MOMMIES DEAREST
So your mother gave a larger slice of apple pie to your brother, and maybe she once in a while forgot to iron your best skirt for your big date. Big deal.
How would you like to trade her for one of these beauties!
Here’s the top 5.
5) Joan Crawford….
Yes, the original “Mommy Dearest.”
Her daughter, Christina wrote the famous “tell all” book in which she described her and her bother’s harrowing upbringing at the hands of her mother, who at the time was one of the most luminous and world renowned movie stars.
Christina wrote of Joan’s abusive behavior and recounted one evening when her mother tried to strangle her. The long list of terrifying incidents culminated one day when Joan looking through Christina’s closet, found that the clothes were hanging from wire hangers and not the expensive and high-quality wooden ones she preferred. This led to a volcanic and frightening eruption in which Joan Crawford screamed the now infamous “no more wire hangers” tag line at her daughter.
4) Gertrude( Hamlet’s mom)
Hamlet’s life takes a decided turn-for-the-worse as a direct result of his mother, the Queen of Denmark, embarking on an affair with Claudius, the brother of her husband the King, and then acquiescing to his plan to poison the unexpected monarch.
Learning of the plot from his father’s ghostly apparition, Hamlet becomes unhinged as he deals not only with the fiendish murder of the King, but also the complicity of the Queen and her subsequent marriage to his father’s murderer.
Is it any wonder then, that her behavior elicits from him the eternal feminine damnation:
“Frailty, thy name is woman.”
Gertrude’s actions result in the following dramatic climax:
Claudius arranges for Hamlet to engage in a fencing match with Laertes Claudius affixes poison to the tip of Laertes’ sword.
During the event, Hamlet thinking the person lurking behind the curtain is Claudius thrusts his sword at the unseen figure and by mistake kills Polonius, the father of his girlfriend Ophilia.
Hamlet is struck in the ensuing sparring with Laertes and is mortally wounded.
Realizing that Laertes sword was tampered with, Hamlet grabs it and kills Claudius and then stabs Laertes.
3) Queen Elizabeth ll ( Prince Charles’ Mum)
Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales and next in line for the throne of England, has been waiting patiently for his turn at bat. He’s been in the on-deck circle for 61 years.
Come on Queenie, give the guy a break.
It’s embarrassing to be an aging and graying prince. They’re suppose to be dashing and youthful.
Gee whiz, if it was up to Charles to rescue Snow White, he would probably have difficulty maneuvering his way around the cottage and spiriting her away. And when’s the last time you saw a 61 year old lift a damsel-in-distress onto his waiting steed and ride off into the sunset?
So we nominate Queen Elizabeth for this gallery of wayward mothers for her selfishly refusing to step aside and give her son a chance to run the family business.
2) Ma Barker (”Bloody Momma’)
Ma Barker literally raised her four sons to be criminals. Pointing them towards the path to self-destruction.
A poor single mom living in Missouri, she had no problem with her sons’ minor criminal activities while still in their early ‘teens. In fact, she became adept at securing their release through begging, crying, and creating havoc with local policemen. Her encouragement and support of their nefarious activities negated any chance of their “seeing the error of their ways.”
During the “roaring twenties” under mom’s tutelage and leadership, the Barker Gang terrorized Midwest America. But, their exploits turned much deadlier between 1931-1935 when their group morphed into the murderous Karpis-Barker gang, and began a wave of kidnapping and killings, with “Ma” “calling-the-shots.”
Along with Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, and “Machine Gun Kelly, Ma Barker, with the help of “the press” which came to view these iconic gangsters as a great way to sell newspapers, became folk-heroes to a populace that saw them carrying on the tradition of Robin Hood fighting against the government that brought about the depression.
In 1935, Ma and her son Fred, the last remnants of the gang, were killed in a shootout with the FBI at a cottage in Ocala Florida, after they refused the surrounding lawman’s demands for surrender.
Finally, Ma Barker’s legendary status was cemented for posterity through Roger Corman’s cult classic film “Bloody Momma” produced in 1969 and the 1977 hit song “Ma Barker” by Boney M.
1) Livia Soprano (Tony’s Momma Mia)
The mother of all mothers.
Scheming, manipulative, conniving, and abusive, she derived little pleasure from life other than making people around her miserable.
Cold and dispassionate, Mrs. Soprano always treated her children with disdain and criticism.
Withholding all signs of warmth, love, and nuturing. “Playing with their heads” she sends them down a long and distorted life path.
Janice Soprano, suffering from maternal neglect decides to set out on a journey of discovery and so after graduating from high school, she travels to Los Angeles and joins an Ashram and changes her name to Parvati Wasatch. After roaming around the country in a foggy haze for many years, she comes back to New Jersey to “help her mother” but in reality she is looking forward to her mother’s passing in order to get her hands on the inheritance.
While hanging out in New jersey, waiting for her mother to breathe her last breath, Janice proceeds to “punch-out” a soccer mom on the team playing against her daughter. Then she shoots to death her fiance Richie Aprile and throws Ralph Cifaretto down a flight of stairs.
Tony, obviously a bright man with leadership qualities, is given no encouragement by his mother to try another profession other than that of his dad. He is basically told that he’s not cut-out for any “normal” line of work. The lack of a mother’s “embrace” serves to make Tony conflicted in his outlook on life. When he develops panic attacks, he seeks help from psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Melfi. Dr. Melfi not suprisingly places the blame for Tony’s problems at the feet of Mrs. Soprano.
Then to top things off, Mrs. Soprano convinces her brother-in-law Junior Soprano to kill Tony, because he put her in a nursing home.
The plot fails and when the FBI tells him of his mother’s complicity in the attack, he “flips-out” and tries to suffocate her with a pillow as she is in a gurney at a hospital.
Just think of all those dead bodies lying about that owe their untimely demise to Tony “acting out” his anger problems!
