Paranormal Pajama Party
Isn't it weird how often the horrors in our favourite scary stories tend to look a lot like, uh… ladies? Join me as I dig up the social and cultural contexts behind classic ghost stories and legends to challenge the often one-dimensional portrayal of women in horror.
Paranormal Pajama Party
"Coraline", Part 1: The Uncanny and the Monstrous-Feminine
Tonight on the podcast, we’re unravelling the chilling tale of Coraline Jones and her mother. No, not her mother. Her Other Mother. The one with the button eyes.
Coraline – both the children’s movie and the novella – is the story of a girl battling for independence and identity. This battle is symbolic, sure, but it’s also literal – Coraline has to destroy the Other Mother from the mirror world hidden behind a tiny door.
Tonight, we’re talking about Freudian psychology and all the uncomfortable things that entails: the uncanny, the Oedipus complex, societal anxieties surrounding femininity and motherhood, and a whole lot of talk about gonads.
Crawl down the tunnel with me into the dark corners of Coraline's world, where not all that glimmers is gold, and not all mothers are what they seem.
Key moments
- 0:00 – Content warning
- 0:54 – "The New Mother", by Lucy Clifford
- 21:54 – Welcome to the party!
- 24:25 – A synopsis of 'Coraline'
- 27:25 – Coraline's real mother
- 29:38 – Coraline's Other Mother
- 30:38 – The eyes have it
- 32:14 – The uncanny
- 36:22 – Barbara Creed and the monstrous-feminine
- 39:55 – Outro
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View all my sources for each episode and read the episode transcipt here.
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Steph: Before we begin, a quick content warning: Paranormal Pajama Party is a podcast about scary stories and legends, but there's nothing scarier than the patriarchy. When discussing tales in which women are often the villains, we'll have to unpack some stories in which women are the victims.
This episode contains the usual amount of cursing and gets way too into Freudian psychoanalysis, so there's mention of drug use and a lot of talk about genitals. Sorry about that.
Tonight, we're talking about a children's movie in which a plucky young girl discovers a fabulous mirror world that turns out to be evil, to the core. I was just scaring myself by imagining a parallel world in which everything is the same as this one, but you haven't rated or reviewed the podcast yet. Thank god we don't live in that one. It's too horrible to even think about.
All right. On with the show.
An abridged version of “The New Mother”, by Lucy Clifford.
The children were always called Blue-Eyes and the Turkey, and they lived with their mother and a baby in a lonely cottage on the edge of the forest. It was a long way to the village, and the mother had to work hard, so very often, she used to send the two children to see if there was a letter at the post office from their dear father, a sailor at sea.
They were very proud of being able to go alone. When they came back tired with the long walk, there would be the mother waiting and watching for them, and the tea would be ready, and the baby crowing with delight; and if by any chance there was a letter from the sea, then they were happy indeed.
One chilly afternoon, their mother sent them off to the post office once again. "Don't be long," she said, as she always did. "Don't talk to any strangers you meet."
"No, Mother," they answered; and she kissed them and called them good children, and they joyfully started on their way.
The village was gayer than usual, for there had been a fair the day before, and the people who had made merry still hung about the street.
"I wish we had come yesterday," Blue-Eyes said. "Then we might have seen something."
There was no letter from their father that day, and Blue-Eyes and the Turkey turned away to go home. They had left the village and walked some way, when they noticed, resting against a pile of stones, a wild-looking girl who seemed very unhappy. They felt sure that something was the matter. They were kind children and sorry indeed for anyone in distress.
The girl was about 15 years old. She was dressed in very ragged clothes. Her hair was coal black and hung down uncombed and unfastened. It was not very long, but it was very shiny, and it seemed to match her bright black eyes and dark freckled skin.
On her feet were coarse grey stockings and thick shabby boots. She had something hidden away under her shawl, but the children did not know what it was. She sat watching them approach, and did not move till they were within a yard of her; then she wiped her eyes just as if she had been crying bitterly, and looked up.
"Are you crying?" the children asked shyly.
To their surprise, she said in a most cheerful voice, "Oh dear, no! Quite the contrary."
"Perhaps you have lost yourself?" they said gently.
But the girl answered promptly, "Certainly not. Why, you have just found me. Besides," she added, "I live in the village."
The children were surprised at this, for they thought they knew all the village folk by sight.
Then the Turkey, who had an inquiring mind, put a good straightforward question. "What’s in your shawl?" she asked.
