The Role of Women in War of the Worlds: Devine mother or vicious bitch?
No symbol in War of the Worlds can be so obvious as when the Aliens land on Earth and take possession of their machines. The Greek God Zeus was said to use lightning bolts to strike at his enemy and to take up shapes in order to make love to mortal beings.
So that to miss the fact that Steven Spielberg used lightning bolts to impregnate the earth is such a huge part of his use of mythology that it cannot be ignored.
While we have more or less gone through what makes a good father in a previous webpage (http://mywebpages.comcast.net/asullivan00/worlds67.html), the concept of divine family requires us to look at what is being said about women in Spielberg’s use of mythology.
In mythology, the man is usually the active character, as divine father, he become the active character usually the one who takes on the quest or other activity, while the woman take on the more passive role such as Earth mother.
But women in mythology are often also seen as a source of evil or trouble, as the earth itself becomes the source of destructive forces.
This is extremely evident in War of the Worlds where the earth itself gives birth to evil that will devour human kind. While there is an environmental interpretation to this (which we will take on in a later essay), the mythological significance cannot be mistaken.
The symbols used in War of the Worlds clearly present us with a study on what the story (I avoid saying this is Spielberg’s message) says is a good woman and mother, and what the role of a mother should be.
As we pointed out in our essay on the Medusa Myth in War of the Worlds (http://mywebpages.comcast.net/asullivan00/worlds70.html), this is a tale about women – mother earth, Ray’s nagging wife, even Ray’s daughter, and Ray’s ability to recognize the difference.
Early on, when Ray’s boss says “Do you know what your trouble is, Ray?” Ray responds with “I know a couple of women that would be happy to tell you,” we find ourselves in the middle of this question.
In Mythology, women are often depicted as defective men, castrated males, “a destroyer whose sexuality swallows men,” (from Myths and Motives in Literature). But she may also be seen as the life principal itself, a symbol of fertility, growth, and womblike security.
It is this conflict that we face in War of the Worlds – the evil mother that gives birth to the aliens from out of the earth and the expectant good mother that asks Ray to take care of her children, who is waiting at the end of this magical journey through hell for him to arrive reborn as the divine father.
During this passage, we are constantly confronted with women who meet or fail to meet up with this standard. The most likeable women are the ones that are caring for their children, fulfilling the mythological model for as divine mother. Ray’s ex-wife is pregnant, and is constantly concerned with the issues of her children, food in the refrigerator, school work and such. Ray’s neighbor, holding her kid, flees back into the house when the lightning storm gets too violent. Later we see one of Ray’s ex girlfriends at the ferry (this relationship is a presumption along with the concept that he might also be father of her child) and she is trying to care for her child.
In contrast to this, we get the female reporter who is picking the bones of the crashed airplane, taking instead of giving, and, of course, the ultimate mother giving birth to the most horrible children, who have come to take the most precious commodity most human being have, their life essence and blood.
What we get here in this mythological symbolism is sharply tied to the Myth of Medusa, and other aspects of fatherhood depicted previously: What makes a good mother and good father?
This is a question Steven Spielberg asks again and again throughout his films – in ET, the mother became a good mother after she ceased thinking about herself and started paying attention to her kids. In Close Encounters, Dreyfus’ wife may seem like a bitch, but she is a good mother in that she requires her kids be taken care of, that her husband have a job, and flees when the father figure flakes out. In a parallel story in Close Encounters, the other mother loses her child and must join the quest to get the child back. This is a similar role that we see played in Poltergeist, where mother has to travel into the dark realm to bring back her daughter.
In this flick, the good mother entrusts her children to the care of their father, Ray, whose journey is one of discovering how to live up to this obligation.
What is the good mother in War of the Worlds? She is one that cares for her children, but does not devour them or breed monstrous creatures that do.
It is no accident that Ray asks his daughter near the beginning, “Who do you think you are, your mother or mine?” For in War of the Worlds, one of the themes is about carrying on the next generation, of preserving that aspect that will allow us to give birth to more responsible children.
Other related sites
Ceres & Poltergeist: perfect together
How War of the Worlds fits the myth pattern