Coraline’s Two Bad Mommies
This weekend, I watched Coraline, the new stop-animation film that gives the Nightmare Before Christmas treatment to Neil Gaiman's book about a discontented girl who finds a portal to another world. Coraline has some pretty serious mommy issues in her first life:
Mom neglects her daughter in favor of her laptop, won't buy Coraline new gloves for school, and worst of all, she doesn't cook. After enduring another of her father's mushy vegetable concoctions, Coraline asks her mother why she can't cook for once. It's just not in their shared-parenting arrangement, it seems: Coraline's father cooks; her mother cleans. Later in the film, Coraline's mother's lack of cooking skills borders on the criminal. At one point, she peers in the refridgerator and asks Coraline if she'd like a "ketchup mustard salsa wrap" for lunch. Coraline's father is also a distracted, frustrated figure, but he takes the time to be sweet to Coraline and makes it clear he's just taking orders from "the boss"—mommy.
In Coraline's alternate universe, which she accesses through a Malkovich-esque tiny door-leading-to-wonky-tunnel, her mother—known as her "Other Mother"—is much improved on the original. She cooks chicken! She cooks cupcakes! Gravy comes around the table on a choo-choo gravy train! She has well-proportioned hips! But even though this mother seems perfect—she cooks!—it turns out that she's just an anemic spider lady who wants to run Coraline's "Other Father" into the ground, replace Coraline's eyes with buttons, and collect children's ghosts in her dungeon. Also, her elaborate meals are simply practice for when she inevitably consumes Coraline's soul.
So Coraline's got two mommies, and they're both bitches. It's a bummer, especially because both bad mommies seem to buck up against some very outdated images of motherhood. In both worlds, good motherhood is defined by a) cooking well; b) not choosing work over parenting; and c) not acting as the dominant parent. In the end, Coraline ends up grateful for the mother she has—mom even buys her the gloves she wanted! Let's hope she can learn to get used to her father in the kitchen, too.
12:21 pm
Amanda, I take issue with your ABC conclusion of Coraline's definition of motherhood. I concede that it is possible that A (cooking well) is a feminine gender role that regular mother lacks, but regular mother also doesn't clean, as you point out. In B (not choosing work over parenting), it is true that regular mother is too involved with her work to bother with Coraline, but the same is true for regular father. Other Mother doesn't seem to work at all (other than to please Coraline), but Other Father doesn't get much done, either. So really, it is good parenthood, not good motherhood, that is defined by choosing parenting over work. Finally, it isn't really fair to say that not acting as the dominant parent is demonstrated as good motherhood in both worlds. Perhaps in the other world, the Other Mother's hyperdominance is bad motherhood, but in the real world, neither parent is dominant; they're both worthless sacks of shit. Actually, real mother shows slightly more dominance, when Coraline asks each parent if she may play in the rain, and real father defers to real mother, asking Coraline what "the boss" said.
Also, when Other Mother changed appearances into he evil-looking self, her tits got a little bigger, and sagged a bit. And I'm not even sure what to say about the downstairs neighbors', um, ample bosoms.
1:38 pm
The real mother may or may not clean! That's not revealed to us. Also, did you fucking see that HUGE MAGIC PUMPKIN GARDEN the Other Father made? "Doesn't get much done" my ass, man.
Mom is the boss in the real world parenting scenario, which is why Dad can pass off the no-mud decree on his wife without suffering any blame for it. Plus, real mom is the literal boss---she's the editor to the father's writer, and she snaps at him to get back to his "garden catalog" factory grind instead of hangin' with Coraline.
She's terrible! They're all terrible! But both dads (one more exaggerated than the other, obviously) are presented as these sad-sack guys who would spend time with their daughters if it weren't for their controlling wives.
1:41 pm
BUT ALSO you are right about it just being "bad parenting." I think the cooking thing was rather conspicuous and strange to be put on the mother. But yeah, all the parents here are terrible and I think Coraline should run away with the nice Russian acrobat man.
4:44 am
You got all this fembot pulp from watching Coraline? Go home, apologize to your man for the way you are, and make him a sandwich.
3:35 am
Well-proportioned hips?
9:06 am
Yeah. The "real" Coraline mom's figure is hidden beneath baggier clothes. When Coraline goes into her alternate wonderful universe, her mom grows a classic hourglass figure. Then, when she's revealed to be an evil spider-lady, her hips become huge and scary while the rest of her figure shrinks to near-nothingness. It's the hips, man. They mean something.
2:56 am
If you liked Neil Gaiman's annoying sexist take on the two mommies, you'll love his new book of pornographic-death-mutilation photos of his girlfriend bound and shoved into a shopping car or shoved into toilets covered in blood. Gaiman sucks.
12:49 pm
Interesting take on Coraline, Amanda. I hadn't thought of this way. I was more looking at the real-world mother as a regular stressed out parent with imperfections who, ultimately, is much better than a creepy June Cleaver who eats kids.
3:24 am
Gaiman funds Scientology.
Neil Gaiman's 2009 contributions to the CULT of Scientology are listed in the cult's Cornerstone Newsletter (circa November 2009)
$142 million plus given to Super Power Scam - Ex Scientologist Message Board
http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?t=16197
Under
CORNERSTONE CLUB MEMBERS [1315] [$35,000.00]
You'll find:
Mary & Neil Gaiman
And as the ex Scientologists state: "Also, this list does not include donations made by people who have since left the Church and been declared SP’s or “ethics bait”. The Church deletes those people’s names from the lists."
This probably reflects the $30,000.00 Neil Gaiman gave to the cult, and an additional $5000.00 to bring him up to Cornerstone Club member. Neil Gaiman is a Scientologist in good standing.