Reading Analysis:
In both of Sarah Arnold’s articles, “Introduction” and “The Bad Mother,” she describes the tropes of the “bad” or abject mother in horror films. In the “Introduction,” Arnold talks about the Freudian psychoanalysis of the mother and child relationship. Freud depicts that the way a child behaves is dependent on how the mother raised the child, and if how humans develop their repressions in their subconscious during childhood activity, that is not bizarre to link the mother’s nurturing to the child’s later adult repressions of fears and desires.
Arnold says that no matter if the mother is “good” or “bad” that she must consciously or subconsciously be obedient to a patriarchal order set by the father or a patriarchal culture. The good mother is sacrificial and nurturing, putting the child’s need before her own and often neglecting her wants. The bad mother is selfish and rejects the child’s wants and desires, putting herself before the child. The bad mother cliche also coincides with the horror troupe of “mother-as-monsters” and the idea of the victimization or “otherness” of maternal figures in horror films. She can only ever be the victim, the monster/other, or a mix of both.
In Arnold’s second article, “The Bad Mother,” she dives deeper into the representation of the bad mother. In order to be considered a bad mother, the maternal figure must reject the prescribed role of the submissive, obedient caretaker of the nuclear family model. Like the majority of “others” in horror films, she is punished for rejecting the hierarchy of maternal nurturing in patriarchal structured society. The bad mother also represents the corruption of the ideal female in this male dominated society, thus creating a reason for her punishment: lack of conformity.
Film Analysis:
It should be said that Amelia, the mother in The Babadook, is not a bad mother intentionally. The only reason she has a disconnect between her and her child, Sam, is due to the fact that the death of her husband and the grief she never processed from his death, which is the Babadook. The Babadook is the personification of grief and trauma. “The Bad Mother simply rejects
her prescribed role within the dominant nuclear family model” (Arnold 68). Amelia never has any wants or desires to abandon Sam. She is very persistent in trying to understand and connect with her child. While The Babadook does touch on motherhood, it is more a movie about grappling with grief, the past, and mental illness than anything else.
Amelia is not so much of a bad mother as she is a grieving mother. “In some instances she is indeed punished for rejecting her traditional function of self-sacrifice and devotion, yet at times the very horror of the film can be found in the mother’s fanatical conformity to the institution of motherhood (Rich, 1976)” (Arnold 68). Amelia does perform motherly duties, such as taking care of and reading Sam his bedtime stories, which is where the audience is first introduced to the Babadook.
Director Jennifer Kent’s (Wow, something actually directed by a woman for once!) decision to make the Babadook into a bedtime story/fairytale is genius because adult’s often dismiss fairytales are being false where children believe them and see them as truth. If the Babadook is the personification of grief (which he is), then Sam believes in the Babadook’s existence because he acknowledges his father’s death the entire movie. “Thus, the maternal functions as a source of ambivalence for the child: something which must be repressed through the acquisition of the language of patriarchal authority” (Arnold 10). It is Amelia who represses and doesn’t discuss the death of her husband, so she dismisses the Babadook as fictional because she can’t comprehend or acknowledge her own grief and trauma.
It also should be said in the film, Amelia mentions that she used to be an author and write children’s book, so by the Babadook being a book for children just furthers the proof that she is scribing her own grief to be personified because it’s her story. She created it.
Amelia is not the bad mother but the grieving mother. She tries to be good mother. “This chapter will contend that the Bad Mother is not only a product of the patriarchal imaginary, or a representative of the nightmare unconscious, but also a transgressive figure who resists conformity and assimilation” (Arnold 69). Amelia tries to assimilate and congregate with the other mothers, but there is a disconnect due to her never processing her grief. The audience can actually see Amelia go through the five stages of grief throughout the movie.
The stages aren’t technically linear, but Amelia does go through the stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In the beginning, she barely touches upon the death of her husband, and it pains her to talk about it (denial). Then as the Babadook creeps into the household and makes himself more evident to Amelia, she deals with sadness and anger at the same time, depriving her of sleep and causing her to lose her temper on Sam. Once the Babadook possesses Amelia and the grief consumes her is when she really shows the maternal horror. “Maternal power is figured as violent, destructive and detrimental to the child” (Arnold 11). However, it’s not so much maternal power as it is the dissociation of one’s self in their own body due to depression. The Babadook then bargains with Amelia to give Sam over to him, so that the grief can go away because Sam is a constant reminder of the death of her husband, due to her husband dying in a car accident while driving Amelia to the hospital to give birth to Sam.
By the end of the film, Amelia has recognized and accepted her grief, and the Babadook is living in the basement because can be accepted but never truly go away. “She is all-loving and she suffers for her son” (Arnold 16). Now, that Amelia has accepted her grief she can have a true relationship with her son; however, at the end of the film, Amelia digs up a bowl of worms and brings it to the basement to feed and nurture the Babadook. It is a minor detail, but spiritually, worms represents life, death, rebirth, personal growth, and transformation. Amelia is feeding the Babadook her own personal growth in this symbiotic way to accepting him but not allowing him further entry into her life. It’s beautiful in a way that she can physically live with her grief but understands that she needs to learn to live with him because you can’t get rid of the Babadook.
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