Devils and Monsters
Claire Jenkins
Devils and Monsters: Hollywood’s portrayal of the working mother in Monster
in Law and The Devil Wears Prada.
Claire Jenkins
This paper will explore the demonisation of the mother character in Monster in Law
released in 2005 and The Devil Wears Prada released in 2006. The mother is denoted
as a monstrous ‘other’ figure both in the films’ titles and their narratives. I want to
demonstrate how this is symptomatic of Hollywood's patriarchal tendencies and how
these films undermine female equality and feminist ideologies/principles. I also want
to draw attention to the disavowal of a ‘natural’ maternal role as an implicit cause of
the mothers' depiction as monstrous, using as a specific point of reference Barbara
Creed's 1986 article Horror and the Monstrous Feminine.1 I hope to prove that these
films are inherently problematic in their attitude towards women, whether mothers or
not, and whilst they were produced by contemporary Hollywood, which has begun to
embrace more diverse gender roles, they are in fact regressive narratives that
perpetuate what should be a dated backlash ideology.
My interest in The Devil wears Prada and Monster in Law stems from both research
into contemporary Hollywood's representation of the family and personal interests.
My guilty pleasure is chick flicks and romantic comedies but as a feminist I am
constantly struck by how films aimed at (young) women misappropriate feminist
ideologies.
Within my research into the family I have returned again and again to Hollywood's
continued tension between accepting diverse and 'modern' gender roles and a reliance
Barbara Creed, “Horror and the Monstrous feminine: An Imaginary Abjection” in Screen, no.27,
vol.1, (1986) pp. 44-70.
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on traditional, patriarchal and heteronormative values. The Devil Wears Prada and
Monster in Law typify this tension in their representation both of older working
mothers and younger women. The films essentially take for granted that women and
mothers work, yet this is effectively undermined as professional success is depicted as
emotionally damaging. The Devil Wears Prada provides a clear example of this; the
film situates its narrative within a professional world that is dominated by women
(and a token gay male character) but those women who succeed in their careers are
unfeeling, uncaring, emotionally damaged and ruthless. The end goal of the film is
that the young female protagonist learns from the 'mistakes' of the older working
mother and swaps her high profile demanding job for a more low key position and a
romantic reconciliation.
The mother is a much discussed figure in Hollywood cinema, although she is often a
marginal character. Whilst, as a result of feminist film criticism, there has been more
sustained analysis of the representation of the mother in film than there has the
representation of the father, fatherhood and masculine concerns have dominated
Hollywood's family narratives, especially since the late 1970s. The 1980s were an era
in which the concern with patriarchy was so great that if mothers were even present in
the narrative, it was in background and supporting roles. Film scholars Sarah
Harwood and E.Ann Kaplan both draw attention to the marginalisation of the mother
in Hollywood family narratives of the 1980s and early nineties, noting not only the
small role the mother is often permitted but also her position as object/other within the
narrative.2 Those films in which women have consistently been allowed narrative
weight are ‘women’s’ films; melodramas and romantic comedies. An overriding
2
Sarah Harwood, Family Fictions: Representations of the Family in 1980s Hollywood Cinema
(Basingstoke; London: Macmillan, 1997), E.Ann Kaplan, Motherhood and Representation:
The Mother in Popular Culture and Melodrama (London; New York: Routledge, 1992).
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concern of ‘women’s’ films, about motherhood, is the restoration of a mother who
may have transgressed her ‘natural’ position, into a happy, nuclear family.
In recent years the mother has taken on a more substantial and diverse role in
Hollywood narratives; working mothers are taken for granted (even if they are often
criticised/repudiated for putting career before family), and since the 1990s there have
been an abundance of 'action' mothers is films such as Terminator 2 (1991), The River
Wild (1994), The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996) and the Kill Bill films (2003, 2004).
However, there remains a perpetuation of heteronormative ideals that dictates women
will almost always be mothers, even if it seems at odds with their character, or
profession, for example Courage Under Fire (1996) Kill Bill, and even The Devil
Wears Prada. Although films increasingly situate mothers as subject of their own
films – such as Kill Bill – or contemporary melodramas like The Bridges of Madison
County (1995) and Far From Heaven (2002), both The Devil Wears Prada and
Monster in Law situate their maternal characters in the role of object/other.