"Oh, a pear drum," the girl answered, still speaking in a most cheerful voice.
"What is that?" they asked.
"I am surprised at your not knowing,'' the girl answered. "Most people in good society have one."
And she pulled it out and showed it to them. It was a curious instrument, a good deal like a guitar in shape; it had three strings, but only two pegs by which to tune them. But the strange thing about the pear drum was not the music it made or the strings, but a little square box attached to one side. The children were most anxious to see inside the box or to know what it contained.
"It really is a most beautiful thing" the girl said, looking at the instrument. “It cost a great deal of money. I am very rich.”
“You don't look rich," they said, and in as polite a voice as possible. "You look rather shabby."
"Indeed?" said the girl in a satisfied voice. "A little shabbiness is very respectable. I must really tell them this," and the children wondered what she meant.
She opened the little box and said, just as if she were speaking to someone, "They say I look rather shabby!"
"Why, you are not speaking to anyone!" they said, more surprised than ever.
"Oh dear, yes! I am speaking to them both."
"Both?" they said, wondering.
"Yes. I have here a little man wearing a hat with a large feather, and a little woman to match, dressed in a red petticoat... I put them on the lid of the box, and when I play they dance most beautifully. The little man takes off his hat and waves it in the air, and the little woman holds up her petticoat and blows a kiss.''
"Oh! let us see; do let us see! " the children cried, both at once.
Then the village girl looked at them doubtfully. "Let you see!" she said slowly. "Well, I am not sure that I can. Tell me, are you good?"
"Yes, yes," they answered eagerly, "we are very good!"
"Then it's quite impossible," she answered and resolutely closed the lid of the box.
They stared at her in astonishment. "But we are good," they cried, thinking she must have misunderstood them. "Mother always says we are. Can't you let us see the little man and woman?"
"Oh dear, no!" the girl answered. "I only show them to naughty children.''
"To naughty children!" they exclaimed.
"Yes, to naughty children," she answered; "The worse the children, the better the man and woman dance." She put the pear drum carefully under her ragged cloak. "I really could not have believed that you were good," she said, reproachfully, as if they had accused themselves of some great crime. "Well, good day. Perhaps I shall see you tomorrow."
And swiftly she walked away, while the children felt their eyes fill with tears, and their hearts ache with disappointment.
"Suppose," said the Turkey, "we try to be naughty today; perhaps she would let us see them tomorrow."
"But I don't know how to be naughty,” said Blue-Eyes, "No one ever taught me."
The Turkey thought for a few minutes. "I think I can be naughty if I try," she said. "I'll try tonight.''
And then poor Blue-Eyes burst into tears. "Oh, don't be naughty without me!" she cried. "...You know I want to see the little man and woman just as much as you do.”
So together all the way home they planned how to begin being naughty.
When their mother saw them, she said in a loving voice, "Dear little children, come and have your tea; it is all quite ready for you."
But the children made no answer to the dear mother; they only stood still by the window and said nothing. Suddenly she saw that the Turkey's eyes were full of tears.
“My dear little Turkey!” she exclaimed. “What is the matter? Come to mother, my sweet.”
"Oh, mother," she sobbed, "oh, dear mother! I do so want to be naughty."
Blue-Eyes ran to her, too, and, rubbing her face against the mother's shoulder, cried sadly. "And so do I, mother. Oh, I’d give anything to be very, very naughty."
"But, my dear children," said the mother, in astonishment, "I should be very angry if you were naughty. But you could not be, for you love me."
"Why couldn't we?" they asked. “We do love you, but we want to be naughty."
"Then I should know you did not love me. If you were naughty,” said the mother sadly – and while she spoke her eyes filled with tears, and a sob almost choked her – "I should have to go away and leave you, and to send home a New Mother, with glass eyes and a wooden tail."
"You couldn't," they cried.
"Yes, I could," she answered in a low voice; "but it would make me very unhappy, and I will never do it unless you are very, very naughty, and I am obliged."
"We won't be naughty," they cried; "we will be good. We should hate a New Mother, and she shall never come here." And they clung to their own mother and kissed her fondly.
But when they went to bed they sobbed bitterly, for they remembered the little man and woman, and longed more than ever to see them.
"Good-day," said the village girl cheerfully, when she saw Blue-Eyes and the Turkey approach the next morning. She looked just as if she had not moved since the day before.
