We’ve all seen them. The overprotective, obsessive, and frankly evil mothers-in-law to their perfect sons. They stand in the way of the beautiful wife, who they must be jealous of because she is so much younger, prettier, and more intimate with her son. It’s not as though they have spent their entire lives taking care of many children with often dismissive husbands by their sides. It’s not as though they are practically villains to everyone around them, including their narcissistic, ungrateful sons. They deserve it, don’t they? They’ve committed the worst crime: being women in film.
From what many mark as classic films and shows, women have always been demonized. That is, made to be the all-evil, spiteful, vengeance-seeking – but always without any good reason other than jealousy of the young, beautiful main character – villains. Mothers especially face this torment from the media, often being sidelined for the new wife, the ungrateful children, or the abusive husband.
It begins in childhood. With princess movies like Cinderella and Snow White, young girls are taught that beauty is in youth and that older women, particularly mothers, are always jealous. It instills the idea that beauty is everything, and always fleeting. That to age is the worst fate that can befall a woman. Notions like these push the ever-intensifying need to be beautiful, accompanied by the anti-aging industry and ridiculous rituals to stay young – and beautiful – forever. Girls grow up into women who hate themselves, who see themselves as worthy only if they’re beautiful, with skewed perceptions of motherhood and other women.
A common conflict in film falls between the wife and her mother-in-law. The wife, everything the mother hates and disapproves of, is ever so beautiful when compared to the mother-in-law, who is cruel, jealous, and borderline incestuous. Though I am not the first to admit some truth behind these films, they go out of their way to completely demonize a mother’s love into something it is not. When you think of these women, only one word comes to mind: jealousy. It is the singular motive behind anything and everything a woman on screen does. She cannot exist without being jealous of another woman, and it becomes her downfall. For mothers-in-law and jealous women in film, their jealousy is all they have to hold onto. Because, of course, they aren’t given the meaningful motives their male counterparts get. Instead, they are swept under the excuse of jealousy. The insistence that women are always jealous, of each other, of anyone and everyone, pushes the idea that one should hate other women. That it is okay and right because everyone else does too. And so women are pitted against each other for mediocre reasons.
Though all women in film are harshly mischaracterized, it is often mothers that are dramatized beyond recognition. There are two types of mothers, the only two types that exist in film. The first is the struggling mother. She is married to a man that cannot care any less about her. A man who is probably cheating on her with a much younger, more beautiful woman (do you sense a theme here?). She may have a child already, she may not. Regardless, her pregnancy is difficult, and the aftermath is worse. She does not have anything together, she doesn’t even know if she can be a good mother to her child. She is messy, vulnerable, confused. For some, she is the epitome of motherhood. But when compared to her counterpart, a young, successful mother, she looks like a mess. The other mother – nicknamed ‘yummy mummies’ for their quick return to ‘the real world’ after birth – is beautiful and has her life together. For many men, she is the woman they expect their wives to be after birth. With her arrival, women are no longer allowed to be confused when exploring motherhood. They must always be beautiful and always know what they want and how to get it. New mothers are forced to dawn the weight of these expectations, erasing their struggles in order to be better wives and mothers. But what the media does not depict are the reasons for their struggles. The lack of open communication about motherhood, the expectation that mothers are responsible for everything, and the lack of economic help for them.
The second kind of mother is experienced. She has many kids, a gentler and kinder husband, and an inescapable urge to control. She is exaggerated and demonized, painted as the villain amongst her ungrateful children and foolish husband. In shows like Fresh of the Boat and Everybody Hates Chris, these mothers are portrayed as strict, overbearing, and easily hated. They seem to always stand in the way of their family, their love being brushed off as strictness. These mothers act as punching bags for the characters, always ridiculed for being too impatient and mean. But they aren’t. They love their children, they want what’s best for them, and the media can’t seem to handle the idea of a loving mother. Even in a show like Dance Moms, the mothers of young girls are demonized for protecting them from abuse and cruelty. They are depicted as humorous, out-of-control, and irrational. Even the title focuses more on the mothers than the dancers, alluding to the audience it is them that should be the victims of their hatred and not the abuse.
Through these demonized and exaggerated portrayals of women in film, many are conditioned to believe this is how a woman should look and act and simply exist. The constant villainization of women leads to the disillusionment of how a woman should be, and many force themselves into these stereotypes because they don’t know anything else. They are hard to rid of, enforced since childhood. Though, some directors are pushing to break these gender roles and accurately depict all women on screen. While women are still demonized, new women are stepping onto screen to remedy these stereotypes and break the stigma.