Grief And Loss In The Movie 'My Girl'

Introduction
Grief in media rarely goes in depth and is often rush often with little consideration to how it impacts people 's everyday lives. This may be a reflection of how grief is viewed in our society. Collectively people are uncomfortable with death and talking about it publicly. We rather acknowledged it as little as possible. The movie “My girl” takes on the unique plotline of grief and loss. The movie, taking place in a funeral home, touches on both tangible and symbolic loss. These losses are represented in numerous instances throughout the movie within the character development of the main cast.
Grieving Styles
Harry, the father and owner of the funeral home, showed numerous signs of being an instrumental griever. Instrumental grievers

To elaborate, prior to the beginning of the movie, Vada was raised by her grandmother. However, during the course of the movie the grandmother has fallen senile and becomes physically present but mentally unavailable. The movie suggests that the grandmother might have some level of Dementia which further proves that she is mentally absent. Unfortunately, the movie doesn 't go into depth with her character.
Nonetheless, her loss is still felt by her family. Vada is perhaps impacted the most by her loss. As stated before Vada was raised by her grandma which means that to some degree the grandma served as mother fugue to Vada. Without her active presence in her life, Vada loses a mother for the second time in her life. The ambiguous loss of the grandma is also felt by Harry. Although he barely acknowledges her at all. In fact, they only have one interaction in the movie and Harry treats her like a nuisance.
Disenfranchised

One such example would be Shelly 's divorce. We find out about halfway through the movie that Shelly was once married. Divorce is not seen as a tangible loss because the former spouse is this living, but we know the symbolic losses that can come with divorce. Shelly had to readjust to life as a single woman. This transition most likely came with financial and personal stress. Nonetheless, Shelly is able to move from the loss when she and Harry enter a relationship. Part of me thinks that this is done hastily. The course of the movie lasts the summer, which means Harry and Shelly dated fell in love and decided to get married in a time span of three months. It goes without saying that you can 't put a time limit on love but this just seems rushed. As a viewer, I had a hard time processing the pace of their relationship I could imagine how Vada must have