"Are the little man and woman there?" the children asked.
"Yes; thank you for inquiring after them," the girl answered; "The little man is learning how to rattle the money in his pocket, and the little woman has heard a secret. She tells it while she dances."
"Oh, do let us see," they entreated.
"Quite impossible, I assure you," the girl answered promptly. "You see, you are good."
"Oh!" said-Blue Eyes, sadly; "but Mother says if we are naughty she will go away and send home a New Mother, with glass eyes and a wooden tail."
"They all threaten that kind of thing,” said the girl, still speaking in the same unconcerned voice. “Of course, really there are no mothers with glass eyes and wooden tails; they would be much too expensive to make."
The children saw the common sense of this remark at once, but they merely said, half crying, "We think you might let us see the little man and woman dance."
"The kind of thing you would think. I fear you could not be naughty – that is, really – even if you tried," the village girl said scornfully.
"But if we are very naughty tonight, will you let us see them tomorrow?"
"Questions asked today are always best answered tomorrow." the girl said and turned round to walk on. "Good day,” she said.
For a few minutes the children stood looking after her, then they broke down and cried.
The Turkey was the first to wipe away her tears. "Let us go home and be very naughty," she said; "then perhaps she will let us see them tomorrow."
And that afternoon the dear mother was sorely distressed, for, instead of sitting happily at their tea as usual, and then helping her to clear away and doing all she told them, they broke their mugs and threw their bread and butter on the floor, and when she told them to do one thing they carefully went and did another, and as for helping her to put away, they left her to do it all by herself (and only stamped their feet with rage when she told them to go upstairs until they were good).
"We won't be good," they cried. "We hate being good, and we always mean to be naughty."
"Do you remember what I told you I should do if you were very, very naughty?" she asked sadly.
"Yes, we know, but it isn't true,'' they cried. "There is no mother with a wooden tail and glass eyes."
Then the mother became really angry at last and sent them off to bed, but instead of crying and being sorry, they laughed for joy.
The next morning quite early, without asking leave, the children got up and ran off as fast as they could to look for the village girl. She was sitting as usual by the heap of stones with the pear drum under her shawl.
"Now please show us the little man and woman," they cried. “We were very naughty last night."
But the girl kept the pear drum carefully hidden. "So you say,'' she answered. "You were not half naughty enough."
"Why, we were sent to bed! "
"If you had been really naughty you wouldn't have gone. It requires a great deal of skill to be naughty well."
"But we broke our mugs, we threw our bread and butter on the floor, we did everything we could to be tiresome."
"Mere trifles,'' answered the village girl scornfully. "So many people mistake a little noise and foolishness for real naughtiness; but, as I remarked before, it wants skill to do the thing properly. Well, good day,'' and before they could say another word she had vanished.
"We'll be much worse,'' the children cried, in despair.
And then they went home and threw water on the fire; they pulled down the baking dish and the cake tin and banged them on the floor; they broke the clock and danced on the butter; they turned everything upside down; and then they sat still and wondered if they were naughty enough.
And when the mother saw all that they had done, she did not scold them or send them to bed. She just broke down and cried. And then she looked at the children and said sadly, "Unless you are good tomorrow, my poor Blue-Eyes and Turkey, I shall have to go away, and the New Mother will come."
They did not believe her; yet their hearts ached when they saw how unhappy she looked, and they thought within themselves that when they once had seen the little man and woman dance, they would be good to the dear mother forever afterwards; but they could not be good now till they had heard the sound of the pear drum, seen the dance, and heard the secret – then they would be satisfied.
Early the next morning, the children crept out of the cottage again and found the village girl sitting by the heap of stones. The box containing the little man and woman was open, but she closed it quickly when she saw them.
"Do tell if we may see the little man and woman," they entreated. "We have been so very naughty, and Mother says she will go away today and send home a New Mother if we are not good. We don't want her to go; we love her very much. Oh! What shall we do if she goes?"
"People go and people come; first they go and then they come. You had better go back and be good," the girl added suddenly; "you are really not clever enough to be anything else; and the little woman's secret is very important; she never tells it for make-believe naughtiness. Well, good-day. I shall not be here tomorrow.”
"Oh, but don't go away," they cried. "We are so unhappy; do let us see them just once."
"Well, I shall go past your cottage at 11 o'clock this morning," the girl said. "Perhaps I shall play as I go by."
"And will you show us the man and woman ?" they asked.
