This is such an interesting take! Personally I always saw the other mother as a kind of look at what child abduction looks like. It's slow, it is done by getting the child to care about the kidnapper, and her being a spider trapping children in her web would add to it. Still, I love the way you explained it, and the way her motherhood is always just too perfect, it's awesome.
Absolutely, it picks up on a lot of childhood vulnerabilities. Yesterday a friend of mine pointed out that Coraline also works as a Marxist analysis of social media and the constant customization and game-ification of relationships, which I thought was also neat. Thanks for the watch!!
Honestly, I agree. To me, it’s always been a metaphor for grooming (the real grooming, not what homophobic people think grooming is). Someone who tries to find out what you like, and lovebomb you, while simultaneously turning you against the people who love you. And then, they once you give them your trust, they “take your soul”. Or, in other words, take you childhood/innocence.
i think what's fascinating about the video AND this potential idea of grooming is that both can still exist together. If a repressed, oppressed, and societally bound 50's housewife becomes mentally unhealthy and begins to hurt her children out of her desire (twisted or otherwise) to be a good mother, and to never cease being a mother or cease being at all...is her crime really all that different from other kinds of groomers? She still worms her way into every aspect of life, when the natural progression of children's growth is the opposite. She can still become an obstacle to their relationships with others (employers, significant others, another parent), I think these can both exist. ive watched this 4 times now, I love it. The Beldam scares the shit out of me since day 1 and now she's even scarier.
I think the Other Mother is probably something along the lines of a representation of an Oedipal mother (forget the classical banging part, but think of the dependency and the control). Later, Jung developed the archetype, the "Devouring Mother" - she loves her children selfishly and not selflessly. She 'consumes' their life. She's easy to grow close to because she will let you depend upon her, and she will be glad to provide. She's difficult to grow away from, because she doesn't want to let go, and because being independent is hard. The Other Mother wants Coraline to take on the button-eyes because this is a symbol of never growing up to become a real person - independent from her. The victims of the Other Mother will never grow up - and this may seem tempting - but it isn't a good thing. They all regret this decision sooner or later. I think of it almost like a reverse-Pinocchio temptation. I feel this also explains the strangeness and discomfort of the other world in the film - at the start it's an idyllic and impossible place - and so it is doomed to collapse. It's not a sustainable life. I liked your observations about the 50s imagery - as it was a time where the promotion of the "ideal housewife" was perhaps at its peak, one could say it was the perfect hunting ground for real "Other Mothers" who would shield their children from the world - but never let them be part of it.
The sewing on of button eyes does echo the Classical Oedipus story as he gouges out his own eyes in the end so that he cannot see his mother and father in the underworld.
If you want to go deeper then connections to Lacan and the concept of the Other are pretty apparent, just from her name alone. It perfectly lines up with her lack of motivation as well, since the unknown of the Other is the terror of it
i love the theory that Neil gaiman based the other mother creature off of pennywise, theorizing that he created a "sister being of the species that pennywise is, an intergalactic spider feeding off of emotion." the other mother feeds off of the love she receives from her victims, pennywise feeds from fear. both show their true form as a giant arachnid, both have similar powers... very interesting
I read somewhere that the Other Mother idea actually came from his 4yo daughter. She wandered into his home office one day and said matter of factly that Mommy had been replaced by an evil doppelganger. Um .. okay? Where most parents would ignore a comment like that, the world was lucky that it came to Neil Gaiman. I hope his daughter is getting a share of the royalties.
Maybe Bill and the Losers didn't manage to destroy every egg It laid in the sewers of Derry back in 1985. And perhaps another egg wound up hatching in Australia, and became the Babadook.
Fun fact: I showed the scene of this movie that terrified me as a kid, it being the one where the ghost children say the other mother ate theirs lives, to my own mother. I never thought much of that scene besides being creppy, I always assumed Beldam ate the children´s souls, but the first thing my mother thought of it was that the whole idea behind it is about an overbearing mother who lives through their children, making their lives her own. Watch Coraline witho your mothers, kiddos, they´ll might see right through it.
My mother loved Coraline and I watched it many times on TV, tho the take my mother has was always kinda superficial, the whole ''Be glad for what you have'' morality, I love my mom with all my heart but literary analysis is not her strong suite lol
In the book, Gaiman says the other mother loved Coraline "like a miser loves money." It's a great line. Coraline is a thing that exists who is important to the other mother because of what she says about her & what she can do for her. She isn't seen as an actual person.
Holy sh#$ You blew my mind with this analysis in a real way. I've only ever seen discussions of the other mother focus on her bug-like qualities. But the real horror of having a mother that wants her children to stay children forever out of the fear of the loss of identity........just bravo 👏
"...you're not a person at all. You're a mother" Gods, that was almost me. I was almost the stay at home mother married to a military man. Whew, definitely gonna find this monster more terrifying, now, thank you lol
@@gabrielescaringi9444Dude I have two nephews and a niece, my sister in law is just a different person now after the pregnancies and having to devote her life to her children. I love seeing them but my God I cannot imagine taking on that much responsibility until I was actually mature and ready enough, it's clearly taken a toll on them as parents.
Interesting analysis! I always saw the Other Mother as a fae creature updated for the modern age: She abducts human children as the Fair Folk do in European folklore (often replacing the stolen human toddler or child with a fairy changeling or an enchanted piece of wood). Her realm (and her creations in it) work as a fairy realm: The Other Mother uses Glamour to make her realm beautiful and appealing, to lure you in. But its merely illusion, because fairies were only able to mimic human activities but unable to invent new things, because the fae folk lacked souls. For the same reason, fairies would steal human musicians and force them to play at fairy courts. The fairies would keep the child forever unaging and play with it like a toy, or they would grow tired of the stolen child and discard it, with it either becoming a fairy creature itself or finding its way back into the mortal world where in the meantime years or decades might have passed. The Other Mother, as Mariana pointed out, is trying to emulate and mimic the _look_ of a perfect American 1950s household, but it's all fake and subtly wrong because she doesn't truly understand humans. Everything she creates is either eerily beautiful like a Peter Pan Never-Neverland, or garish and creepy. She thirsts for a connection, but she also thirsts for these children's life, like the spider who sucks the juices of its victim and turns it into an empty husk. If Coraline would've accepted the button eyes, she would have become another empty husk.
Yeah, love this. There's definitely some folkloric parallels Gaiman was working with, it's probably not a mistake that those are heavily British myths and he's a British author
I think something that really cements your views of the Other Mother is her literal and symbolic nature of a spider. Where the 50’s housewife mentality is to keep everyone around her as much as possible, it’s really like a spiderweb and snares. And if they can’t keep things with them and keep luring things to them, they do literally die. Just found your channel and I’m loving it. Great work 👍🏻
Yesss this is one of my favorite alterations they made from the book, it's such potent imagery. Thanks so much for the thoughtful comments, I super appreciate it :)
Spiders and other arachnids are also renowned as some of the best invertebrate parents. Carrying newly hatched babies on their back, even. Swaddling eggs in specialised silks.
@@cicadeus7741 There's actually a broad array of parenting techniques between different spider species. Some spider mothers let their children eat them. Others don't raise them at all.