Within The Devil Wears Prada and Monster in Law the mother, as 'other'/object , is
an older supporting character who poses a threat of sorts to the heroine, returning the
mother to the position Kaplan and Harwood note she held in the 1980s and early
nineties. That said, the mothers have significant roles within the films. They are the
characters of the titles – the Devil in Prada, the Monster in Law, and are played by
veteran actresses Meryl Streep and Jane Fonda. The mothers are professionally
accomplished women with families. Despite this they are both emotionally damaged
characters and within the narrative this implicitly critiques the working mother. The
films as a whole create a confused image of womanhood in which female
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Claire Jenkins
independence and professional success are celebrated on a superficial level and
essentially must take a backseat to more typically 'feminine' concerns, notably
romance and family.
I believe the representation of mothers within these films is a significant concern in
contemporary feminist discourse. The films are about women and aimed at women
yet they perpetuate patriarchal myths about what women should want and should be.
Furthermore they add fuel to post-feminist debates that suggest feminism is not
relevant in contemporary society. The films take equality for granted whilst subtly
undermining this by tempting women away from the workplace and promising a
happy ending elsewhere. I intend to place these films within a feminist framework in
order to demonstrate both the problems of the films' representation of women and in
particular mothers, and to draw attention to the continued relevance of feminism in
the face of such popular yet regressive representations of women.
I want to begin by giving a brief synopsis of both films for those of you unfamiliar
with the texts. Although the films are quite different in tone and narrative there are
some common themes in their depiction of the mother figure.
The Devil Wears Prada sees dowdy graduate Andy (Anne Hathaway) employed at the
glamorous fashion magazine, Runway, as assistant to the notoriously difficult editor
in chief Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep); the 'devil' in Prada. Miranda is a sternfaced, quietly spoken but feared woman who has incredible power and influence
within the fashion industry. Although the film never depicts her interacting with her
family it is announced almost as soon as she is introduced that she has twin daughters
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and at least one failed marriage behind her. The film then follows Andy's attempts to
please Miranda and her increasingly ridiculous and selfish demands. It is not until
Andy undergoes a make-over that she begins to excel at work, but as she does so her
relationship with her boyfriend breaks down. The film reaches its climax as Andy is
forced to betray her colleague and travel with Miranda to Paris, at which point
Miranda briefly displays some emotion, following the break up of another marriage.
The film ends, however, with Miranda betraying a colleague in order to retain her job
and Andy quitting her position as she realises she is becoming too much like her
devilish boss. Andy takes on a lower profile job that offers more integrity and
reconciles with her boyfriend, whilst things for Miranda stay the same.
Monster in Law is a more straightforward romantic comedy. Charlie (Jennifer Lopez)
meets a handsome doctor, Kevin (Michael Vartan) whilst out dog walking – one of
her many part time jobs, that allow her to be quirky, independent but not tied to a
career. Whilst visiting Kevin's mother Viola (Jane Fonda) Kevin proposes. Viola
takes the news badly, she has just returned from a rehab centre after an emotional
breakdown. She was fired from her job as a serious TV presenter, so that she could
be replaced by a younger model. Slapstick style comedy ensues as Viola does
everything in her power to break up the engagement. Charlie soon realises she is
being deceived and plays Viola at her own game. The film ends at the wedding, after
a show down and a cat fight the two women finally reconcile on the promise that
Viola stops interfering in the relationship but promises to be an involved
grandmother.
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Although Viola Fields is a vindictive mother in law, Miranda Priestly never quite
embodies her title. I remember remarking to a friend, having watched the film, that
she was not quite villainous enough to be the devil in Prada. I want to begin with this
starting point of the way the mothers are described as devil/monster, in order to
understand how these women are represented and how they are monstrous.