"Quite impossible, unless you have really deserved it."
"Oh, we will," they cried. "We will be very naughty till we hear you coming."
“Good-day,” the girl said, just as she always did. But then she said, "Eleven o'clock, I shall be quite punctual; I am very particular about my engagements."
Again the children went home, and were naughty – oh, so very very naughty that the dear mother's heart ached, and her eyes filled with tears. And at last, she went upstairs and slowly put on her best gown and her new sun bonnet, and she dressed the baby all in its Sunday clothes, and then she came down and stood before Blue-Eyes and the Turkey. And just as she did so, the Turkey threw the looking-glass out of the window.
"Good-bye, my children," the mother said sadly, kissing them. "The New Mother will be home presently. Oh, my poor children!"
"But, Mother," the children cried, and then suddenly the broken clock struck half-past 10. “Mother, we will be good at half-past 11, come back then. We must be naughty till 11 o'clock!"
But the mother only picked up the baby and went slowly out the door. It seemed as if the children were spellbound, and they could not follow her.
They called after her, "Mother! Mother! Oh, dear mother, come back again! We will be good now, we will be good forevermore if you will come back!"
But still, the mother went on. Just by the corner of the field she stopped and turned, and waved her handkerchief, all wet with tears, to the children at the window; and in a moment mother and baby had vanished from their sight.
Then the children felt their hearts ache with sorrow, and they cried bitterly just as the mother had done. Surely she would come back, they thought; she would not leave them altogether; but, oh, if she did, if she did, if she did.
And then the broken clock struck 11. They rushed to the open window, and there they saw the village girl coming towards them from the fields, dancing along and playing the pear drum as she did so.
"We have done all you told us," the children called. "Come and see; and now show us the little man and woman.''
The girl did not cease her playing or her dancing, but she called out in a voice that was half speaking half singing: "You did it all badly. You threw the water on the wrong side of the fire, the clock was not broken enough, you did not stand the baby on its head."
Wringing their hands, the children cried out, "Oh, but we have done everything you told us, and Mother has gone away. Show us the little man and woman now, and let us hear the secret.''
As they said this the girl was just in front of the cottage, but she did not stop playing. The sound of the strings seemed to go through their hearts. She did not stop dancing; she was already passing the cottage by. All she said sounded like part of a terrible song: "The little man and woman are far away. See, their box is empty."
And for the first time, the children saw that the lid of the box was raised and hanging back, and that no little man and woman were in it.
"But our mother is gone," the children cried; “Our dear mother, will she ever come back?"
"No," sang the girl; "I saw her by the bridge. She is sailing to the sea; she will meet your father and they will go sailing on to the countries far away."
And when they heard this, the children could say no more, for their hearts seemed to be breaking.
Then the girl, her voice getting fainter and fainter in the distance, called out once more to them. "Your New Mother is coming. She is already on her way; but she only walks slowly, for her tail is rather long, and her spectacles are left behind; but she is coming, she is coming - coming coming."
The last word died away; it was the last one they ever heard the village girl utter. On she went, dancing on; till she had vanished altogether and forever.
Then the children turned, and looked at each other and at the little cottage home, now wrecked, that only a week before had been so bright and happy.
"Oh, what shall we do?" cried Blue-Eyes. "I wish we had never seen the village girl."
"Surely mother will come back," sobbed the Turkey.
"I don't know what we shall do if the New Mother comes," cried Blue-Eyes. "I shall never, never like any Other Mother. I don't know what we shall do if that dreadful mother comes."
All through the afternoon, they sat watching and listening for fear of the New Mother; but they saw and heard nothing of her, and gradually they became less and less afraid. Then they thought that perhaps when it was dark their own dear mother would come home; and perhaps if they asked her to forgive them she would.
As darkness fell, they lit a fire in the grate and worked hard to make the room as neat as they could. They felt more and more certain their mother would return, she and the dear little baby together. They took down the tea-tray, and got out the cups, and put the kettle on the fire to boil, and made everything look as home-like as they could. At last, all was ready, and Blue-Eyes and the Turkey washed their faces and then sat and waited, for of course they did not believe what the village girl had said about their mother sailing away.
[DRAGGING SOUND]
Steph: Suddenly, they heard a sound as of something heavy being dragged along the ground outside, and then there was a loud and terrible knocking at the door.