They found THE PERFECT actress to play the mothers. Regardless of her actual personality, or whether your watching her on Desperate Housewives or in Coraline, Teri Hatcher has a spine-tingling voice. It's sickly sweet and makes her the perfect choice for a villain (but it also really added to her kind, motherly character on Desperate Housewives).
Best first YT video ever. I agree with your analysis, the unknown thrives on ambiguity. Way I see it the 'Other Mother' is a force of consumption. In my view, ceaseless consumption is an enemy of maturity and long-term survival. Coraline besting her shadow makes her rise above the bitterness. It's classic fairy-tale juxtaposition. Gaiman's debt to 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' should also be borne in mind: the hypocrisy skewed and thereby shown. Coraline's a classic. ❤️
Having grown up with a covert narcissist mother, Other Mother always hit me like both sides of her, her public oersona and the monster underneath. You managed to articulate a lot of my emotional map of this movie better than I could have
Interesting take and great analysis! From my own experiences, the Other Mother always terrified me as a very *very* accurate representation of emotional abuse and manipulation from the people who are supposed to love us; Mothers. Our society puts so much pressure on women to be mothers it turns them into hollow shells of what they once were, feeling as if the only way to live is to live as an extension to their child and vice-versa, no matter how much harm that does to the child in the long run. They'll cling onto you as long as they can. Simply put, some women are never meant to be mothers in the first place, but the true horror of the Other Mother for me is the very sinister visual culmination of what that looks like.
I just discovered your channel like 2 days ago, have watched about half your videos and man, do you deserve more attention. Your videos are probably the most concise, thorough and well versed video essays I have come upon. I guess it also helps that I absolutely adore your subject matter. As a father of two and husband to a loving wife/mother this video especially hit home. I'm really looking forward to your Elden Ring video as I am also an avid gamer as well as a fan of horror. Please keep doing what your doing.
I think this is why I am so adverse to having kids personally. So many of my friends’ parents were like this (my parents somehow managed to be wonderful and selfless) and I know being a good parent is the most selfless thing you can do. I just don’t think I’m selfless enough to keep from turning into that monster. Until I grow to be less focused on myself, or find a partner that brings that selflessness out in me, it just wouldn’t be fair to the kids.
Great analysis. This is one of my favorite movies. Me and my daughter have watched it at least 20 times together. The next time we watch it I’ll be able to present her another take that neither of us had consider before.
This interpretation is far more terrifying than when I was a child. As a child, I always just thought she was just a monster that wanted suck the children of their life force and eat them literally. Looking at her as a tragic result and manifestation of motherhood as defined by patriarchal post war ideals is so much more unsettling. Why did she become that way? Why did she try so hard for literal centuries it seems to be a perfect mother? I also find it refreshing that someone else views her “don’t leave me I’ll die without you!” As honesty. As a kid I viewed this as she won’t have her sustenance without a child. I viewed this line literally. She will literally die without feasting on a child’s energy and maybe even physical body. But who’s to say it isn’t both? Maybe there’s this level of she wants to be a mother so bad, she tries to be the perfect mother in hopes a child won’t leave her. But it never works. It almost makes me wonder if she waits so long between taking children because she legitimately grieves each child’s demise and hopes that if she tries again, maybe it’ll be different this time and maybe they will actually be able to stay forever. Or maybe she is just a monster, twisted by her desire to be perfect in every way.
The way i see it the beldam sounds very much similiar to old faery lore including spiriting away children i think the reason they do it when the child is young is they have no identity yet, the other mother by extension is taking them before they can form a full identity and stealing away what little of one they have to sustain herself. She in a sense is an old fae mixed with a child abductor and abusive parent living through their child until nothing is left just a husk of what used to be a plaything of hers. You did really well on this keep it up
I’d liken Other Mother to a fae or a demon: a supernatural entity that lives long and can grant unimaginable power and greatness, but at a cost, and must follow through with certain rituals and rules before it gets what it wants. I notice Other Mother never ever tells a lie, only omits the truth or stretches it’s meaning. And no matter how hard she tries, she can’t actually get Coraline to obey her until she sees the buttons. She’s a spider monster who could theoretically overpower Coraline (and tries to do so in the climax when their deal is forfeit), but she needs to do more than that to get Coraline to stay. Coraline accepting the eyes in exchange for all of her wants being fulfilled would be akin to a deal with the devil.
This remains one of my absolute favourite movies of all time. I still remember watching it, seven years old, and experiencing the magic of it for the first time.
when i was rewatching the movie, one thing stood out to me. its very simular to bad habits or stuff that is bad for you. forx example the more and more coraline stays in the comfortable and dreamy world, the more it becomes corupted. Its like when you have an addiction. when you start it its amazing, the more and more you keep coming back, the worse it gets. in a way the other mother represents your addictions. the more you consume your addiciton, the more it corrupts you.
Also idk if someone said something about this but as a kid the depiction of buttons sewn over the eyes left such a strong imprint on my brain, now that I’m thinking about it after watching your video I think the metaphor of eyes as the windows to the soul and as the way most humans primarily interface with the world helps explain why covering them is so important for the other mother as a way to remove her victims agency and like why it’s so viscerally horrifying on a level beyond bodily pain
If Coraline had failed, we would have found out everything. We don't see what the Other Mother does EXACTLY, because she doesn't get to do it to our PoV character.
Thank you for this perspective 🙆♀️ On one hand, I wished my mom was the “cookie-cutter” archetype that was there to nurture me and my siblings. After watching this, would that have killed her sense of self in the process? I understand now the middle ground was to have both parents in the picture. I just wished things were different. So different.
As somebody who absolutely loves character breakdown essays.. I think this one may be my favorite. I love the movie Coraline, and with this video essay it just really easily inserts itself into the possible mythos and lore of the movie that I have seen not many people touch. A time period on where the other mother could be from, and the psychosis that it wrought upon her. Truely a delight to listen to. And I will be coming back for future relistenings.
As a Boomer who remembers second-wave feminism and, before it, the 1950's-early 60's "Kinder, Küche, Kirche" world that appeared to be the only choice for my mother at that time -- spot-on.
It's a choice that makes perfect sense, but I love that the music during the video was from the Coraline soundtrack. It really tied it together. This is one of my favorite movies that I have seen countless times, but I've never thought about the Other Mother from this perspective. The idea posed at the end that the Other Mother might truly need Coraline to survive is fascinating, and that's the take that I'll probably keep when I watch this movie in the future. I also always assumed that the Other Mother, I guess, eats the kids, but realizing that it's not stated terrifies me. Very good video!
Just discovered your channel as a longtime TH-cam addict and I’m so hurt the algorithm hasn’t recommended you harder… truly brilliant work and the type of content that stimulates, entrances and then delivers transcendent epiphanies with such effortlessly casual wit
Oh man, the Other Mother and Jareth from Labyrinth have similar dna! “fear me, love me. do as I say, and I will be your slave!” Also, I appreciate that you have a $1 tier on your patreon! There are so many amazing people making work I want to support, and even with inflation and my wages not even remotely keeping up, my brain always feels like it can add another dollar 😁!
Absolutely loved this! So, so interesting. I love this movie a lot and I've been getting into watching video essays lately, saw some Coraline ones but they were very surface-level, just describing what happens in the movie, why is it scary, why it's a really good movie. This was just, wow. I need to rewatch it later with this new lens in mind! You totally deserve more views and subs. Thank you for sharing!