The titles of these films are perhaps their most damaging element. Before the film has
even begun the audience are told how to perceive these mothers. Subjectivity is
immediately denied as the women are denoted as monstrous 'others'. In the case of
Viola Fields the replacement of the word mother with monster implicitly links her
monstrosity to her maternity. Therefore as a starting point for this paper I looked up
the dictionary meanings of devil and monster and I think they are enlightening when
applied to these films.
In my somewhat aged Chambers dictionary the definitions are as such:
Devil: an evil spirit: the supreme spirit of evil: wicked person.
Monster: Anything out of the usual course of nature: anything horrible from ugliness
or wickedness.
Even allowing some lenience for artistic licence these titles are incredibly critical; to
describe Miranda Priestly as 'the supreme spirit of evil' is surely a stretch, but I think
in particular the description of the monster as anything out of the usual course of
nature is incredibly relevant to how the working mothers are depicted by their films.
The idea of the natural role for women as placid maternity is one that is perpetuated.
Donna Bassin, Margaret Honey and Meryle Kaplan describe the 'traditional' mother as
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‘self-less and ever patient’; as a woman whose child comes before her own needs.3.
This model of maternity, whilst perpetuated as a reality is essentially only a symbolic
figure. The 'natural' role of pious domestic maternity has permeated Hollywood's
representations of the mother, writing of pre-war melodramas Christian Viviani and
E.Ann Kaplan both suggests that any transgression form the 'natural' maternal role
was threatening to the family4 and Philip Green notes a similar pattern in Hollywood
in the early 1990s, noting mothers have a central role in the family and transgressions
from this prove damaging.5 The pursuit of professional success is such a
transgression that both within Hollywood and within conservative socio-political
discourses is continually depicted as at odds with 'good' mothering. The Good
Childhood report published in the UK earlier this year perpetuated the stay-at-home
mother as a family ideal.6
What I want to do now is interrogate what it is that has led to these women being
branded monstrous. I hope to demonstrate that it is linked to this disavowal of the socalled ‘natural’ role. I will use Barbara Creed's Horror and the Monstrous Feminine
and in particular the idea of the phallic mother as a framework for this discussion.
Creed writes specifically about the horror film and therefore discusses the monstrous
feminine in a literal manner. It is important to note that although Creed's article is
Donna Bassin, Margaret Honey and Merle Mahrer Kaplan, “Introduction” in Representations
of Motherhood ed. Donna Bassin, Margaret Honey and Meryle Mahrer Kaplan, (New Haven;
London: Yale University Press, 1994), p.2-3.
4 E.Ann Kaplan, “Mothering, Feminism and Representation: The Maternal Melodrama and
The Woman’s Film 1910-40” in Home Is Where the Heart Is: Studies in Melodrama and the
Women’s Film ed. Christine Gledhill, (London: BFI, 1987) pp.113-137 and Christian Viviani,
“Who is Without Sin? The Maternal Melodrama in American Film, 1930-39” in Home Is Where
the Heart Is: Studies in Melodrama and the Women’s Film, Christine Gledhill, (London: BFI,
1987) pp.83-99.
5 Philip Green, Cracks in the Pedestal: Ideology and Gender in Hollywood (Amerhurst:
University of Massachusetts Press, 1998), p.84.
6 Judy Dunn and Richard Layard, A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive
Age (London: Penguin, 2009).
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titled the monstrous 'feminine' it is essentially the mother that she writes about – using
psychoanalytical discourse as a framework and the idea of the womb/vagina as both
symptomatic of a castrating threat and drawing upon the image of the devouring
toothed vagina. Creed notes various monstrous feminine archetypes, but I want to
draw specific attention to her concept of the phallic mother. Creed discusses the
phallic mother in terms of fetishisation. The monstrous element of the mother is a
phallic object that is the mother's own fetish object or substitute phallus. As Creed
writes: 'The monster as fetish object is not there to meet the desires of the male
fetishist, but rather to signify the monstrousness of woman's desire to have the
phallus'.7
Although Creed is referring to a literal monster, if the phallic object is substituted for
masculine power/masculine success or at the very least ‘unfeminine’ behaviour, then
this paradigm can be attributed to Miranda Priestly. Miranda is monstrous because
she wishes to inhabit a 'masculine', active and professionally successful role; because
she has transgressed from her natural feminine position. This is never more evident
than when she uses her children in the power games she plays with Andy. Miranda
demands Andy get copies of an unpublished Harry Potter manuscript in less than a
day for her spoilt children. The use of children as merely a tool to manipulate Andy
(heightened by the absence of scenes between Miranda and her children)
problematises the working mother and creates a tension between a ‘natural’ state of
maternity and her professional life.