[KNOCKING]
Steph: The children felt their hearts stand still. They knew it could not be their own mother, for she would have turned the handle and tried to come in without any knocking at all
"Oh, Turkey!” whispered Blue-Eyes, "If it should be the New Mother, what shall we do?"
"We won't let her in,” whispered the Turkey. Again there came a long and loud and terrible knocking at the door.
[KNOCKING]
Steph: "What shall we do? Oh, what shall we do?" cried the children, in despair. "Oh, go away!" they called out. "Go away; we won't let you in; we will never be naughty anymore; go away, go away!"
[KNOCKING, DOOR HANDLE RATTLING]
Steph: But again there came a loud and terrible knocking. "She'll break the door if she knocks so hard," cried Blue-Eyes.
"Go and put your back to it," whispered the Turkey, "and I'll peep out of the window and try to see if it is really the New Mother."
[KNOCKING]
Steph: Trembling, Blue-Eyes put her back against the door, and the Turkey went to the window and peeped out.
[KNOCKING, DOOR HANDLE RATTLING]
Steph: She could just see a black satin bonnet, and a long bony arm carrying a black leather bag.
[KNOCKING]
Steph: From beneath the bonnet, there flashed a strange bright light, and Turkey's heart sank and her cheeks turned pale, for she knew it was the flashing of two glass eyes.
[KNOCKING, DOOR HANDLE RATTLING]
Steph: She crept up to Blue-Eyes. "It is!" she whispered, her voice shaking with fear, "It is the New Mother!"
"Oh, what shall we do?" wept Blue-Eyes; and again there was the terrible knocking.
[KNOCKING]
Steph: Together they stood with their two little backs against the door.
There was a long pause.
They thought perhaps the New Mother had made up her mind that there was no one at home, and would go away, but presently they heard through the thin wooden door the New Mother move a little. For one terrible moment, all was still. But then the children could almost hear her lift up her tail…
[DRAGGING SOUND]
Steph: … and then, with a fearful blow, the little painted door splintered.
[SOUND OF WOOD SPLINTERING]
Steph: With a shriek, the children fled through the cottage into the forest beyond.
They are there still. All through the long weeks and months have they been there. They long to see their own dear mother again, just once again, to tell her that they'll be good forevermore.
And still, the New Mother stays in the little cottage, but the windows are closed and the doors are shut, and no one knows what the inside looks like.
Now and then, when the darkness has fallen, hand in hand, Blue-Eyes and the Turkey creep up to the home in which they once were so happy, and with beating hearts they watch and listen; sometimes a blinding flash comes through the window, and they know it is the light from the New Mother's glass eyes, or they hear a strange, muffled noise, and they know it is the sound of her wooden tail as she drags it along the floor.
[DRAGGING SOUND]
[MUSIC]
Steph: Hi, I'm Steph and this is Paranormal Pajama Party, the podcast that brings you classic ghost stories and legends featuring female phantoms and femme fatales. Together, we’ll brush the cobwebs off these terrifying tales to shed some light on their origins and learn what they can tell us about the deep-rooted fears society projects onto women.
Tonight's party snacks are everything you've ever wanted to eat at a slumber party, and all perfectly cooked. Does it seem like our pillows are fluffier than usual? And our slippers are cozier? Even the stars outside tonight look a little more twinkly than they usually do. Everything is just… perfect.
And that thanks to Mother, of course. No, no, not your mother. Our Other Mother. You know, the one with the button eyes.
Tonight we're talking about the Gothic children's horror movie Coraline. Did that sound like it's a horror movie for Gothic children? I guess it is.
If you haven't seen the movie or read the novella of the same name by Neil Gaiman, I highly recommend both. They're both weird and creepy and delightful. I haven't read the book in a long time, but I remember it being surprisingly scary for a kids' book.
To steal a line from LeVar Burton, you don't have to take my word for it. The film adaptation of Coraline won the BAFTA Children's Award for Best Feature Film, got an Oscar nom for Best Animated Feature, and is the third-highest-grossing stop-motion picture of all time. The novella won a Hugo, a Nebula and a Bram Stoker Award.
For tonight's conversation. I'm just going to focus on the film because A) I watched it last week and B) it's a pretty faithful adaptation, with a few key differences that we'll get into shortly.
There's a lot to say about Coraline herself as a heroine, but that would be a light-hearted conversation about little girls with moxie, and that's not what we do here at the Paranormal Pajama Party. We're here to talk about the villain of the piece, of course: the Other Mother, also known as the Beldame.
