‘Mission Impossible’: Motherhood (Studies) and Hollywood Film

This article is composed of three parts. The first part surveys the development of motherhood studies by looking into such major maternal theorists as Adrienne Rich, Sara Ruddick, Julia Kristeva, bell hooks, and Patricia Hill Collins. The second part examines the four categories of maternal representations in Hollywood cinema which, as an ideological apparatus, has served the maintenance of the status quo. The four categories are: the sacrificial mother; the archaic mother; motherhood as affect; and maternal ambivalence. The last part analyzes Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) as portrayed in Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), winner of seven Academy Awards packed with exhilarating visual effects. Evelyn, Chinese American laundromat owner unhappy with her marriage, her daughter, and her business, saves the multiverse and reconciles with her daughter. Evelyn’s incredible feat as a supermother, along with the latest trend of Hollywood film featuring a sexy mother with lethal physical skills, evinces the ‘mission impossible’ of contemporary motherhood: a popular fantasy, as well as an oppressive ideology, for the Ideal mother.