Assignment 7: Movie Review

On the surface, Coraline is a great coming-of-age film for young girls. Coraline herself is wonderfully tomboyish—she’s independent, adventure-seeking and not afraid to get dirty. There are, however, some details in the film that aren’t so positive.

The basic storyline goes that Coraline, who is dissatisfied with her inattentive parents, is at first delighted to discover an alternate world where her parents lavish her with gifts and constant attention. As the story progresses, this ‘prefect’ world becomes more and more sinister, and it is eventually revealed that her ‘other mother’ is trying to trap Coraline there forever. Now, while it’s understandable that Coraline would want a more attentive mother, her other mother—her ideal mother—looks disturbingly close to a 50’s housewife. The real-life mother is preoccupied by her job, doesn’t cook, and doesn’t wear make-up or dress up around the house; the other mother does all these things, and doesn’t appear to have any kind of job.

This is perhaps a forgivable use of stereotypes, since in the end Coraline realizes she likes her real mother better. More disturbing is the issue of Wybie, the young neighbor boy who befriends Coraline. Wybie was added for the film; in the book on which the film is based, there were no leading male characters. However, he is not a dominating male. In fact, the other mother magically silences the other Wybie, and Coraline initially thinks this is awesome. While at first this seems to be turning feminist issues on their head, I can’t help but notice that it’s happening to a black boy. Without his voice, Wybie essentially becomes a plaything and a servant; while it is kind of interesting that this is happening to a boy, I think it would still have been intensely creepy even without the race issue. I also noticed that although he was shown several times, Wybie did not actually speak in the official web or theatrical trailer.

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Both chapter 6 of The F Word and chapter 9 of Feminism is for Everybody conclude that the need for more support for mothers trying to balance careers and childcare is perhaps one of the most important issues of third-wave feminism. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any truly good solution to the issues mothers face if the world stays the way it is now. From my personal experience, in the families of two of my best friends in high school, one mother worked part-time and another worked from home. Another mother I know stayed at home as a full-time mom for over ten years before returning to the workforce. At the very least, this country needs to provide working mothers with better child-care options and more flexible hours, not to mention equal pay; I was already aware of the wage gap between women and men, but I was shocked to learn how much larger the gap is between mothers and non-mothers. Single mothers are the ones who need money the most, so why are they earning the least? The necessary changes will probably not come about unless women become more involved in the political process, from voting to running for office.