The original post: /r/television by /u/P15T0L_WH1PP3D on 2024-05-30 17:53:21.
I’m finishing up Fresh Off the Boat and one thing I’ve noticed is how much worse the character of Jessica Huang has become. She’s invasive, self-centered, self-righteous, a bully, and episode after episode she “learns” of how being awful is hurtful to everyone she cares about, and acts like she’s going to change. But then she is just as awful or even more so in the very next episode.
I am reminded of The Goldbergs, in which the mother Beverly is an equally awful “smother” stuck in the same loop of being toxic, pretending to learn, then getting worse.
This is probably flanderization, because early in these shows the character traits of “out of control needy and sorta loopy mother” is something that can be humorous or lend itself to the plot. Then writers get kind of lazy or something else causes this trait to be magnified and repeated.
I don’t want to discuss flanderization in general, though. I’m curious about this very specific aspect of writing mother characters like Jessica Huang and Beverly Goldberg. There are other instances where a mother may have briefly been like this, but actually, ya know, GROWN from the experiences. Thinking specifically of The Middle and Malcolm in the Middle. Those moms arguably got better, or at least didn’t get worse to the point that they could compare to Beverly or Jessica.
What other TV moms or similar characters are like this?