by Stacey Osbeck

In the 80s, if a TV station acquired a film they showed it endlessly. So if you’d seen it once, you’d probably seen it a hundred times. This amount of repetition helped movies that already had memorable scenes and original lines to become utterly seared into the minds of the American public. Mommie Dearest (1981), in all its melodramatic glory, was one of the films to benefit from this.

Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway), after suffering a few divorces and several miscarriages, decides to adopt a baby girl, Christina (Mara Hobel, Diana Scarwid), whom she often refers to as Tina Darling. Years later she adopts a baby boy, Christopher. Based on Christina Crawford’s memoir of the same name, Mommie Dearest exposes the abuses, and, it seems mania, that went on behind the happy Hollywood family façade.

In the most famous scene we learn a rule of the household that it appears Christina forgot, but we never will: “No wire hangers, ever!” Joan Crawford enters her children’s room in the middle of the night with her face slathered in cold cream giving her a ghastly cast (not full on Heath Ledger Joker scary, but enough to remind one why so many fear clowns). Discovering her daughter’s beautiful pink frilly dress on a wire hanger, Joan goes bananas. After raging about the complete disrespect of putting such a beautiful thing on a cheap hanger, Joan proceeds to tear clothes from the closet, beat Christina with the wire hanger and then demand her daughter clean up the mess she created. 

As a kid, this was simply horrifying. My mother, at one point, offhandedly commented that she’d discussed it with her friends and nobody thinks it’s all that bad. Before I could let her know that she and her bridge club were monsters, she added something to the effect of “You kids have it easy, you might get a smack when you’re a smart mouth, my generation had it way worse.” Before psychologists came out in the 60s and 70s and said “Hey, it’s not a good plan to beat your kids because there’s this new thing called self-esteem that it may hurt,” kids all over America were getting the belt and being sent out into the woods to find their own switch. 

Watching this movie years later, I see Christina’s birthday party with a new perspective. Joan encourages Christina to play to the press cameras. Even if you don’t plan to follow in a parent’s footsteps, there’s nothing wrong with learning the family business young. No one would fault a carpenter or dry cleaner for such things but if you’re in a nontraditional business, say a Hollywood actress or even a crocodile hunter, priming your kids young is often frowned upon. A battle of wills over Christina finishing her steak doesn’t seem too harsh a lesson in gratitude, especially when the hunger of the Great Depression still lingered in recent memory. When it comes to hitting kids, even our beloved Norman Rockwell presented slice of life images depicting children being walloped with shoes or a switch, although his scenarios were clearly painted in a different light. Rewatching this film now through adult eyes, the most horrifying thing I’m realizing is—I’m turning into my mother. 

All kidding aside, and beyond allowances given for the time period and expected Hollywood bad behavior, some actions Joan Crawford took with her daughter are simply unforgivable. Catching young Christina at her vanity emulating her, triggers Joan to roughly chop off big fistfuls of her daughter’s hair. As a teenager, Christina is sent to an isolating boarding school where she’s not permitted any contact with the outside world: no TV, no mail and no phone calls. Even prisoners are entitled to a phone call. 

Probably the most deeply strange moment occurs when Christina is off on her own and an adult in her own right. Her famous mother tells her she has to break into acting on her own and won’t even help with food money. After struggling in New York and through numerous auditions, Christina finally lands a part on a daytime soap. In a bizarre twist, while she’s out of commission due to an ovarian tumor, her mother takes her role! Joan lobbied for the part instead of letting it go to a lookalike, even though the character was 24 and Joan was in her 60s. It seems Christina could have nothing of her own, not even a role she worked for, unless her mother allowed it. 

Back in the day their family was, in some ways, the Kardashians before the Kardashians. They invited the press into their home before reality TV existed: radio shows to wish America a merry Christmas and all the cameras at little Christina’s birthday party. Then there’s the Crawford Cs. Although the movie only depicts her having two kids, years after Christina and Christopher she later adopted Catherine and Cynthia. As an adult, Catherine would have two children, Carla and Casey. 

Catherine Crawford collaborated with author Charlotte Chandler to create a rebuttal Biography, Not the Girl Next Door. The librarian asked me about it when I checked it out. I said it’s the counterpoint to Mommie Dearest, but I’m wondering how good it can be. The first was juicy, with this, I mean, how much “My mom is actually great let me tell you all about it” can I get through? The librarian flipped it over and said “No, it must be good. Isabella Rossellini gave it a good review, see?” As I walked away, I wondered why would Isabella Rossellini have a blurb on the back of a book about Joan Crawford? Turns out Chandler wrote a biography on Rossellini’s mother and the quote was regarding that. The other bits of praise referenced the author’s books on Bette Davis and Hitchcock. Slick. Not a single blurb on the back cover was about the biography I held in my hand and that’s probably all you need to know about the book. 

Thinking on it, both daughters could be telling the truth, their truth. It’s completely believable that an overstressed mother with control issues adopts two babies, heads down a bad path with them and later wants to start fresh with another set. This time, hopefully getting it right. After all, it’s Hollywood. Be a good mother, have a loving family, take two, clap. 

No matter which side you take, no one can dispute the wording in Joan Crawford’s will. Although she left her two youngest daughters an inheritance, she excluded Christina and Christopher completely, “…for reasons which are well known to them.” 

A discussion of Mommie couldn’t be complete without mentioning some of the classic lines to come out of this film. My personal favorite, “I should have known you’d know where to find the boys and the booze,” is said to Christina with disdain, but I always deliver it with a wink. 

The three lines that follow nail particular situations, specific emotions, so precisely that nothing since has come close. The unbridled rage of “No wire hangers, ever!” hit number 72 on AFI’s 100 Greatest Movie Quotes of All Time. Some debate as to whether “This ain’t my first time at the rodeo,” was a small local colloquialism that Joan picked up from her Texas/ Oklahoma childhood. Regardless, MD is the first documented time this staple of the American lexicon is spoken. When Christina questions why her mother adopted her, a moment of truth follows. The larger than life movie star demands to know why her daughter can’t treat her like she would be treated by any stranger on the street. To which Christina iconically responds, “I am not one of your fans!” 

This points out Joan’s most overarching egregious sin toward Christina: I don’t believe she loved her. Nothing replaces love. Neither fandom nor obedience equals love. Though, on the surface, sometimes they have some of the same look. 

Witnessing Christina’s journey, seeing the workings of the old Hollywood system and trying to understand families gone bad has so much built-in intrigue that Mommie Dearest holds up over time and doesn’t lose much in the rewatching. I should know, I’ve probably seen it a hundred times.