This IWD, we are celebrating the badass matriarch of the Mamma Mia franchise…

Donna Sheridan is, in my opinion, one of the best characters in movie history. The heart of the Mamma Mia franchise, she is full-on zest in a world that already bursts with colour and music. The OG Dancing Queen first exploded onto the scene in the 1999 musical Mamma Mia!, based on the music of iconic pop group ABBA, and later became further immortalised in the 2008 screen adaptation Mamma Mia! and its 2018 prequel Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again. For those unfamiliar with the franchise, both the stage and initial screenplay were set on the fictional island of Kalokairi in Greece, where Donna’s daughter Sophie goes on the hunt for her biological father to walk her down the aisle at her imminent wedding. Donna, played to perfection by Meryl Streep, must confront her conflicting feelings towards her past three lovers who arrive on her doorstep unannounced, while figuring out who she is and who she has become since that fateful summer Sophie was conceived in.

This International Women’s Day, I’m honing in on Donna as seen in the prequel follow-up, Here We Go Again. It follows a young Donna (played once again to perfection by Lily James) through that fateful summer as she meets Harry, Bill & Sam, and becomes pregnant with Sophie. She is a force to be reckoned with; a free-flying spirit; and a loving mother and friend. This International Women’s Day, I nominate her as a woman in whom we can find encouragement for living our lives with truth and to the fullest.

Here are some things that I have learned from young Donna:

The best things in life… the very best things… happen unexpectedly.

Donna’s valedictorian quote is multifold; the When I Kissed The Teacher scene showcases life’s wonder in the big things as well as the small. Graduating from university is a big achievement that should be celebrated; taking part in a flash mob is fun - but also, the sheer simplicity of riding a bike in a park with music around you is highlighted as something we cannot take for granted. The little things that make up our daily routine can fill us with such joy. On one hand, we must create wonder all around us in our daily lives, but on the other, we must allow life to mess up our perfect plans, and surprise us with even more joy.

Life is short, the world is wide, I wanna make some memories.

Living through the pandemic has made many people, if not everyone, reflect on life, its numberedness, and what they wish to do while they are still here. Why not take a leaf out of Donna’s book, and make your own memories? What do you want to spend your life doing? Go ahead and do just that. One way or another, go live the life that has your bones burning with desire for.

True friendship.

Donna’s relationship with Rosie and Tanya makes them arguably one of the best trios you’ll ever see. In Here We Go Again we get an origin story; they (must have) met at university. And while she ventures into Greece alone, she always has her girls. They encourage and support her, and she takes their opinions seriously. Are your girls people you can go to for advice, people who would encourage you and help you out? It also helps if they’re as fun as you are! Find your tribe and remember: true friendship can exist with thousands of miles between you. Donna, Rosie and Tanya were miles away from each other, but they were each other’s girls no matter what.

Great dating advice 

According to Donna, “There are two kinds of seducer. The first doesn’t actually like women, so wants to assert his power over them, but the second, and far more dangerous, is the guy who genuinely falls in love every evening, only to fall out of it again the next morning. But as you run away, you tell her you’re the one in pain and she’s just too much for you to handle.” Learn this, ladies!!! Don’t get scammed; know who you’re dealing with. And have your girls’ back. When Donna discovers that Sam, whom she’s taken up a summer lovefest, is engaged to a woman back home, she does not slander the woman who has been wronged just as much as she has been. She asks Sam, “are you engaged to that beautiful woman? And did you tell me about it?” In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s essay “We Should All Be Feminists”, she states that “we raise girls to see each other as competitors, not for jobs or for accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men.” Sam’s fiancée was not in the wrong here, Sam was, and it was important that Donna made that distinction and promptly broke it off with Sam, despite her love for him.

Destiny

I will probably mention this again, but I really admire Donna’s undaunted view of the future. When Harry tells her that he is fulfilling her destiny, she simply replies, “I’m searching for mine.” And when Sam laments about how his life has been set for him at home, she beams about her completely opposite situation: she says “I have absolutely nothing mapped out. And no clue what the future holds,” all with a big smile on her face. The pressure to know what you are doing and where you are going plagues us and inhibits us from having joy on this journey called life. And life is hard enough as it is; why make it worse with worrying? Flow with it, just flow, and when it catches you, it simply does. When Donna was offered the chance to stay in Kalokairi for free, her friends tell her not to take it, insisting that “there’s a whole world out there.” Donna simply replies “There’s one right here.” When you know, you’ll just know. And it would not be far-fetched to assume that falling pregnant with no discernment over which of the three men could be the father was far from any plans she had. But she took it in her stride. Take life in your stride, girls!!! Flow with it and let it excite you!

Live life on the edge

Donna tells Harry about her fascination with Kalokairi and her determination to go there: “People used to think, if you sailed on from there, you’d fall off the edge of the world. That sounds like the place for me.” She wants to live life on the edge, quite literally! One thing I admire about Donna is her fearlessness. She has no fear of where she will live in Kalokairi, or how she will survive. She has an innate belief that she needs to go and will not think about the logistics until she arrives. Do we know how to live like this? Without the fear of having no job or financial security? Without the need to know what happens next? I understand that this may be unrealistic in the real world as compared to the Mamma Mia universe where life is very much a musical, but don’t count yourself out. Listen to that siren call within yourself, and go live your life the way you’re meant to and to the fullest. 

Girls, the future is already ours. So enjoy every breath that you have in the present. Think less, rejoice much more! And allow the wonders of life to excite to surprise you. Happy International Women’s Day!

credits

words — megan freeman

design — sâde popoola