Week 5 blog    Aunt Maria by Diana Wynne Jones

            The main stereotype in “Aunt Maria” is Aunt Maria herself as a mean tough granny, that the majorities of the women that are old have masculine or domineering personalities, strict discipline old school manners and are very manipulative by using their old age as an excuse. They as a group like the stereotypes that suburban wives that have nothing better to do then stick their noses in someone else’s business and unapologetic. They are very stubborn and snobby thinking that they know best and every one should listen to them.

 They are stereotypes of the elder in power, that they are Head of the household. They manipulative people with reverse psychology. That what matters to the stereotypical old people, particularly old women, is that they only cares about their reputation that her family are suppose to act like her trophies that she won and they should not embarrass her in front of her friends. Whenever she is not kissing up to her friends she treats her own family like servants. She used passive aggressive, sarcastic way of talking to anyone younger then her. The senior citizens are very nosey and bunch of gossip hens who believe that what they think is 100% fact and that they choose to ignore the truth or other people’s feelings.

This has an almost similar feel to the witches that were old hags that gather or flock together like vultures and the obsession with little perfect sweet children that they usually target as prey. There is a stereotyping of the relationship between the in-laws Betty and Aunt Maria. In this situation the daughter-in-law (Betty) is to do every possible household chore that the mother-in-law (Aunt Maria) commands without question. Children are not to speak unless spoken to very old school behavior that kids don’t any better and that women are to do the chores and men can’t help because they don’t know how according to Aunt Maria.

The book “Aunt Maria” is sexist toward the females that Betty and Mig are to take care of Aunt Maria do the labor around the house while the man/ boy (Chris) do nothing. Mig’s brother, Chris will only make a mess if he help or assist his mother that are consider women chores in pleasing Aunt Maria’s endless and meaningless requests that she herself could do. Her way of bickering is another stereotype that old people just monologue for hours and hours on nothing but gossip. That the stereotypes that old people don’t mingle with technology only to used electricity and that they have only candles to light the night like Mormons staying away from anything new in advanced inventions.

            Another stereotypes is that Aunt Maria is also a cheapskate elder/distant relative, since she is the one who invited her family who she has no blood relations with at all other than her supposed to be dead nephew that married to the mother of Mig and Chris, who makes Betty buy and do everything. Old people are stereotype to have boring lives in the middle of nowhere those teens or kids have no interest. And the children beside the main characters are like clones of one another as if all children in general are the same and therefore bland with no life in them. Empowered women are frightening and women cannot handle power or position without being savage, mean or manipulative. They like to avoid reality, belittle the younger generation. The men are like zombies and don’t pay attention to their surround, don’t speak and just follow orders of their wives. Women who are like Aunt Maria will have submissive husbands. It’s as if the life of them was drain like the color of the dull grey sky in the town Aunt Maria live in.  So in general the men are either dead, zombified, crazy, or rebellious teens and the women are old snooty traditional housewives, submissive widow, or a kid.

“Suspiria” 1977 men are to be enslaved and manipulated by the woman in power because the male doesn’t have power or money. The men that are side characters are either blind or poor or helpless student, or disfigure and cannot speak. There is no cliché in that there is a strong male protagonist to rescue the heroine. The witches have secret passage and booby traps to kill any intruders to hide their cult; the older women are almost all witches.  The witches here seem similar to religious cults with strange sculptures and ancient artifacts. The witches used others to do their evil bidding and to not dirtying their own hands but. The movie “I Marry a Witch” was interesting in that the female witch had chose to give up her power for a man and that the women are aggressive especially in the pursuit of love and the men, especially the main male protagonist is passive and meek enough to marry a shrew woman that he doesn’t love all for the sake of power. Overall, we, the audience, have to root for the child-like innocent heroine who won the man’s heart by harassing him and somewhat stalking him. Implying that women in love will lose any logic and ability of being independent.

mlee