The danger of the other mother is vague and at the same time it's not. Even if Coraline's fate would be better than the other children's , even if she is special and the mother would never get bored with her, best case scenario Coraline gets to stay in the other world forever as her pet. And we've already seen enough of this character for that possibility to provoke an immediate "DO NOT WANT" response.
New sub, currently binging your content. Amazing deconstruction. Really reminded me of the stories my father used to tell about his mother, a high-ranking military secretary with top secret clearance. (She typed up literally everything for the top brass at Camp X.) She was a brilliant woman, dealing with high-stakes military intelligence, and she couldn't discuss a single thing she did at work with anyone, including her family, until it was all declassified decades later. After she retired, she tried, incredibly unsuccessfully, to adapt to the 50's ideal of womanhood, but since she came from upscale society, she had no idea how to cook or clean (or parent.) All of that misdirected energy came out in the form of alcoholism, multiple affairs with other officers on base, and eventually to Halcion, a drug she took to so completely that it destroyed her brain, to the point of severe early-onset dementia. Cue generational trauma.
Thanks so much! Wow, amazing story. It’s sad to think of all the brilliance we lost trying to make women find all their fulfillment in thanklessly serving others 😕
@@themorbidzoo The sad coda to her career in the military was when she saw the death notice for the son of a woman she knew. On the way home, she just so happened to see that same woman, cheerily recounting to her friends how her son had just sent her a letter telling her that his tour was finally over, and he'd be back any day now. And my grandmother, who couldn't say anything about what she saw at work, or risk her clearance, knew what was going to be waiting for her when she got home. It broke her. I'm trying to whip all of these stories into a script, but it's an intergenerational telephone game. And after my father died, there's nobody left to correct the details anymore. 😥
@@OneMadApple jeeeeeesus. Honestly the story surrounding how the details get lost in histories like that is where I would start. Like, what we lose in ignoring the stories of the marginalized
@@themorbidzooWow, that's a really interesting angle to come at it from. Thank you. Frankly, being the last person left to have hold of a family story is a scary thing. She was basically treated like a mobile stenography robot, to type up every word that was said, make copies of top secret documents, all without processing it. (Though she obviously did.)
it makes so much sense reading and watching this content that you people are just broken and dysfunctional. and of course, it's society's fault, all those expectations. "cue generational trauma" more like "cue genes".
This is really well done. I thought the comparison of the Other Mother to old nuclear housewives was a stretch when you first said it, but you convinced me soon after. It's amazing what you miss when you don't try to look deeper then the surface level. Thanks for the new perspective.
When I watched this movie as a kid, nearly every Halloween, I didn’t have nightmares about the other other mother or the nightmarish version of the neighbors, I instantly had a horrible nightmare of the scene where the world falls apart around Coraline as she runs back to the house, in which I was in her place. Genuinely so terrifying that I’ve never forgotten it.
I'm making a conscious effort to post replies, prompted per your very touching Q+A, as I go back through your videos. I have to say, the Philosophy of Pinhead *was* the first video I saw, and it's very interesting to see a clip from the same appear as the very first on your channel, a nice bit of intentionality there you don't get to see a lot. It's pretty wild to go into a monster movie and get a lesson on feminism, but it's a time-honored tradition among my favorite video essayists. I really appreciated from the first video I saw how you're able to make such clear, strong arguments for your conclusions, and I like seeing that you still could as far back as your literal first video. It bodes well for my backlog journey!
The algorithm dropped one of your videos in my feed yesterday (the "Thing" one, if you want to know) and I checked it out. I have subsequently been binging your content and will share it with anyone I can. For what it's worth, you have a devoted new fan. Your work is wonderful and insightful and I look forward to what comes next!
If you haven't read it, you should check out the novel "The Theif of Always" by Clive Barker. It's a fantastic little fairytale, and a fairly quick read. It was published in 1992, and the plot is so strikingly similar to Coraline, that I'm honestly surprised Neil Gaiman hasn't been accused of plagiarising Barker's earlier work. My first reaction upon seeing Coraline in theatres was, "Wow - what a wonderful and creative adaptation of The Thief of Always."
Fascinating, unique, and inspired take on the other mother. I don't think I've ever seen or read Coraline analyzed through this lens, you knocked it out of the park. I want to rewatch Coraline now...
I don't know if it's just me, but Other Mother kind of has some Pennywise vibes to her. The insect/arachnid-like true appearance, and the way she lured children in to serve her purposes. they kind of occupy a similar space in my head.
I deeply love this video, not just for how it enriches my view of one of my all time favorite movies but for how your take helped me better understand my own baggage around the concept of motherhood. I love kids and teenagers, and although I would love to help raise them into healthy people, part of me always conceptualized becoming a mother as if it were like a death before death. I felt like I had to become perfect: I had to have my career completely figured out, I had to be an expert in child rearing, I had to have all of my artistic ambitions already squared away, I had to live a wild and inspiring life before I ever started to mold another. It was a huge fear to the point that I had a bucket list of frivolous things I needed to do before starting a family like "visit another country" or "write everything I ever intended to" because I was convinced I would never be able to do these things afterwards and then come to resent my family for not being able to do so. Something about the comparison you drew between Mel Jones and The Other Mother finally helped me understand that it's more than "okay" to be a mom and a normal person with shortcomings and visible struggles, it's necessary for my own mental health and the reasonable expectations of any children I may have someday. Thank you so much for writing this.
As a huge horror head, I can't believe I've never asked myself what my favorite monster is. Off the top of my head, I would say the Creature from the black lagoon
Awesome stuff. I imagine the Other Mother almost as a reverse Changeling, rather than being some kind of fae or other facsimile of a child swapped out with a human baby that ends up with a family, she is the family and is bringing human children to her. She really fascinates me, as do Changelings in general with my whole family fuckery and adult diagnosed AuDHD. Love the nuclear housewife and suburban horror angle. I think the idea that part of her really does care, despite the abuse and ultimate end, and that she does need children to survive makes her incredibly compelling and heartbreakingly horrifying.
As someone who loves their mom, and knows a large portion of her identity revolves around her kids (not like the Other Mother, she truly cares and loves us and probably has undiagnosed problems from what's happened in the past 5 years) I want to pull her away from that, without pulling away from her. I fucking love my mom, she's so cool, but I want her to be independent of her caretaker role because I don't want her to stagnate, or worse, crumble in my absence.
In a tabletop RPG gameline called Chronicles of Darkness there is a type of character you can play/a game in the line called Changeling the Lost. To be one of the Lost is to have part of your soul taken from you, discarded from you as part of a kidnapping to a realm called Arcadia. Your Kidnapper is called a Gentry, one of the ruling names of the realm, overseeing some sort of story there as an overarching villain archetype. Depending on who you were, who you were taken by and what they took you for, you will be reshaped by your time there. If the Gentry wanted something to warm his bath with, you may become the fire underneath the boiler. If the Gentry wanted an art piece, you may end up a painting or a sculpture. If they want a pit fighter, you may end up fighting as a dog-soldier, tasked to kill or need to sleep in a grave till the morning and do it all over again. Sometimes, a Gentry wants someone who can fulfill a central narrative role in their realm. Other times they just want an ornament for a christmas tree. Either way whatever the Gentry does to you, you lose your self from it. A creature destined to get lost in whatever story it hears. A creature who had no choice in what they became, or what they would lack. A creature that can find no hope but to change and hope they change into something better than a Gentry. A Changeling, or the Lost as they call themselves. The Other Mother strikes me as something that you could slap into a Changeling game as a Gentry and have absolutely no explaining to do. Coraline is repeatedly tempted into an Otherworld where she's tempted with losing parts of herself to stay in this picture book world, and you could easily argue she loses innocence entirely by going there, a very fae price. I am not saying she Literally Is A Gentry, but god damn does she fill the same kind of role...
