Antagonizing Asian Mothers in Pop Culture Might Just Humanize Them

“For most of my childhood and adolescence, my mother was my antagonist,” Ling Ma writes in her 2018 science fiction novel “Severance.” The plot of which uses the main character Candace’s fraught relationship with her mother as the reason behind some of her ongoing troubles, like continuing on at a dead-end career that has left her disappointed and making questionable personal decisions. 

There is a micro trend in Asian American literature where immigrant mothers are the source of trauma. “The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan, one of the cornerstones of Asian American pop culture and literature, may have predicted this inclination for some Asian-authored media to antagonize mothers and showcase complex mother-child relationships in 1989, and this trope is still in effect today. While there is nothing wrong with narratives showing the unexpectedly flawed sides of mothers, why are these still popular today in some narratives?

Writer and musician Michelle Zauner’s “Crying in H Mart” explores a traumatic mother-daughter relationship and their reconnection when Zauner’s mother is diagnosed with cancer. Poet Ocean Vuong’s “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” recounts the speaker’s memories of growing up gay while raised by a mother dealing with her own PTSD. Largely interpreted as autofiction (but so much more than just that), Vuong’s work explores what it is like to take the blame for your mother’s trauma as well as for her to cause your own. While both of these works are important in showcasing how complicated familial relationships can be, pinning the blame on Asian immigrant mothers alone demonizes them in the context of Asian America.

As representations in Asian America grow in number and variety, there is more room to critique how we, in our multiple roles, are represented. We no longer have to be satisfied with being seen and heard as one-dimensional. Today, there are media where Asian immigrant mothers are not solely blamed and stories are told from their perspective, like “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” but we should consider why stories that antagonize them continue to proliferate. 

One reason Zauner and Vuong position the mothers in their stories as antagonists is because this frames the main character as American enough, in contrast to the mother.

The immigrant mother is positioned as everything the child cannot and does not want to be: traditional, lacking in empathy, and practical.

Asian Americans have long been considered perpetual foreigners, and making themselves seen as American may come at the expense of their mothers in these texts. This distancing from the mother and motherland’s values positions the child closer to Americanness, something that these writers feel that they must prove to have, to prove that their existence here is justified. 

Zauner even points out in “Crying in H Mart” that her mother had always told her to give up on her dreams of being a musician, but Zauner “as an American…felt entitled to it in spite of [her] mother’s aggrieved forewarnings.” Zauner thought she could achieve her American Dream while her mother had told her to be realistic and practical, which is the scrappy mindset many immigrants try to instill in their children for survival and reliable success. 

Since the immigrant mother is being positioned as traditional and backward, this in turn positions the immigrant child as progressive. This reinforces the old trope of Westernization being equivalent to forward-thinking and modern. Antagonizing the mother benefits the second-generation storyteller.

Both Zauner and Vuong are critically acclaimed writers whose novels are bestsellers, so what does it say about our cultures that we commonly read these stories in which mothers are antagonized? Perhaps it is the closeness that mothers allow themselves to express to their children, whether that is based on societal expectations or personal preference, that makes children feel entitled to showcase a mother’s experience, especially her duality. 

Historically, we expect less emotional expression from fathers and less closeness, which might be the reason we can openly criticize mothers. In “Crying in H Mart” and “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” readers can see the flaws in the mothers because they are described extensively, and no character or person is perfect, even though we societally expect mothers to be close to perfect. 

Mothers can cause trauma because they are some of the closest people to their children, the ones who affect them most. If fathers were under the same expectations mothers are, then maybe we’d find more representations criticizing them and showcasing their complexity as well. Maybe the general lack of involvement of fathers prevents the child’s relationship with them from getting too deep, too traumatic.

These pieces that are critical of mothers are still valid in their own right. Although there are instances where they give a fuller scope of the mothers, you have to pay attention to find those moments because they are rare. Asian Americans aren’t the only ones with complex mothers; take Greta Gerwig’s “Lady Bird,” Mark Waters’ “Freaky Friday,” Phyllida Lloyd’s “Mamma Mia,” “Brave,” Céline Sciamma’s “Petite Maman,” and Emma Seligman’s “Shiva Baby.” Although these are examples of films rather than books, having more varied media from different communities shows us the possibilities of what we can achieve with similar themes. 

A well-written woman character is a multifaceted one, and mothers are complex female characters, too. When we criticize mothers, it shows their humanity because we are giving them a chance to be more than a “perfect mother.” Maybe antagonizing mothers is — in a roundabout way — giving them the humanity and depth their characters were previously lacking. 

Showing that moms can be more than perfect selfless angels, that they can even be antagonists, might just give them the depth they deserve. Perhaps it is when we see multifaceted mothers on screen that we see reflected in reality, we are drawn to them. But it isn’t just direct relatability that draws us to characters; it is their ability to be recognized as human — beyond being just a mother — in their own characteristic way that makes us want to keep watching.

Cover credit: Douglas Lopez/Unsplash