7
Creed, “The Monstrous Feminine”, p.68.
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Miranda's entrance into the film further gives credence to Freudian arguments
concerning female power and castration anxiety. As Miranda is about to enter the
office building one of the few male workers shouts 'Gird your loins'. Thus within the
film the mother’s phallic power represents a castrating threat – notably it is a male
colleague who announces this. However, said to a room of female workers the effect
is ambiguous; is he fearing castration himself or warning women to gird their loins
lest they too ‘own the phallus’ and transform into the monstrous feminine?
The reason Miranda is labelled a 'devil' is implicitly linked to her disavowal of the
natural role. Viola also transgresses this 'natural' role in Monster in Law. Viola's
status as 'phallic' mother is linked to her relationship with her son. The narrative of
the film presents an Oedipal scenario that has effectively been reversed. The mother
desires the son and therefore sees his girlfriend as a rival. One of Viola’s ‘games’
with Charlie has the potential to threaten her life; the mother in law crushes nuts into
Charlie’s meal, knowing that she has a serious allergy. Thus the mother's attempt to
kill her son's lover aligns her with a reversal of the Oedipal scenario in which the son
attempts to kill his mother's lover.
In Freudian terms the child is often perceived as a phallic symbol or fetish object; a
substitute for the female lack. Creed references this in relation to the phallic mother
in which the child becomes the mother's fetish object: 'What is horrific is her desire to
cling to her offspring in order to have the phallus'.8 This is heightened in Monster in
Law as it is a male child.
8
Creed, “The Monstrous Feminine”, p.68.
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In both films masculine power and the attempt to hold on to the fetish object –
whether it be Miranda's job or Viola's son – mark a resistance to the ageing process.
Effectively both women are replaced by younger models, or at least attempts are made
to replace them with younger models – Charlie replaces Viola in her son's affections
and Miranda nearly loses her job to a younger woman (this has already happened to
Viola).
Age, therefore, becomes another implicit factor in the mothers' 'monstrosity'. The
contrast between the younger leads and the older supporting mother characters
separates the women around various binaries; masculine (by which I mean
professionally successful and active within the 'masculine' public sphere) and
feminine (the younger women succumb to more traditionally feminine ideals of
romance), old and young, villain and victim. Thus age is linked to villainy. Indeed
the older woman as 'hag' is a much-used image of the monstrous, ageing feminine. In
one of her 'games' with Charlie, Viola purposely frightens her by donning a witch-like
ethnic outfit and sneaking up on the younger woman late at night. The physical
representation of Miranda Priestly is also interesting in a discussion of age. She is
given white hair that signifies her as ageing, although she has two relatively young
daughters. Her white hair and its style evoke an image of Cruella De'vil but the
ambiguity over her age also posits her as an ageless monster.
The positioning of the older character as monstrous (m)other rather than a soft,
maternal or grandmotherly figure, then, reiterates a break from 'traditional' gender
roles. The reliance upon traditional roles of femininity is clear within The Devil
Wears Prada as Miranda breaks down to Andy. She has learnt her husband wishes to
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divorce her and for an instance is vulnerable and emotional and quite clearly
concerned about her daughters. This scene is crucial to the film's narrative, it is,
perhaps, the reason Miranda never quite lives up to the title of 'devil'. The scene was
never written into the book the film is based upon; it is indicative of Hollywood
ideology, an ideology that necessitates feminine emotion and explicit maternal
concern. The break down of Miranda's facade, then, undermines her monstrous
character as merely a role played in order to succeed in a masculine world, implying
an anti-feminist ideology that sees femininity as incompatible with the workplace;
indeed Andy could not combine the two, and in Monster in Law Charlie never even
tries to.