First, a quick synopsis of Coraline (I'm so sorry for the spoilers. Please read the book and watch the movie):
Coraline Jones is an adventurous 11-year-old girl who moves with her parents across the country into the Pink Palace apartments, a dilapidated old house that's been divided into apartments.
Coraline is with her parents, who are knee-deep in collaborating on a gardening catalogue, and they share the building with some eccentric neighbours. Upstairs, a shockingly acrobatic old man named Mr Bobinsky is training a mouse circus. In the basement apartment, two retired actresses, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, are reminiscing on their glory days and taxiderming their Scottish terriers.
Her parents are hyper-focused on their writing job, and Coraline, feeling neglected, goes exploring. While hunting for an abandoned well on the property, she meets the landlady's grandson, a boy named Wybie, and a semi-feral cat that roams wherever it wants.
Wybie delivers a button-eyed ragdoll that looks just like Coraline and she and her new dolly friend discover a hidden door in her flat that leads to a parallel world eerily similar to her own, but more vibrant and seemingly perfect. Here, she encounters Other versions of her parents who shower her with attention and delicious food. The only odd thing? Her Other parents have buttons for eyes.
As Coraline explores this alternate world, she meets other other versions of the Pink Palace's neighbours. The Other Mr Bobinsky's jumping mice are an unparalleled success, while the Other Misses Spink and Forcible are beautiful entertainers performing to an audience of creepy button-eyed dogs.
Eventually, the Other Mother invites Coraline to stay in this perfect world forever. The only catch is that she'll have to replace her eyes with buttons, too. When Coraline senses the trap and refuses, her other parents become more possessive and menacing. Punished for her rebellion, she meets the ghosts of previous children the Other Mother has trapped in her world, who offer warnings.
Although Other Wybie helps her escape the Other Mother’s clutches, Coraline returns to the real world to discover that her parents have been kidnapped. She must return to the other world to rescue her parents and return the ghost children's missing eyeballs, and therefore their souls.
Although Coraline does find the children's eyes and save her parents, the climactic battle ends with the Other Mother's hand being severed. Acting on its own accord, and intent on retrieving the key to the secret door for the Other World, the hand follows Coraline back into the real world.
The final confrontation ends with Coraline and Wybie destroying the hand and throwing it – and the key – into the depths of the unfathomably deep abandoned well. Ultimately, Coraline emerges with a stronger sense of her own identity and an appreciation for her, quote, “real wonderful, maddening, infuriating, glorious mother.”
That's a direct quote from the novella, by the way. So let's just talk about that infuriating glorious mother for a moment. After all, she's just like the Other Mother. Mostly.
In the movie, Ms Jones, Coraline's real mother, has just moved across the country for a new start in a completely different environment.
She works from home, and her coworker is also her husband – a situation that seems like it could be deeply infuriating even on a good day. In the movie, they seem to be taking a gamble with their new career. They're not sure if the local gardening company, whose tagline is “I Heart Mulch”, by the way, is going to pick up their new catalogue.
On top of all of this, she was recently in a car accident that's left her in a neck brace and, presumably, in pain.
We see things from Coraline's perspective in the movie, but it seems pretty clear to me why her mother might have a bit of a short temper and not a lot of time for a prepubescent daughter at this exact moment.
Because we're seeing things from Coraline's point of view, it's notable that Ms Jones wears oatmeal-coloured, kind of beige clothing. She has a crooked nose and greyish skin and bags under her eyes. Her neck brace seems to reflect Coraline's opinion that her mother– unable to spare her any attention and not conforming to traditional roles in a way that she might prefer – is broken.
As I mentioned, Ms Jones is a working mother. She doesn't go to an office every day, but she also doesn't have time for Coraline, who's bored, lonely, and having a hard time settling into her new digs.
An emancipated woman, Ms Jones also splits the domestic duties with her husband in a way that goes against traditional gender roles. Mr Jones does the cooking (which Coraline doesn't rate much), sings her little songs, and gives her activities to do when she's looking for attention, while Ms Jones does the shopping and the cleaning. But she's not much of one for coddling, at least at the moment.
As an adult, I'm willing to cut her some slack. She's got a lot going on right now. But as a child, Coraline is pretty frustrated by her home life. So when she's awakened in the night by some button-eyed jumping mice, and follows them through this hidden door and a pulsating purple tunnel, it's little wonder that she's enchanted by the Other Mother.