The archetype of the Fae from "Changeling: the Lost" is more deeply rooted in human culture and more often encountered than one might think. Another example from modern culture I can immediately think of is "Kubo and the two strings". If you are interested in all things Changeling, definitely watch it. You'll probably be surprised by how neatly all pieces fall into place - even though it never mentions the words "Changeling" or "Fae".
You know, I thought there was a reason why I was so afraid of becoming a mother until I met my partner - and I think watching this movie implanted this exact fear in my head without making it explicit. It's why it still holds up so well, especially growing up with a mother who was so emotionally dependent on me, and I felt constricted. Like a fly in a web. In a way, the other mother is just a bug herself, hiding in her own perfect hole, unable to exist outside of a world beyond her identity as a spinster. On the flip side I've learned to forgive my mother and see her as a human being because of this movie as well. She's imperfect. Sometimes unreliable. But she loves me and to choose happiness, I have to live with the reality that the world is perfect when it's grey.
Favorite movie monster (if humans count): Carol Harbin from Strait-Jacket (1964) She’s like a female version of Norman Bates. She’s extremely charming which draws you in but she’s so fucking deadly because she’s an axe murderer and a gaslighter. The film is a course in gaslighting 101. She comes across as sweet, polite, and graceful which makes her character all the more intriguing for me. I guess she’s more of a monster in a figurative way than a literal. This was the best analysis of the other mother that I have ever seen. I especially loved how you connected it with the 1950s. The part where you mentioned them having to make motherhood last as long as possible in order to stay relevant gave me chills.
One of my favourite "monsters" is actually from 9, well... The machine is not really a monster in the typical sense, its mostly a threat more than anything else, i love the design, but i particularly like the fact that it doesnt have intentions, it just works bc it was programmed to, doesnt have objectives, it just does
Interesting take. I personally think that her "eating up (their) lives" and how she'd die without Coraline were literal statements. She stole those children's lives. All the years they might have lived were added to her lifespan, and with Coraline gone and no way to access our world, the other mother's days were numbered; but the subtext still works. I personally think that motherhood IS the most important job in the world, and that tricking generations of women into grinding their lives away in unfulfilling careers and dying alone to escape the "slavery of marriage" is killing our civilization in statistically undeniable ways; but even a virtue pushed to it's extreme becomes something monstrous, and the pursuit of absolute perfection (regardless of what society seems as such) will always lead to ruin.
I have recently been watching videos about narcissism (Sam Vaknin is my favorite source) and this movie seems to be portraying the internal psychology of this disorder.
Holy fuck that video was so good. Coraline has been my favorite movie since the first time I saw it, and I've been an angry feminist since basically the day I was born. Your writing is so amazing, I usually put these videos on just to veg out but this one had me gripped the whole time.
I've seen my own mother become temporarily unhinged because she realised she was losing her son (HER son) to maturity. One of my oldest friends has had it even worse; his mother has been declared psychologically unbalanced because of it. As a guy, and therefore an outside perspective, society's goal of heavily pressuring all women to eventually becoming mothers is, like the house in Coraline itself, inescapable. In every country and culture in the world, it is still frowned upon to not be a mother eventually. As if there's no point in you once your body clock has run out of time. Like your only purpose is a plant from which children are the crop The unfair expectations of society to force you into a predetermined mold because of your sex leads to the creation of the worst monsters of all... and is, in itself, the worst monster of all.
There’s a chilling reminder when learning about the overly standardized nature of post-war America. That the rigid expectation of following this exact formula of living was hammered into you with every ad and PSA. This was in fact “The Good Ol’ Days” when men were men and so on. And as we grow further from that industrially forced reality the demographics that benefited most from that period will grow increasingly confused and frustrated at the necessary evolution the American economy, politics and, of course, the people will keep going through.
The Bedlam in Coraline borrows heavy from Stephen King’s IT published in 1986, in my opinion. Both share characteristics to some degree and exist in similar “todash darkness” as King imagined. They could almost (or could be) be from the same macroverse. Essentially, both entities enjoy manipulating their victims before taking their souls/lives. Fictional, but very reminiscent of real serial killers.
Not to undercut any of your well-reasoned arguments, but as a slightly older person (by which I mean a MUCH older person),I remember that there was a general and critical backlash against graphic violence in the 1980s, while it was new and frightening, and there was also an audience backlash against CGI in the 2010's, mostly, I have always assumed , among so-called millenials who grew up with CGI, and who seem to be more nostalgic about childhoods than my generation at such a young age. Now that we're old, of,course, it's another story!
This is such an interesting take! Personally I always saw the other mother as a kind of look at what child abduction looks like. It's slow, it is done by getting the child to care about the kidnapper, and her being a spider trapping children in her web would add to it. Still, I love the way you explained it, and the way her motherhood is always just too perfect, it's awesome.
Absolutely, it picks up on a lot of childhood vulnerabilities. Yesterday a friend of mine pointed out that Coraline also works as a Marxist analysis of social media and the constant customization and game-ification of relationships, which I thought was also neat. Thanks for the watch!!
Yeah even when I saw it as a kid I thought it was a metaphor for grooming
@@themorbidzooI need more elaboration on this pleaseeeeee??😂
Honestly, I agree. To me, it’s always been a metaphor for grooming (the real grooming, not what homophobic people think grooming is). Someone who tries to find out what you like, and lovebomb you, while simultaneously turning you against the people who love you. And then, they once you give them your trust, they “take your soul”. Or, in other words, take you childhood/innocence.
i think what's fascinating about the video AND this potential idea of grooming is that both can still exist together. If a repressed, oppressed, and societally bound 50's housewife becomes mentally unhealthy and begins to hurt her children out of her desire (twisted or otherwise) to be a good mother, and to never cease being a mother or cease being at all...is her crime really all that different from other kinds of groomers? She still worms her way into every aspect of life, when the natural progression of children's growth is the opposite. She can still become an obstacle to their relationships with others (employers, significant others, another parent), I think these can both exist.
ive watched this 4 times now, I love it. The Beldam scares the shit out of me since day 1 and now she's even scarier.
I think the Other Mother is probably something along the lines of a representation of an Oedipal mother (forget the classical banging part, but think of the dependency and the control). Later, Jung developed the archetype, the "Devouring Mother" - she loves her children selfishly and not selflessly. She 'consumes' their life.
She's easy to grow close to because she will let you depend upon her, and she will be glad to provide. She's difficult to grow away from, because she doesn't want to let go, and because being independent is hard.
The Other Mother wants Coraline to take on the button-eyes because this is a symbol of never growing up to become a real person - independent from her. The victims of the Other Mother will never grow up - and this may seem tempting - but it isn't a good thing. They all regret this decision sooner or later.
I think of it almost like a reverse-Pinocchio temptation.
