriage, similarly embody nontraditional lifestyles. Crucially, all of the adults in the film find happiness not through their romantic partnerships but other avenues: for Rosie this is a job, for Tanya this is a thriving sex life, for Donna it is her daughter, for Harry it’s his dogs, and for all, it’s their friendships. In portraying adults who are thriving outside of the nuclear model, Mamma Mia! shows us what is possible, appealing to our discomfort with family structure on a subconscious level.

The trajectory of Sophie’s character reinforces this appeal. At the beginning of the film, Sophie felt convinced that finding her biological father and getting married to her lover would bring her contentment. By the end of the film, she has rejected the idea that conforming to the model set out by the nuclear family will bring her greater happiness or self-understanding. At her wedding, after proclaiming she doesn’t mind not knowing who her father is, she says, “Now I know what I really want,” and tells her partner that they should travel the world together. By relinquishing expectations—deciding she needs neither a father nor a husband—Sophie is able to pursue a more thrilling and emotionally fulfilling life. In her book, Lewis directly addresses how having multiple or non-biological parents is a form of family abolition: “Restricting the number of mothers (of whatever gender) to whom a child has access, on the basis that I am the ‘real’ mother, is not necessarily a form of love worthy of the name.” In this sense, Donna’s notion and Sophie’s agreement that a paternity test is unnecessary can be viewed as a gesture towards family abolitionist principles, too.

In an era when it seems everything and everyone from Harry Styles to Bad Bunny to Cardi B is accused of queerbaiting or determined to be “queercoded,” I at first hesitated to designate Mamma Mia! as a queer film. In fact, the only actually queer character in the movie, Harry, barely has his sexuality taken seriously, and there is more than one joke made at his expense over it. At the same time, it’s impossible to ignore how the film champions queer, and particularly sapphic, forms of family-making and community.

Though the plot masquerades as a preoccupation with fatherhood, the film is actually much more interested in unraveling bonds between women.

In her crucial 1980 text Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Experience, essayist Adrienne Rich writes that “lesbian existence comprises both the breaking of a taboo and the rejection of a compulsory way of life.” She creates the framework of a “lesbian continuum,” which includes all women, regardless of sexuality. Rich argues that the continuum “embrace[s] many more forms of primary intensity between and among women, including the sharing of a rich inner life, the bonding against male tyranny, [and] the giving and receiving of practical and political support.”

It is this definition of lesbianism that Mamma Mia! most closely adheres to. Though the plot masquerades as a preoccupation with fatherhood, the film is actually much more interested in unraveling bonds between women, be it relationships between a mother and daughter or friends. Donna’s relationship with her daughter certainly exemplifies what Rich would consider a “rejection of the compulsory way of life,” as would her connection with Tanya and Rosie. In “Chiquitita,” the two friends take turns parenting Donna—combing her hair, drying her tears—while promising her that she’ll be “dancing once again, and the pain will end.” It’s a particularly tender scene that marries the angst of girlhood with the existential worries of motherhood and middle age, illustrating the necessity of feminine camaraderie in all stages of life.

At the end of the film, Donna gets her fairy tale ending in the form of Sam, her long lost lover who finally agrees to marry her. Though the scene is sweet, it almost feels unnecessary: That’s not the true love story we watched unfold.

Mary Retta writes about politics and culture. Her work can be found in New York Magazine, the Atlantic, the Nation, and elsewhere.