Love and Diane: documentary analysis

¶ … Diane: An Exploration of the Biological, Psychological, and Social Factors at Work in Addiction and the Foster Care System

Jennifer Dworkin's ten-years-in-the-making documentary Love and Diane chronicles the life of one family, and particularly two women -- Diane Hazzard, who at the time of the film's opening is addicted to crack-cocaine and losing her children to the foster care system, and Love, the eldest of these children who in the latter portion of the film is an eighteen-year-old mother who is HIV positive and losing her grip emotionally and literally on her own son. The film is emotionally powerful, lending all-too-real human faces to the realities of an inadequate child welfare system and the people who find themselves for one reason or another intimately involved with this system. But although the expressiveness of both Diane Hazzard and her daughter Love lend to the power of this film, its true strength lies in Dworkin's strength to reveal the underlying biological, psychological, and social factors of addiction and motherhood.

Few things have a more profound and directly recognizable biological effect on a woman than pregnancy and giving birth, and this impact was certainly felt by both Diane and Love. Both also had complicating biologically complicating factors that made their situations different, however. Diane was addicted to crack cocaine as a young mother, which necessarily had an effect on her health and the health of her children. Secondary symptoms of a crack-cocaine addiction typically include a loss of appetite -- which translates to a lack of nutrition -- and a decrease in energy and her overall ability to function (Cohan 2009). Love's biological problem was one that she simply cannot fix -- her HIV-positive status during her pregnancy and giving birth means that her son could also be infected with the virus (Healthlink 2009).

The psychological factors at work here are directly related to the biological ones. The mental effects of a drug addiction are often far more powerful than the physical effects, as evidenced by the fact that it took Diane Hazzard ten years to gain control of herself and her family again (Ploscowe 2009; Dworkin 2004). There is also a great deal of guilt felt by most mothers whose children end up in foster care, which can lead to many psychological conditions such as depression and feelings of extremely low self-worth, and the psychological effects of being placed in foster care -- like Love -- can be even worse (AACAP 2009). Love also experiences in obvious guilt for what she feels the was the role she played in her family falling apart, and at the same time has obvious attachment issues with her son that likely stem from the sense of abandonment and anger she still feels towards her mother (Dworkin 2004; AACAP 2009).

Despite the highly personal nature of the various situations and the emotional/psychological dilemmas and conflicts presented in Love and Diane, the social factors at work in the film and in the lives of Diane and Love Hazzard are arguably the most influential. Crack-cocaine addiction reached epidemic proportions in many African-American communities during the 1980s (Cohan 2009). The drug created a huge social problem, with supplies readily available and law enforcement in the poorest areas -- which had disproportionate numbers of minorities, especially African-Americans -- did little to combat the problem (Cohan 2009). Addiction is also among the top reasons that children are placed in foster care, and AIDS is fairly high on the list, too (AACAP 2009). This and other factors combined mean that African-American children make up almost two-thirds of all children in foster care (AACAP 2009).

Helping the family to address their biological issues could be made much easier by the development and implementation of certain social programs. Increased funding for drug addiction treatment and rehabilitation centers rather than for the arrest and imprisonment of drug users woul likely go a long way towards solving the problem. Awareness programs, the de-marginalization of women, and the availability of protective forms of contraception (i.e. condoms) are all factors that can reduce the spread of HIV / AIDS, and this could have helped to prevent Love's infection with the virus (Healthlink 2009). This would also, of course, have helped to protect her son. Now that she has the virus, regular checkups at clinics and attendance at support groups can help her mitigate and deal with the effects. Medicines for the treatment of HIV / AIDS can be quite expensive, however, leading to yet another major social problem -- affordable healthcare.

The availability of effective and affordable healthcare -- or rather the lack thereof -- is also a major barrier in dealing with the psychological factors affecting both Love and Diane. Diane is seeing a therapist, and this has certainly helped her to overcome her feelings of depression and guilt to the point that she can be an effective mother, but Love does not appear to be receiving the same benefit, and certainly didn't during her time in foster care. Again, preventative measures such as psychological care during foster care would have been the most effective in dealing with Love's psychological problems, as many foster children exhibit severe mood and emotional problems during their childhood and later in life (AACAP 2009). Intensive counseling for her individual issues stemming from her foster care experience, and possibly play-therapy sessions or something similar to help with her relationship with her son could be effective.