I feel this also explains the strangeness and discomfort of the other world in the film - at the start it's an idyllic and impossible place - and so it is doomed to collapse. It's not a sustainable life.
I liked your observations about the 50s imagery - as it was a time where the promotion of the "ideal housewife" was perhaps at its peak, one could say it was the perfect hunting ground for real "Other Mothers" who would shield their children from the world - but never let them be part of it.
Couldn't have said it better
The sewing on of button eyes does echo the Classical Oedipus story as he gouges out his own eyes in the end so that he cannot see his mother and father in the underworld.
oh my god i thought i was the only one who realised that!
If you want to go deeper then connections to Lacan and the concept of the Other are pretty apparent, just from her name alone. It perfectly lines up with her lack of motivation as well, since the unknown of the Other is the terror of it
i love the theory that Neil gaiman based the other mother creature off of pennywise, theorizing that he created a "sister being of the species that pennywise is, an intergalactic spider feeding off of emotion." the other mother feeds off of the love she receives from her victims, pennywise feeds from fear. both show their true form as a giant arachnid, both have similar powers... very interesting
Oh shit ur right!
Damn, you can maybe make a pantheon... cosmic beings feeding off of different emotions...
Yeah I assume he partially based it off of pennywise, just not as overtly horrifying
I read somewhere that the Other Mother idea actually came from his 4yo daughter. She wandered into his home office one day and said matter of factly that Mommy had been replaced by an evil doppelganger. Um .. okay? Where most parents would ignore a comment like that, the world was lucky that it came to Neil Gaiman. I hope his daughter is getting a share of the royalties.
Maybe Bill and the Losers didn't manage to destroy every egg It laid in the sewers of Derry back in 1985. And perhaps another egg wound up hatching in Australia, and became the Babadook.
Fun fact: I showed the scene of this movie that terrified me as a kid, it being the one where the ghost children say the other mother ate theirs lives, to my own mother. I never thought much of that scene besides being creppy, I always assumed Beldam ate the children´s souls, but the first thing my mother thought of it was that the whole idea behind it is about an overbearing mother who lives through their children, making their lives her own. Watch Coraline witho your mothers, kiddos, they´ll might see right through it.
My mother loved Coraline and I watched it many times on TV, tho the take my mother has was always kinda superficial, the whole ''Be glad for what you have'' morality, I love my mom with all my heart but literary analysis is not her strong suite lol
In the book, Gaiman says the other mother loved Coraline "like a miser loves money." It's a great line. Coraline is a thing that exists who is important to the other mother because of what she says about her & what she can do for her. She isn't seen as an actual person.
Holy sh#$
You blew my mind with this analysis in a real way.
I've only ever seen discussions of the other mother focus on her bug-like qualities.
But the real horror of having a mother that wants her children to stay children forever out of the fear of the loss of identity........just bravo 👏
Agreed! *standing ovation*
"...you're not a person at all. You're a mother" Gods, that was almost me. I was almost the stay at home mother married to a military man. Whew, definitely gonna find this monster more terrifying, now, thank you lol
Oof I think most women find themselves in that position at some point, I did it too lol
Thanks for the watch :)
Have fun with your cats
@@gabrielescaringi9444have fun dying alone ◡̈
@@gabrielescaringi9444that isn't the insult you think it is
@@gabrielescaringi9444Dude I have two nephews and a niece, my sister in law is just a different person now after the pregnancies and having to devote her life to her children. I love seeing them but my God I cannot imagine taking on that much responsibility until I was actually mature and ready enough, it's clearly taken a toll on them as parents.
Interesting analysis!
I always saw the Other Mother as a fae creature updated for the modern age: She abducts human children as the Fair Folk do in European folklore (often replacing the stolen human toddler or child with a fairy changeling or an enchanted piece of wood).
Her realm (and her creations in it) work as a fairy realm: The Other Mother uses Glamour to make her realm beautiful and appealing, to lure you in. But its merely illusion, because fairies were only able to mimic human activities but unable to invent new things, because the fae folk lacked souls. For the same reason, fairies would steal human musicians and force them to play at fairy courts.
The fairies would keep the child forever unaging and play with it like a toy, or they would grow tired of the stolen child and discard it, with it either becoming a fairy creature itself or finding its way back into the mortal world where in the meantime years or decades might have passed.
The Other Mother, as Mariana pointed out, is trying to emulate and mimic the _look_ of a perfect American 1950s household, but it's all fake and subtly wrong because she doesn't truly understand humans. Everything she creates is either eerily beautiful like a Peter Pan Never-Neverland, or garish and creepy. She thirsts for a connection, but she also thirsts for these children's life, like the spider who sucks the juices of its victim and turns it into an empty husk. If Coraline would've accepted the button eyes, she would have become another empty husk.
Yeah, love this. There's definitely some folkloric parallels Gaiman was working with, it's probably not a mistake that those are heavily British myths and he's a British author
I think something that really cements your views of the Other Mother is her literal and symbolic nature of a spider. Where the 50’s housewife mentality is to keep everyone around her as much as possible, it’s really like a spiderweb and snares. And if they can’t keep things with them and keep luring things to them, they do literally die.
Just found your channel and I’m loving it. Great work 👍🏻
Yesss this is one of my favorite alterations they made from the book, it's such potent imagery. Thanks so much for the thoughtful comments, I super appreciate it :)
Spiders and other arachnids are also renowned as some of the best invertebrate parents. Carrying newly hatched babies on their back, even. Swaddling eggs in specialised silks.
@@cicadeus7741 There's actually a broad array of parenting techniques between different spider species. Some spider mothers let their children eat them. Others don't raise them at all.
This is one of the best takes on the Beldam i’ve seen, and i can’t agree more, that she’s one of the best monsters in film
That ending, that ending was perfection
They found THE PERFECT actress to play the mothers. Regardless of her actual personality, or whether your watching her on Desperate Housewives or in Coraline, Teri Hatcher has a spine-tingling voice. It's sickly sweet and makes her the perfect choice for a villain (but it also really added to her kind, motherly character on Desperate Housewives).
Best first YT video ever. I agree with your analysis, the unknown thrives on ambiguity. Way I see it the 'Other Mother' is a force of consumption. In my view, ceaseless consumption is an enemy of maturity and long-term survival. Coraline besting her shadow makes her rise above the bitterness. It's classic fairy-tale juxtaposition. Gaiman's debt to 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' should also be borne in mind: the hypocrisy skewed and thereby shown. Coraline's a classic. ❤️
Woof, couldn’t have said it better
Having grown up with a covert narcissist mother, Other Mother always hit me like both sides of her, her public oersona and the monster underneath. You managed to articulate a lot of my emotional map of this movie better than I could have
Interesting take and great analysis! From my own experiences, the Other Mother always terrified me as a very *very* accurate representation of emotional abuse and manipulation from the people who are supposed to love us; Mothers.
Our society puts so much pressure on women to be mothers it turns them into hollow shells of what they once were, feeling as if the only way to live is to live as an extension to their child and vice-versa, no matter how much harm that does to the child in the long run. They'll cling onto you as long as they can.
Simply put, some women are never meant to be mothers in the first place, but the true horror of the Other Mother for me is the very sinister visual culmination of what that looks like.
