Fairy Tale and Film

Monster-in-law
(Robert Luketic, 2005) provides another take on a 
conflict-ridden relationship between two women – and presents a still 
more overt backlash against feminism. Veteran broadcaster Viola Fields 
(Jane Fonda) has a meltdown on TV, prompted by a violent clash with an 
inane female pop star. (Interestingly, what infuriates her is the woman’s 
lack of interest in current affairs and ignorance over a pivotal law that 
changed women’s rights to abortion in the US. When asked about 
Roe
vs 
Wade
the young woman blithely responds that she has no interest in 

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Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams 
41
boxing – an exchange that reveals how much the younger generation 
have taken for granted in terms of women’s rights, as well as highlighting 
Viola’s supposedly rabid feminism, responding as she does by launching 
herself upon her!) With her career now seemingly over, Viola has her 
only son Kevin (Michael Vartan) to fixate on, yet when he announces 
an engagement with the nice yet manifestly unmotivated Charlotte 
(Jennifer Lopez) Viola takes an instant dislike to her and sets about deter-
ring the marriage. The two women couldn’t be more different. Where 
Viola has had a high-profile career, travelled extensively, speaks various 
languages, and holds a party attended by various foreign dignitaries and 
celebrities, ‘Charlie’ has no career to speak of, walking dogs and temping 
for a living, and wears a question mark around her neck for reasons she 
cannot explain. Clearly Kevin has sought a very different woman to his 
mother and a mutual love for him is all they seem to have in common. 
A no-holds-barred contest is pitched as both women, unbeknownst to 
Kevin, battle it out for supremacy. Despite her accomplishments, Viola 
is portrayed as privileged and potty, yet also a sad and lonely figure, 
and Charlie proves to be her match. Having used all manner of nasty 
methods to undermine one another, the pair call a truce after Viola’s 
mother-in-law Gertrude (viciously played by Elaine Stritch) shows how 
damaging such rivalry can be. Viola admits that she is the one with 
the problem, fearful of losing her son, and Charlie responds with a list 
of rules for her rival, affirming that she is the one with the power. Her 
promise to have Viola over for holidays, and insistence on a close rela-
tionship with any grandchildren, may sound conciliatory yet is also a 
reminder of how much Viola needs her friendship. Charlotte’s hopes for 
a family are the closest thing she has to an ambition, and the apparent 
lesson of the film is that she belongs to a ‘simpler’ generation of wom-
anhood with a greater prospect of happiness than domineering, driven 
yet fundamentally dissatisfied women like Viola. Mothers-in-law con-
ventionally act as the heroine’s rival in fairy tales, often tormenting 
them for no reason other than possessiveness over a son, and this film 
reprises the theme, together with the heroine’s triumph. Although their 
rivalry ends once they become ‘family’, the ageing ‘feminist’ is nonethe-
less humbled through her dealings with a seemingly guileless young 
woman, who wins her desired man in the end. 
The theme of a virtuous woman fighting a duplicitous rival over a 
man is a core theme of the tale type known as ‘The White Bride and 
the Black Bride’ (ATU 403). 
My Best Friend’s Wedding 
(P.J. Hogan, 1997) 
pitches a modern variant on the theme – with the man in question 
again being none the wiser. Perplexingly, just as Kevin is a fairly bland 

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42 
Fairy Tale and Film
character, the mutual object of affection hardly seems worthy of one 
woman’s devotion, let alone two. Michael O’Neil (Dermot Mulroney) 
is a sportswriter, engaged to a young woman who is so smitten with 
him she’s prepared to give up her dreams of becoming an architect to 
follow him around the country. Kimmie (Cameron Diaz) is thus evi-
dently cast as the White Bride, the woman who most deserves to be his