Women On Film - “Coraline” - Thelma Adams comments
Coraline's Button-eyed Other Mother
It’s a cliche that mothers die at the beginnings of children’s movies. Bambi’s mom passed. The Hunchback’s mom? Gone.
But Coraline has a very different take on motherhood. This spunky pre-teen heroine’s mother is — eek! — a self-obsessed writer who works from home on her computer and leaves the cooking to dad, who concocts some kind of sticky unappetizing slop. Is it any wonder that Coraline is ripe for seduction by her “other mother?”
The woman resembles her own mother, but is cheerier, better dressed, cooks Coraline’s favorite dishes, stuffs her with sweets and totally seduces the girl with a canopy bed and matching linens. She’s the Martha Stewart dream mother. Is this plausible?
My own daughter for years referred to her “other mother,” the one who let her do what she wanted, wear what she wanted and, well, never yelled. Rather than an imaginary friend, she came up with an imaginary mother. That part of the impulse is a perfect jumping off point for a fiction like Coraline. The impulse is good. Yet the disturbing part is the depiction of a self-involved, self-obsessed mother who can’t bother to see to her own daughter’s needs because she’s so worried about getting clean copy to her publisher. She’s a garden writer who can’t grow her own garden — or tend her own plant (Coraline). I flinched when she snapped at Coraline while working on her computer, not because it was false, but because I’ve done that.
And, yet, I’m also aware of how stereotypical this image is. Sure, some days I snap, stay at home demon writing mother that I am, but often I cradle and coddle and encourage my daughter’s poetry writing and novel writing. And, when the chance comes to take her to a premiere of Narnia, I make sure she meets her dream stars — or at least I let her stalk them down and get her picture with them with her admirable relentlessness. My point, I suppose, is that there are many working mothers out there that shouldn’t feel guilty for not cooking our children their favorite foods nightly, and that our joy in doing what we love is a lesson that we share with our daughters and sons. Even if there are days we are cranky, and we all have cereal for dinner, and we’re wearing last year’s clothes. We’re around a lot more for the good times and this generation of mothers is certainly attuned to their children’s needs, sometimes obsessively so.
I suppose that’s why I’m a big fan of Dumbo: mama doesn’t die in the prolog, but stays around to nurture her flying baby, even while holding down a job at the circus.
Essentially I agree with you (I’m a working mom too) - but I think Coraline agrees too, because it resolves by revealing the Other Mother is evil, and Coraline comes to appreciate her real mother, faults and all.
February 4th, 2009 at 11:31 am
Thelma: Well said. As a working mother, and daughter of a working mother, I am fully aware of the pros and cons of the situation. Is it easy to leave your 5 month old to show up at work? No. It probably wasn’t so easy for his dad, either, right?
But, as far as I’m concerned, we want our daughters and sons to understand that women and men work, have careers and support families, women and men nurture, women and men can run a vacuum and wash a dish, women and men can become frustrated, harried or overwrought, and the world does not end. In fact, the world actually runs thanks to these millions of women AND men. The lesson is about humanity, not gender. That is, until someone sets us back a few decades with a movie that makes it all about gender… again.
The other thing that has always rubbed me RAW about the stereotype you call to task in your blog is the fact that it presupposes that there is a choice. What percentage of working mothers can choose not to, in order to be the button-eyed mommy of some Hollywood dream? It should not matter, of course. A Rockefeller can have a career as a lawyer and be a mommy or a daddy and do both jobs well, while juggling investments. But let’s be honest – most of us working stiffs of either gender are bringing home the tofu-bacon along with our spouses. Paying the tuitions. Buying the snow boots. Writing checks to the violin teacher. Whatever. Why is mommy vilified for doing what she has to in order to raise her family, and daddy is just “doing his job.”
And I agree about Dumbo’s mom. Not only does she take no prisoners when it comes to protecting her child from harm, she never stops loving him while holding down a job – or while fighting for her rights while being unfairly imprisoned. All too familiar….
February 4th, 2009 at 11:54 am
amen!
February 4th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
I haven’t seen Coraline but like the idea that the mother — even the demon mother — is a writer; seems to legitimize the profession! And so much better to be Dumbo’s Mom (great line, Thelma!) than Bambi’s Mom anyday.
February 4th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
“the Martha Stewart dream mother”? Didn’t Martha’s real life daughter get her own cable show just so she can rant about Martha on the record? I’m just sayin….there’s a lesson in there for all of us working mothers!
February 4th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Like with most relationships…..it isn’t about the quantity, but the quality. If you children come away believing and feeling and knowing that basically they are the ‘apple of your eye”….it doesn’t matter what you give them to eat or when you snap or are too irritable to respond to another one of their questions.
I am not a mother, but see lots of mothering. Structure is important, but knowing that you are loved is what we all grow on.
February 4th, 2009 at 8:25 pm