Five Dead Movie Mothers

[mothwing]

If I was a heroine in a story in whatever medium I'd never, ever want to have children. That seems to be the safest way to either be disposed unceremoniously before the story even starts, or to die for my offspring, while, or shortly after my offspring are born. While having a daughter has mothers dying in childbirth to make way for the evil stepmother (especially in fairy tales), having sons seems to doom mothers to tear-jerky demises saving said sons from their future nemises.

These are the five dead movie mothers that drove home this point to me most in chronological order.

1. Bambi's Mother (Mother)

Cause of death: bullet.

Reason: tries to divert some hunter's attention from her son.
Role: I don't think she's more than an end-of-innocence boost for the story, really.


2. Littlefoot's Mother ("Mother")

Cause of death: dino bites. 

Reason: saves her son from his nemesis-to-be.
Role: again, she seems to be little more than a reason to kick off the plot, and an extremely tear-jerky red-shirt to show how very very dangerous Sharptooth is.


3. Quasimodo's mother (nameless)

Cause of death: brained on the stairs of Notre Dame.

Reason: wants to save her son, instead gets wrongly accused of her son's nemesis-to-be and killed by him, though by accident.
Role: underlines how very heartless Frollo is and to show that our hero's mother, whom he never met, didn't abandon him but really cared for him. Another pointless tear-jerk moment.


4. Harry's mother (Lily Potter, née Evans)

Cause of death: killing curse.

Reason: dying instead of her son, who is about to be killed by his nemsis.
Role:  supplier of backstory, subplot and hero's special superpowers. And secondary villains' love interest, much like: 


5. Leia and Luke's mother (Padmé Amidala)

Cause of death: a... broken heart? Having been chocked by her recently converted husband? I never figured that out, and I'm not sure I want to.

Reason: underlines how truly evil her husband is?
Role: dead love interest, mostly - and she's still better of than Shmi, who, in terms of plot, seems to be Reason for Revenge as well as tear-jerker.

Who is your favourite dead movie mother?

Comments

[ginaspider.livejournal.com]

huh, I haven't noticed that theme before. As for my favorite dead mother? Hmm.... you know I don't know. That's for illuminating that theme for me though

[lisaquestions.livejournal.com]

I don't have a particular favorite. I know exactly what you're talking about and it always bothered me how women were often defined by their absence (usually due to death) on television and in movies for a long time. Obviously not always, but I noticed a lot of widowers before I turned 10. And of course, the number of women killed on screen to motivate their husbands and fathers. Right now I can only name Death Wish and the Courtship of Eddie's Father right offhand, but there were many more.

I was actually okay with Lily Potter's death because James Potter had also died, and the defining tragedy in the Wizarding World was just how many people had been killed or disabled in the first war with Voldemort and his Death-Eaters.

[lisaquestions.livejournal.com]

Also, in the Brady Bunch, Carol was a divorcee (although never mentioned because the network didn't want to acknowledge divorce) and Mike was a widower. Not that their former partners were really discussed in the series - they were mainly vehicles to explain the kids' existence.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

At least Simba's mother survived?

Hmmm, thinking about kids' media, orphans are a pretty common trope, but I think dead mothers do outnumber dead fathers, and more often die in a way that's very plot-device-y.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Orphans are even more common, I think. Especially in Fantasy books I find it hard to even think of main characters with intact families - there are a lot of mysteriously absent parents and orphans, though. :)

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Yes, Lily was sort of alright. She even gets to do stuff! It's as though she's more than a motivator for the men in her life, almost.
And dead women - there's even a trope for that, and I wish it weren't so common.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Seriously! I think she's the first Disney mother to do so, even, if I remember correctly.

Fathers do seem to make some kind of return more often than mothers, at least - they're more prone to just be absent rather than dead.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

*thinks*

Yesss, I think you're right. Mulan's mother and father were both alive, but that was after TLK.

[krakelwok.livejournal.com]

Favourite dead movie mother? This one.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Gnah I will never sleep again. What is that?

[krakelwok.livejournal.com]

Don't tell me you've never seen Psycho?!?

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Nope. And going by that picture, I'm not sure I want to. D=

[krakelwok.livejournal.com]

I usually assume people have seen Psycho. Don't be fooled by today's unsubtle thrillers into believing it served as a template for their blunt shock scenes. It doesn't.
Instead it was one of the earliest movies really plowing the depths of a deranged mind. Since it's a Hitchcock movie it doesn't do it through visual over-explanation, dialogue or gratuitous bloodshed. We're talking about a 60s movie, after all. (Although for his time Hitchcock pushed the envelop as far as possible.)
Largely thanks to Anthony Perkins' brilliant depiction of Norman Bates (based loosely on real-life serial killer Ed Gein) and an atmosphere of constant threat, the ending is one in which after a severe shock a lot of pieces start falling into place, explaining past events and making everything even more unsettling.

It's a classic. See it.
It's not easy to stomach so make sure you're in the right mindset but I promise you, although it will make you jump, it doesn't do so in the vulgar fashion of today's horror movies.