I just discovered your channel like 2 days ago, have watched about half your videos and man, do you deserve more attention. Your videos are probably the most concise, thorough and well versed video essays I have come upon. I guess it also helps that I absolutely adore your subject matter. As a father of two and husband to a loving wife/mother this video especially hit home. I'm really looking forward to your Elden Ring video as I am also an avid gamer as well as a fan of horror. Please keep doing what your doing.
Thanks so much, I really appreciate it 😊
I think this is why I am so adverse to having kids personally. So many of my friends’ parents were like this (my parents somehow managed to be wonderful and selfless) and I know being a good parent is the most selfless thing you can do. I just don’t think I’m selfless enough to keep from turning into that monster. Until I grow to be less focused on myself, or find a partner that brings that selflessness out in me, it just wouldn’t be fair to the kids.
The other mother’s final words...dang
Great analysis. This is one of my favorite movies. Me and my daughter have watched it at least 20 times together. The next time we watch it I’ll be able to present her another take that neither of us had consider before.
Love that. :) thanks for the watch!
This interpretation is far more terrifying than when I was a child.
As a child, I always just thought she was just a monster that wanted suck the children of their life force and eat them literally.
Looking at her as a tragic result and manifestation of motherhood as defined by patriarchal post war ideals is so much more unsettling.
Why did she become that way? Why did she try so hard for literal centuries it seems to be a perfect mother?
I also find it refreshing that someone else views her “don’t leave me I’ll die without you!” As honesty.
As a kid I viewed this as she won’t have her sustenance without a child. I viewed this line literally. She will literally die without feasting on a child’s energy and maybe even physical body.
But who’s to say it isn’t both?
Maybe there’s this level of she wants to be a mother so bad, she tries to be the perfect mother in hopes a child won’t leave her. But it never works.
It almost makes me wonder if she waits so long between taking children because she legitimately grieves each child’s demise and hopes that if she tries again, maybe it’ll be different this time and maybe they will actually be able to stay forever.
Or maybe she is just a monster, twisted by her desire to be perfect in every way.
The way i see it the beldam sounds very much similiar to old faery lore including spiriting away children i think the reason they do it when the child is young is they have no identity yet, the other mother by extension is taking them before they can form a full identity and stealing away what little of one they have to sustain herself. She in a sense is an old fae mixed with a child abductor and abusive parent living through their child until nothing is left just a husk of what used to be a plaything of hers. You did really well on this keep it up
I’d liken Other Mother to a fae or a demon: a supernatural entity that lives long and can grant unimaginable power and greatness, but at a cost, and must follow through with certain rituals and rules before it gets what it wants.
I notice Other Mother never ever tells a lie, only omits the truth or stretches it’s meaning. And no matter how hard she tries, she can’t actually get Coraline to obey her until she sees the buttons. She’s a spider monster who could theoretically overpower Coraline (and tries to do so in the climax when their deal is forfeit), but she needs to do more than that to get Coraline to stay. Coraline accepting the eyes in exchange for all of her wants being fulfilled would be akin to a deal with the devil.
This remains one of my absolute favourite movies of all time. I still remember watching it, seven years old, and experiencing the magic of it for the first time.
This is a criminally underrated video this is STELLAR analysis!!
I'm militantly childfree at 50 and my skin is crawling right now. Thank you!!
thats awesome (being childfree i mean sbsjsj), sending encouragement from, probably, the other side of the world 🔥🤖
when i was rewatching the movie, one thing stood out to me. its very simular to bad habits or stuff that is bad for you. forx example the more and more coraline stays in the comfortable and dreamy world, the more it becomes corupted. Its like when you have an addiction. when you start it its amazing, the more and more you keep coming back, the worse it gets.
in a way the other mother represents your addictions. the more you consume your addiciton, the more it corrupts you.
Not me, still educating my friends from my tiny ass town by sharing your videos, for the past 4 years
damn, i found your channel looking up some fringe topic, then starting watching your other videos, and damn theyre so well done and interesting. bravo
Thank you! ❤
This made me so sad to think of all those women in the past who had no purpose other than to be a mother
Also idk if someone said something about this but as a kid the depiction of buttons sewn over the eyes left such a strong imprint on my brain, now that I’m thinking about it after watching your video I think the metaphor of eyes as the windows to the soul and as the way most humans primarily interface with the world helps explain why covering them is so important for the other mother as a way to remove her victims agency and like why it’s so viscerally horrifying on a level beyond bodily pain
This was incredible, genuinely explains so much about how my mother works in a way as well as being a great reading of Coraline
A simple detail I love about the Other Mother is that she even fixed the Real Mother's crooked nose on herself.. she just has to be perfect...
If Coraline had failed, we would have found out everything. We don't see what the Other Mother does EXACTLY, because she doesn't get to do it to our PoV character.
This is clean content. Coraline used to scare the piss out of me as a child. That spider running scene? 9 year old me was done.
Thank you for this perspective 🙆♀️
On one hand, I wished my mom was the “cookie-cutter” archetype that was there to nurture me and my siblings.
After watching this, would that have killed her sense of self in the process?
I understand now the middle ground was to have both parents in the picture. I just wished things were different. So different.
Hope things are going well for you now ❤️
@@themorbidzoo I hope so too. Oh! I hope your move is smooth sailing too ♥️
@@im_learning_bicth thank you 😁
As somebody who absolutely loves character breakdown essays.. I think this one may be my favorite.
I love the movie Coraline, and with this video essay it just really easily inserts itself into the possible mythos and lore of the movie that I have seen not many people touch. A time period on where the other mother could be from, and the psychosis that it wrought upon her. Truely a delight to listen to. And I will be coming back for future relistenings.
As a Boomer who remembers second-wave feminism and, before it, the 1950's-early 60's "Kinder, Küche, Kirche" world that appeared to be the only choice for my mother at that time -- spot-on.
Thanks for this. Made me think about my own mother. Especially the “don’t leave me, I’ll die without you” part
DAMN, subscribed immediately, the chills I got as every piece fell into place was so good 0.0
It's a choice that makes perfect sense, but I love that the music during the video was from the Coraline soundtrack. It really tied it together. This is one of my favorite movies that I have seen countless times, but I've never thought about the Other Mother from this perspective. The idea posed at the end that the Other Mother might truly need Coraline to survive is fascinating, and that's the take that I'll probably keep when I watch this movie in the future. I also always assumed that the Other Mother, I guess, eats the kids, but realizing that it's not stated terrifies me. Very good video!
Just discovered your channel as a longtime TH-cam addict and I’m so hurt the algorithm hasn’t recommended you harder… truly brilliant work and the type of content that stimulates, entrances and then delivers transcendent epiphanies with such effortlessly casual wit
Oh man, the Other Mother and Jareth from Labyrinth have similar dna! “fear me, love me. do as I say, and I will be your slave!”
Also, I appreciate that you have a $1 tier on your patreon! There are so many amazing people making work I want to support, and even with inflation and my wages not even remotely keeping up, my brain always feels like it can add another dollar 😁!
Your first video predicted 8 passengers, well done
Absolutely loved this! So, so interesting. I love this movie a lot and I've been getting into watching video essays lately, saw some Coraline ones but they were very surface-level, just describing what happens in the movie, why is it scary, why it's a really good movie. This was just, wow. I need to rewatch it later with this new lens in mind!
You totally deserve more views and subs. Thank you for sharing!