Miranda's divorce also implies that personal success, for women at least, is
incompatible with professional success, echoing 'backlash' ideologies. It was in 1991
that Susan Faludi's seminal text Backlash9 drew attention to the widespread resistance
to women and mothers in the workplace, yet her work seems applicable now, over
fifteen years later. Writing in 1991 Faludi explains women were told they had
sacrificed too much for their gains; in 2006 Andy is told by a colleague in The Devil
Wears Prada that she will know she is doing well at work when her personal life
hangs by a thread. The relevance both of Faludi and Creed’s work some fifteen to
twenty years after they were first written suggests these narratives are regressive.
These films, aimed at young women, perpetuate an anti-feminist myth that subverting
traditional maternity creates monsters and that work and motherhood cannot, or
should not be combined. This aligns the films with conservative criticism of working
9
Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared war Against Women (London: Vintage, 1993) (first
published in 1991).
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women that continues to permeate popular culture and socio-political discourse. In
2004 American writer Mary Eberstadt released. Home Alone America10 a conservative
diatribe that blamed working women for a variety of social ills, including the obesity
crisis and growing mental health problems in children. Although, Eberstadt did
concede that if women really do have to work to survive then it is OK (of course the
mothers of the Devil Wears Prada and Monster in Law are wealthy women who do
not need to work – adding to their villainy). As I mentioned earlier, this year the UK
organisation The Children's Society published their report, A Good Childhood which
similarly promoted stay-at-home mothers as the answer to family problems. These
publications perpetuate the myth of the symbolic or idealised mother based on an
unfeasible 'traditional' model of gender roles and family set-ups, furthermore they
leave little room for choice, if women want to work.
These reports, much like the films, depict working mothers as objects/others. I want
to make it clear I am not suggesting the ideologies perpetuated by either the films or
the reports permeate all representations of mothers. However, there is a widespread
denial of maternal subjectivity, and a failure to represent mothers outside the
structures of a symbolic ideal, that continually posits those women who transcend the
boundaries of this 'ideal' as problematic, if not monstrous.
Bibliography
Bassin, Donna, Honey, Margaret and Kaplan, Merle Mahrer. “Introduction” in
Representations of Motherhood edited bu Donna basin, Margaret Honey and Meryle
Mahrer Kaplan. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1994, pp.1-25.
Mary Eberstadt, Home Alone America: Why Today’s Kids are Overmedicated, Overweight and More
Troubled than Ever Before (London: Sentinel, 2004).
10
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Claire Jenkins
Creed, Barbara. “Horror and the Monstrous feminine: An Imaginary Abjection” in
Screen, no.27, vol.1, 1986 pp. 44-70.
Dunn, Judy and Layard, Richard. A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a
Competitive Age. London: Penguin, 2009.
Eberstadt, Mary. Home Alone America: Why Today’s Kids are Overmedicated,
Overweight and More Troubled than Ever Before. London: Sentinel, 2004.
Faludi, Susan.Backlash: The Undeclared war Against Women. London: Vintage,
1993.
Green, Philip. Cracks in the Pedestal: Ideology and Gender in Hollywood.
Amerhurst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998.
Harwood, Sarah. Family Fictions: Representations of the Family in 1980s Hollywoo
Cinema. Basingstoke; London: Macmillan, 1997.
Kaplan, E.Ann. Motherhood and Representation: The Mother in Popular Culture and
Melodrama. London: New York; Routledge, 1992.
- “Mothering, Feminism and Representation: The Maternal
Melodrama and The Woman’s Film 1910-40” in Home Is Where the Heart Is: Studies
in Melodrama and the Women’s Film edited by Christine Gledhill. London: BFI,
1987, pp.113-137.
Christian Viviani, “Who is Without Sin? The Maternal Melodrama in American Film,
1930-39” in Home Is Where the Heart Is: Studies in Melodrama and the Women’s
Film edited by Christine Gledhill. London: BFI, 1987, pp.83-99.
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