Coraline follows the scent of delicious cooking into the kitchen, which looks just like her own kitchen, only better. Everything's better.
At the stove, preparing a delicious chicken dinner in a gender-traditional way is a beautiful version of Coraline's mother. Her clothes are prettier, her hair is styled, her lipstick is perfect, her neck brace is gone. Even her nose is straighter.
Here's a line from the novella: “A woman stood in the kitchen with her back to Coraline. She looked a little like Coraline's mother. Only. Only her skin was as white as paper. Only she was taller and thinner. Only her fingers were too long. And they never stopped moving. And her dark red fingernails were curved and sharp.
“‘Coraline’, the woman said, ‘is that you?’
“And then she turned around. Her eyes were big black buttons.”
Yeah, so when I said everything's better there, I probably should have mentioned the button eyes.
We’re told over and over again that eyes are the windows to the soul, right? They… they crinkle, they fill with tears, they light up. They humanise us.
Popular history tells us that we used to put coins on the eyes of the dead to pay their toll across the River Styx to the underworld, although I did find out while researching this episode that that is pretty made up. Hot tip for the recently deceased: When you're trying to bribe an underworld ferryman, put that coin in your mouth if you want to get anywhere.
At any rate, the eyes are important to us. And one of the foremost characteristics of monsters, whether they're vampires, or Other Mothers, or Bruce the shark from Jaws, is that they have weird eyes.
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Quint from Jaws: Y'know the thing about a shark, he's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes.
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Steph: One of my sources said, “The lack of real eyes in these characters shows a lack of humanity which reveals their monstrousness in a way that fangs and claws could never do. They do not have real eyes, and this makes them somehow soulless.”
As things progress and Coraline refuses the Mother’s offer to stay sutured to her forever with black thread, the Other Mother's lack of humanity starts to show in a big way.
She goes from a put-together version of Coraline's mother to a true monster. Her body cracks audibly and visibly. She grows abnormally tall and thin with cheekbones to die for – honestly, I'd kill for those – and her dress starts to make her look more and more like an insect or a spider.
We live in an insane time, you and me. We are just far enough along on things like robots and AI that they're useful, but not far enough along that they're quite… right. They're almost human, but there's something just a little off that makes them creepy.
In robotics engineering, this weird, not-quite-human vibe is known as the uncanny valley, and it's based on an idea from early psychoanalysis that was eventually expanded upon by Big Daddy Psychoanalysis himself, Sigmund Freud.
In researching this episode, I learned that I don't care for Sigmund. I was telling this to my partner, a very smart human, who pointed out that we did get some good stuff from Freud, so I shouldn't throw the whole baby out with the bathwater. But he also said, and I quote, “Lay off the cocaine, Siggy,” which is… yeah. Just maybe take all the stuff I say next with like a big bump of blow, and it might make more sense.
I'm not a psychoanalysis expert, so I'm going to quote another one of my sources here: “For Freud, the uncanny is that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar. In other words, it's not concerned with such things as bug-eyed monsters or little green men, but things far closer to home which, as a consequence, are the more disturbing. It's much harder to escape that which is on your doorstep, that which can gain entry to your bedroom.”
The thing that makes the New Mother, from the story at the beginning of the episode (which partly inspired Coraline, by the way), and the Other Mother so scary is that they look just like their daughters’ beloved human mothers, but not quite.
I loved this line from another article I read: “The things that truly scare us are not monsters under the bed or wolves in the forest – the most famous of which, it should be noted, dressed up like a grandmother in a lacy nightcap in order to trap the child instead of just mauling her in the forest like any self-respecting wolf ought to do. Instead, the things that truly scare us are the things that disguise their monstrousness as love, most particularly motherly love.”
Criminy.
But it's not the spidery Other Mother alone that takes the uncanny boxes. The Other Pink Palace, Other Father, and the Other Neighbours do, too.
One of Freud's features of the uncanny is involuntary repetition. The example he gives is, “Caught in a mist, perhaps, one has lost one's way. Every attempt to find the marked or familiar path may bring one back again and again to one and the same spot.”
And this exact scenario happens to Coraline and the Cat in the movie when she's trying to escape the Other Pink Palace by simply walking away into the milky white mist that surrounds the small world that the Other Mother has created to please her.
“How can you walk away from something and still come back to it?”, Coraline asks.