The danger of the other mother is vague and at the same time it's not. Even if Coraline's fate would be better than the other children's , even if she is special and the mother would never get bored with her, best case scenario Coraline gets to stay in the other world forever as her pet. And we've already seen enough of this character for that possibility to provoke an immediate "DO NOT WANT" response.
This is the most out of the box yet fitting analysis of Coraline I've seen!
New sub, currently binging your content. Amazing deconstruction. Really reminded me of the stories my father used to tell about his mother, a high-ranking military secretary with top secret clearance. (She typed up literally everything for the top brass at Camp X.)
She was a brilliant woman, dealing with high-stakes military intelligence, and she couldn't discuss a single thing she did at work with anyone, including her family, until it was all declassified decades later.
After she retired, she tried, incredibly unsuccessfully, to adapt to the 50's ideal of womanhood, but since she came from upscale society, she had no idea how to cook or clean (or parent.)
All of that misdirected energy came out in the form of alcoholism, multiple affairs with other officers on base, and eventually to Halcion, a drug she took to so completely that it destroyed her brain, to the point of severe early-onset dementia.
Cue generational trauma.
Thanks so much! Wow, amazing story. It’s sad to think of all the brilliance we lost trying to make women find all their fulfillment in thanklessly serving others 😕
@@themorbidzoo The sad coda to her career in the military was when she saw the death notice for the son of a woman she knew.
On the way home, she just so happened to see that same woman, cheerily recounting to her friends how her son had just sent her a letter telling her that his tour was finally over, and he'd be back any day now.
And my grandmother, who couldn't say anything about what she saw at work, or risk her clearance, knew what was going to be waiting for her when she got home.
It broke her.
I'm trying to whip all of these stories into a script, but it's an intergenerational telephone game. And after my father died, there's nobody left to correct the details anymore. 😥
@@OneMadApple jeeeeeesus.
Honestly the story surrounding how the details get lost in histories like that is where I would start. Like, what we lose in ignoring the stories of the marginalized
@@themorbidzooWow, that's a really interesting angle to come at it from. Thank you.
Frankly, being the last person left to have hold of a family story is a scary thing.
She was basically treated like a mobile stenography robot, to type up every word that was said, make copies of top secret documents, all without processing it. (Though she obviously did.)
it makes so much sense reading and watching this content that you people are just broken and dysfunctional. and of course, it's society's fault, all those expectations. "cue generational trauma" more like "cue genes".
This is really well done. I thought the comparison of the Other Mother to old nuclear housewives was a stretch when you first said it, but you convinced me soon after. It's amazing what you miss when you don't try to look deeper then the surface level. Thanks for the new perspective.
Thanks so much!!
When I watched this movie as a kid, nearly every Halloween, I didn’t have nightmares about the other other mother or the nightmarish version of the neighbors, I instantly had a horrible nightmare of the scene where the world falls apart around Coraline as she runs back to the house, in which I was in her place. Genuinely so terrifying that I’ve never forgotten it.
I'm making a conscious effort to post replies, prompted per your very touching Q+A, as I go back through your videos. I have to say, the Philosophy of Pinhead *was* the first video I saw, and it's very interesting to see a clip from the same appear as the very first on your channel, a nice bit of intentionality there you don't get to see a lot. It's pretty wild to go into a monster movie and get a lesson on feminism, but it's a time-honored tradition among my favorite video essayists. I really appreciated from the first video I saw how you're able to make such clear, strong arguments for your conclusions, and I like seeing that you still could as far back as your literal first video. It bodes well for my backlog journey!
This is a great video! Chills at the end!
The algorithm dropped one of your videos in my feed yesterday (the "Thing" one, if you want to know) and I checked it out. I have subsequently been binging your content and will share it with anyone I can. For what it's worth, you have a devoted new fan. Your work is wonderful and insightful and I look forward to what comes next!
Omg thank u mommy algorithm. Thanks so much for the lovely words, I'm glad you're here and willing to share my shit! Hope to see you in the comments
Love your video essays. Just amazing
Thanks for watching!
If you haven't read it, you should check out the novel "The Theif of Always" by Clive Barker.
It's a fantastic little fairytale, and a fairly quick read. It was published in 1992, and the plot is so strikingly similar to Coraline, that I'm honestly surprised Neil Gaiman hasn't been accused of plagiarising Barker's earlier work.
My first reaction upon seeing Coraline in theatres was, "Wow - what a wonderful and creative adaptation of The Thief of Always."
Will do, I love me some barker
This was possibly the most interesting take I've ever heard on Coraline. Bravo! 👏
Thanks 😊
Fascinating, unique, and inspired take on the other mother. I don't think I've ever seen or read Coraline analyzed through this lens, you knocked it out of the park. I want to rewatch Coraline now...
I don't know if it's just me, but Other Mother kind of has some Pennywise vibes to her. The insect/arachnid-like true appearance, and the way she lured children in to serve her purposes. they kind of occupy a similar space in my head.
I deeply love this video, not just for how it enriches my view of one of my all time favorite movies but for how your take helped me better understand my own baggage around the concept of motherhood. I love kids and teenagers, and although I would love to help raise them into healthy people, part of me always conceptualized becoming a mother as if it were like a death before death. I felt like I had to become perfect: I had to have my career completely figured out, I had to be an expert in child rearing, I had to have all of my artistic ambitions already squared away, I had to live a wild and inspiring life before I ever started to mold another. It was a huge fear to the point that I had a bucket list of frivolous things I needed to do before starting a family like "visit another country" or "write everything I ever intended to" because I was convinced I would never be able to do these things afterwards and then come to resent my family for not being able to do so.
Something about the comparison you drew between Mel Jones and The Other Mother finally helped me understand that it's more than "okay" to be a mom and a normal person with shortcomings and visible struggles, it's necessary for my own mental health and the reasonable expectations of any children I may have someday. Thank you so much for writing this.
As a huge horror head, I can't believe I've never asked myself what my favorite monster is. Off the top of my head, I would say the Creature from the black lagoon
💗
Awesome stuff. I imagine the Other Mother almost as a reverse Changeling, rather than being some kind of fae or other facsimile of a child swapped out with a human baby that ends up with a family, she is the family and is bringing human children to her. She really fascinates me, as do Changelings in general with my whole family fuckery and adult diagnosed AuDHD. Love the nuclear housewife and suburban horror angle. I think the idea that part of her really does care, despite the abuse and ultimate end, and that she does need children to survive makes her incredibly compelling and heartbreakingly horrifying.
As someone who loves their mom, and knows a large portion of her identity revolves around her kids (not like the Other Mother, she truly cares and loves us and probably has undiagnosed problems from what's happened in the past 5 years) I want to pull her away from that, without pulling away from her.
I fucking love my mom, she's so cool, but I want her to be independent of her caretaker role because I don't want her to stagnate, or worse, crumble in my absence.
Loved this take so much! Maybe it's no coincidence then that "mother" and "smother" have only one letter difference.
