[Mother of Fears] Striving for Perfection in M3GAN (2022)

Welcome to Mother of Fears – a monthly column that will explore the various roles that mothers play within the horror genre. Mothers are a staple feature in horror movies, and yet, their stories, motivations, representations, and relationships with their children are so varied and complex that we never feel like we’re watching the same story twice. Every month I will take a look at a different mother from the world of horror, explore their story, and look at how they fit into the broader representation of women in horror.

Motherhood isn’t always a choice. And for Gemma, that’s most definitely the case when she suddenly finds herself the sole carer of her young niece Cady in M3GAN (2022). After Cady’s parents die in a car accident, Cady is alone. Her aunt Gemma is the first choice as a carer, and so she finds her life drastically changed overnight. 

Obviously, this time is incredibly hard for Cady as she loses her parents and her life is uprooted over the course of a couple of days, but Gemma’s position is also incredibly difficult too as she has to deal with the grief of losing her sister and brother-in-law while trying to stay strong for her niece. 

M3GAN focuses on the story of Cady and her robot companion, the titular M3GAN, but Gemma’s character allows us a glimpse into the complicated feelings which come along with motherhood. 

As is typical in horror movies, the social worker, Lydia, turns up and couldn’t be less understanding of Gemma’s position. Gemma works in robotics and her house is full of retro robot collectables. However, even though she relays this information to Cady in a gentle and understanding way, it leads to guilt and judgement from Lydia. It may seem trivial, but it’s just another thing that Gemma has to instantly change to suit her new life. She apparently cannot have anything that is just her own anymore now that Cady is in her life.

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And under Lydia’s scrutiny, Gemma seems unable to defend herself or explain that while her belongings may look like toys, they are special to her and she doesn’t want them to get wasted. If they were regular-looking ornaments, there would be no discussion. Still, because they are deemed as toys and therefore belonging to children, Gemma is expected to hand them over to Cady without any complaint. 

Gemma is also portrayed as a terrible parent because she is a workaholic. She has no doubt had to work very hard in her career to rise through the ranks and be in charge of creating the latest toys for a robotics company. Up until this point, she’s had no reason not to work the way she does, and just because Cady has suddenly shown up it doesn’t mean that she can suddenly change her whole lifestyle. How many years of hard work would suddenly be washed away if she was to take a step back from her career in this way?

It’s a conundrum that faces working mothers the world over, and the apparent inability for women to ‘have it all’ where men don’t seem to have to worry about this. And of course, Gemma is expected to pick caring for a child as her priority. She isn’t even allowed an adequate transition period, she’s just supposed to flip a switch in her head and be alright with her life getting turned upside down. 

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And Gemma didn’t even choose to have a child or have the typical time of pregnancy or adoption to think about how her life will change or how she will have to adapt in order to slot Cady into her life. 

The pressure from work doesn’t disappear either. While her teammates tell her she needs to take more time off and grieve her sister, her boss, David, is insistent that she needs to meet her latest deadline and rework their best-selling toy. Gemma was already under pressure before Cady showed up, but now she has even more to worry about. 

And so, she decides to try and combine all her problems and come up with a neat solution which will make everything in her and Cady’s life a little easier. Gemma decides to ditch the project which David has requested her to work on, and goes back to finishing her prototype for M3GAN instead. M3GAN is a life-sized android powered by AI which is designed to be a child’s best friend and keep them safe at all times. 

For Gemma, this is her life’s work and her chance to show off her real skills. She also thinks it will make the company she works for even more successful than the cheaper version of a previous creation she is being asked to work on. Finally, she wants to give Cady a little more stability in her life and a friend that can look after her. 

Gemma isn’t trying to shove all of her parental responsibility off onto M3GAN, which is what a lot of people who surround her seem to think. The truth is, Gemma doesn’t know what to do in this situation, and many people wouldn’t. And so, she turns to the thing she knows best and the thing she can completely control - robotics. M3GAN isn’t designed to be a replacement for a mother’s love, but she is designed to fill in the gaps for Cady. 

With no friends, and the obvious difficulties of bonding immediately with Gemma, M3GAN seems like the perfect solution. She immediately pairs with Cady, remembers everything Cady tells her even if it doesn’t seem important, and adapts the more time she spends with her meaning M3GAN quickly turns into the perfect friend. 

Gemma also uses M3GAN to her advantage, using the robot pal as a reminder of the things that kids need to be told 100 times a day. Watching this movie in the cinema, I laughed out loud at the number of times Cady has to be reminded to flush the toilet or use a coaster because I find myself on a constant repeat cycle of similar instructions to my own seven-year-old. From a parent, these reminders are seen as nagging, but from M3GAN, it’s merely a friendly reminder, which leads to Cady changing her behaviour without any fallouts involved. 

Gemma does get a little judgement from her coworkers for using M3GAN for this type of task, but I assure you that anyone who has a child would do the same in a heartbeat. It quickly gets to the point where you get sick of your own voice and hearing yourself repeat “Did you wash your hands?”, “Did you brush your teeth?”, or “Can you put that in the bin, please?” It can only be described as a slow form of torture to have to say these things on repeat every single day only to be met with a tut or a lie, and then seemingly have them never listen to you as the cycle begins again. 

Gemma wants to ensure that Cady does as she asks, but she doesn’t want to fall out with her over it. M3GAN acts as a great buffer between the pair in this respect. She also ensures that Cady never misses out on anything she needs throughout the day. Gemma recognises that her life is hectic and her schedule is unpredictable. With M3GAN, she tries to make sure that even though this is the case, it never really affects Cady. M3GAN is there to read bedtime stories and watch over her if she has a nightmare. It’s not the perfect solution, but Gemma is trying her best and trying to find something which will slot into their lives and make them both as happy as they can be given the current circumstances. 

Of course, this is a horror movie, and M3GAN turns out to be a little too murdery to be the perfect caregiver for Cady, but this article is about Gemma and her journey as a mother. At the beginning of the movie, Gemma’s career was all that she cared about. She used her robotics knowledge to allow Cady to slip into her life with as little disruption to her status quo as possible, while still ensuring that Cady was cared for. 

However, as M3GAN’s true nature becomes apparent, Gemma’s only thoughts are keeping Cady safe. She immediately requests that M3GAN be shut down and walks out of the prestigious industry launch event to take Cady home, even though it will surely have a terrible effect on her career. 

Because even though she is painted as a career-focused woman, she is not a robot when it comes to feelings. Obviously, she cares for Cady deeply, but it’s clear that she had no idea how to handle this situation which no one would be able to properly prepare for. But the minute she sees that M3GAN isn’t providing the care and protection that she’s supposed to, Gemma steps in and shows that her main priority is and always has been looking after Cady. 

Working together on M3GAN allowed the two to bond, because Cady is very interested in her auntie and what she does for a living. We see this a little at the start of the movie when Gemma introduces her niece to one of her earliest robots, Bruce. Speaking about a topic she loves allows Gemma to feel comfortable and let her guard down, and this in turn puts Cady at ease. 

While it’s not the ideal situation to solidify their relationship, defeating M3GAN together at the end and taking turns to protect each other shows how deeply aunt and niece care for each other. And with M3GAN out of the way (until the sequel at least), both Gemma and Cady will hopefully have a little more room in their life for each other going forward.

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