Alas, we are not done with Freud. The truth is, Coraline is a coming-of-age story about a child finding her identity. To do so, she has to destroy her Other Mother. Yeah. That's the Oedipus complex theory.
Coraline is exactly the right age developmentally to struggle with wanting her parent's attention and wanting to carve out some independence of her own. She wants bright gloves that will help her stand out at school. She's always correcting people who call her Caroline, and they're always getting it wrong.
In Freudian terms, Coraline has to kill her symbolic mother – in this case, the not-so-symbolic and terrifyingly corporeal Other Mother, who wants to trap her and coddle her forever, or at least until she can steal her life away like she did to the other children she caught.
Siggy would say that Coraline needs to expel the maternal and identify with her father. Actually, Freud would say that she needs to sexually desire her father – because he was pretty gross. Ugh – so that she can take up her rightful place in the patriarchal order, also known as the Real World. Now would be a really good time to do that line of coke.
Throughout my research all season long, I keep running into the work of academic and cultural critic Barbara Creed. (Incidentally, she's an alumna of the university I work for, and I'm going to die if I ever see her on campus. Just… just die.)
If you're into feminism in horror, or if you ever want to get really freaked out by just how many vaginas there are in the Alien franchise, Barbara is your gal. She coined the term “the monstrous-feminine”, which is essentially the entire point of this podcast.
She wrote, “All human societies have a conception of the monstrous-feminine – of what it is about Woman that is shocking, terrifying, horrific, abject.”
Based on my admittedly shaky understanding of psychoanalysis, the gist of the monstrous-feminine is that, in patriarchal societies, horror stories and movies are often defined by what scares men. And Freud would say that men are scared of female sexuality, women's bodies and women's power.
So, for example, slasher movies arise out of men's subconscious fears of castration. In these movies, a madman cuts off important body parts of the victims in a symbolic act of castration. Because for male filmmakers and audiences, the idea of not having a penis is like… too scary. I mean, imagine! You couldn't write your name in the snow when you pee! Yikes!
One of the archetypes of the monstrous-feminine is what Freud called the archaic mother. She's often depicted as the source of all life and the ultimate power, but also as a terrifying and uncontrollable force. Worse, she doesn't even need a father to create this life. Who does she think she is? Some kind of… male god?
In horror movies – including Coraline, whose Other Mother creates the entire Other World including the Other Father – we often see a child struggling to break free from an archaic mother who refuses to let go. It's tempting for the child to stay in a happy relationship with the mother, and the idea of separation is really frightening. But if the child succumbs, that's it. They lose their identity. And often, as in the case of the ghost children in Coraline, their lives.
I admit it seems like a long bow to draw. And I will be the first to be like, “Hold up, Sigmund. Let's talk about your relationship with your mommy because there is something going on there.” But there are some hints that both Neil Gaiman, the author, and Henry Selick, the director, were feeling Freud throughout Coraline's creation.
Besides the uncanny mist in the novella, the Other Mother's hair moves on its own, like Medusa's head full of snakes. Freud was big into Medusa as a metaphorical vulva, but also somehow, symbolically, a penis? Look, I'll do a Medusa episode someday, and we can untangle that snake nest then.
In the book, the Other Father is trapped in the basement and becomes a sort of limp, pale slug-like creature without any features except for a drooling mouth. He seems to grow just before attacking Coraline. I am going to let you interpret that for yourself.
In the film, the Other Father's tractor is shaped like a praying mantis, an insect famous because the female of the species bites the head off of – or castrates, I guess – the male after the reproductive act. So. Nothing to read into there.
And then there's the problem of the cat, but we'll get there in – oh.
What's that, Mom? It's time for bed? But the party's just getting – aw, man. Fine, if you say so.
Other Mother says it's time for lights out at our Paranormal Pajama Party, but that doesn't mean the party's over. I'll see you right here next week for part two of our discussion of Coraline.
But if you see any jumping mice tonight, maybe don't follow them into the pulsating vagina tunnel, okay? I don't know what you'll find on the other side, but something tells me it's not good.
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Steph: To learn more about the monstrous-feminine, Sigmund Freud's blinding coke addiction, and all things uncanny, check out my sources in the show notes.
Follow @ParanormalPJParty on Instagram to see visuals from today's episode.
I'll see you next week for part two of this spine-tingling tale and critical discussion. In the meantime, don't forget: Ghosts have stories. Women have voices. Dare to listen.