In a tabletop RPG gameline called Chronicles of Darkness there is a type of character you can play/a game in the line called Changeling the Lost. To be one of the Lost is to have part of your soul taken from you, discarded from you as part of a kidnapping to a realm called Arcadia. Your Kidnapper is called a Gentry, one of the ruling names of the realm, overseeing some sort of story there as an overarching villain archetype. Depending on who you were, who you were taken by and what they took you for, you will be reshaped by your time there. If the Gentry wanted something to warm his bath with, you may become the fire underneath the boiler. If the Gentry wanted an art piece, you may end up a painting or a sculpture. If they want a pit fighter, you may end up fighting as a dog-soldier, tasked to kill or need to sleep in a grave till the morning and do it all over again. Sometimes, a Gentry wants someone who can fulfill a central narrative role in their realm. Other times they just want an ornament for a christmas tree. Either way whatever the Gentry does to you, you lose your self from it. A creature destined to get lost in whatever story it hears. A creature who had no choice in what they became, or what they would lack. A creature that can find no hope but to change and hope they change into something better than a Gentry. A Changeling, or the Lost as they call themselves.
The Other Mother strikes me as something that you could slap into a Changeling game as a Gentry and have absolutely no explaining to do. Coraline is repeatedly tempted into an Otherworld where she's tempted with losing parts of herself to stay in this picture book world, and you could easily argue she loses innocence entirely by going there, a very fae price. I am not saying she Literally Is A Gentry, but god damn does she fill the same kind of role...
The archetype of the Fae from "Changeling: the Lost" is more deeply rooted in human culture and more often encountered than one might think.
Another example from modern culture I can immediately think of is "Kubo and the two strings". If you are interested in all things Changeling, definitely watch it. You'll probably be surprised by how neatly all pieces fall into place - even though it never mentions the words "Changeling" or "Fae".
You know, I thought there was a reason why I was so afraid of becoming a mother until I met my partner - and I think watching this movie implanted this exact fear in my head without making it explicit. It's why it still holds up so well, especially growing up with a mother who was so emotionally dependent on me, and I felt constricted. Like a fly in a web. In a way, the other mother is just a bug herself, hiding in her own perfect hole, unable to exist outside of a world beyond her identity as a spinster. On the flip side I've learned to forgive my mother and see her as a human being because of this movie as well. She's imperfect. Sometimes unreliable. But she loves me and to choose happiness, I have to live with the reality that the world is perfect when it's grey.
Gosh, I was not expecting such profound analysis. Indeed a very valuable content! Great work!
really digging your ways of creating thought provoking content
I really really like your videos.
Man! You're good. Never thought of it that away
Favorite movie monster (if humans count): Carol Harbin from Strait-Jacket (1964)
She’s like a female version of Norman Bates. She’s extremely charming which draws you in but she’s so fucking deadly because she’s an axe murderer and a gaslighter. The film is a course in gaslighting 101. She comes across as sweet, polite, and graceful which makes her character all the more intriguing for me.
I guess she’s more of a monster in a figurative way than a literal.
This was the best analysis of the other mother that I have ever seen. I especially loved how you connected it with the 1950s. The part where you mentioned them having to make motherhood last as long as possible in order to stay relevant gave me chills.
I have watched this movie so many times
it's easily one of my favorites
this was such an interesting, different take
thank you
This is brilliant, I’m so glad I found your channel
Thanks 😊
Dammmmn! A wonderful, insightful take on a great story
One of my favourite "monsters" is actually from 9, well... The machine is not really a monster in the typical sense, its mostly a threat more than anything else, i love the design, but i particularly like the fact that it doesnt have intentions, it just works bc it was programmed to, doesnt have objectives, it just does
A fascinating analysis of an incredible film
Interesting take. I personally think that her "eating up (their) lives" and how she'd die without Coraline were literal statements. She stole those children's lives. All the years they might have lived were added to her lifespan, and with Coraline gone and no way to access our world, the other mother's days were numbered; but the subtext still works. I personally think that motherhood IS the most important job in the world, and that tricking generations of women into grinding their lives away in unfulfilling careers and dying alone to escape the "slavery of marriage" is killing our civilization in statistically undeniable ways; but even a virtue pushed to it's extreme becomes something monstrous, and the pursuit of absolute perfection (regardless of what society seems as such) will always lead to ruin.
I have recently been watching videos about narcissism (Sam Vaknin is my favorite source) and this movie seems to be portraying the internal psychology of this disorder.
Yes! She was always giving 50s! Your video gives more depth to this! There were I haven’t really thought about. :D
This gave me CHILLS good job!
holy shit this was mind-blowing... you're a genius
as someone with a narcissistic mother who staked her entire identity ON being a mother... yeah. nail on the head.
holy moly i’m so glad i found your channel!
Another great deep dive.
Holy fuck that video was so good. Coraline has been my favorite movie since the first time I saw it, and I've been an angry feminist since basically the day I was born. Your writing is so amazing, I usually put these videos on just to veg out but this one had me gripped the whole time.
@@sammyroyer6416 wooo, glad it hit for you! Thanks for watching 😊
8:34 this scenes so much more scarier with the context you gave it.
I've seen my own mother become temporarily unhinged because she realised she was losing her son (HER son) to maturity. One of my oldest friends has had it even worse; his mother has been declared psychologically unbalanced because of it.
As a guy, and therefore an outside perspective, society's goal of heavily pressuring all women to eventually becoming mothers is, like the house in Coraline itself, inescapable. In every country and culture in the world, it is still frowned upon to not be a mother eventually. As if there's no point in you once your body clock has run out of time. Like your only purpose is a plant from which children are the crop
The unfair expectations of society to force you into a predetermined mold because of your sex leads to the creation of the worst monsters of all... and is, in itself, the worst monster of all.
Loved this. Shared with my sister who loves this film. Instant subscribe and I can't wait for you to blow up
Huh. I hadn't considered the monster in this way. Very insightful take.
I always check whether or not i have button eyes in the morning.
That final line, my god
I always thought the other mother was a demon from hell but this is a new theory
There’s a chilling reminder when learning about the overly standardized nature of post-war America. That the rigid expectation of following this exact formula of living was hammered into you with every ad and PSA. This was in fact “The Good Ol’ Days” when men were men and so on. And as we grow further from that industrially forced reality the demographics that benefited most from that period will grow increasingly confused and frustrated at the necessary evolution the American economy, politics and, of course, the people will keep going through.
Love your videos!
I’ve always thought she was creepy
love this
Incredible. Incredible
The Bedlam in Coraline borrows heavy from Stephen King’s IT published in 1986, in my opinion. Both share characteristics to some degree and exist in similar “todash darkness” as King imagined. They could almost (or could be) be from the same macroverse. Essentially, both entities enjoy manipulating their victims before taking their souls/lives. Fictional, but very reminiscent of real serial killers.
Nice, yeah. Both spiders too
Coraline is a lot like IT, except that it's good
what do you mean 'you dont know what she is going to do to you' shes going to sow buttons onto your fucking eyes
(still love the video)
Not to undercut any of your well-reasoned arguments, but as a slightly older person (by which I mean a MUCH older person),I remember that there was a general and critical backlash against graphic violence in the 1980s, while it was new and frightening, and there was also an audience backlash against CGI in the 2010's, mostly, I have always assumed , among so-called millenials who grew up with CGI, and who seem to be more nostalgic about childhoods than my generation at such a young age. Now that we're old, of,course, it's another story!
Shit did TH-cam post my comment under a different video because the time,ran out on the video,I was commenting on? What the fuck, TH-cam?
@@Mason-g8uhaha looks like it did. That happens to me all the time we're ooold
fark this channel is great
My spider sense went crazy when we got to this part 05:05.