The Babadook puts a children’s book at its center, all but asking viewers to compare the movie to folk tales, fairy tales, and darker kinds of children’s stories. What is one particular way that you think the movie borrows from archtypal stories about parents, children, magic and monsters? I attached a few nineteenth-century versions of familiar fairy tales to the syllabus. Reading those might give you a place to start.
13 thoughts on “The Babadook”
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I think the BabaDook take from children’s stories is when Amelia asked Samuel if he was scribbling the family photos and he was saying no it wasn’t me I didn’t do it. and the mother didn’t believe him because she thought it was all his imagination. In many children’s books, the kids would always have silly imaginary friends. But in the movie, the BabaDook the imaginary friend was taken more seriously because the mother was afraid of the monster too just like the kid. just like in children’s books, this imaginary friend attaches to the kid but after it attaches itself to Amelia which makes her more hateful of her son Samuel.
The Babadook provided a particularly intriguing cinematic experience as it seems to diverge from both the films we have viewed in class and conventional norms of horror. Rather than its horror being grounded in external, often physical threats, the Babadook roots itself in the emotional states of Amelia and her young son Samuel. In doing so, the film strategically intertwines elements of a traditional fairytale, creating a narrative lens through which family dynamics and psychological horror are explored. In many ways, the film draws inspiration from archetypal fairytales such as Grimm’s Rapunzel and Snow White. Similar to Rapunzel being locked away in a tower of isolation, Amelia and Samuel are stuck in a cocoon of grief and trauma. Additionally, much like the villain in Rapunzel, the Babadook clearly acts as a metaphorical embodiment of suppressed emotions, haunting the mother and son in the confines of their own home. This confinement transcends the physical threats of traditional horror stories, delving into the psychological realm where the true horror unfolds. Moreover, references to Snow White can be seen in Babadook; in both stories, the maternal relationship is central. Amelia’s emotional landscape is marked by grief and the lingering trauma of losing her husband in a tragic accident the day she also gave birth to her son. The weight of this grief becomes a pervasive force in her life, inhibiting her ability to connect with her son and distorting her perception of him. In some ways, Amelia’s emotional turmoil seems akin to the envy and jealousy the evil queen harbors in Snow White. The queen’s resentment towards Snow White’s beauty and innocence manifests in destructive actions just as Amelia’s unresolved grief and trauma results in her extremely strained relationship with Samuel. Overall, I think this referencing of classic fairytales enables the film to tap into our collective human psyche and cultural symbolism, producing a more profound impact and successfully prompting viewers to examine timeless themes of grief and fear, parent-child relationships, and resilience/transformation.
The Babadook borrows a few classical fairy tale archetypes in the development of its narrative. The two that stand out to me the most is the impact of bad parental figures and how fear creates monsters. In the Babadook, the mother is absuive to her son resulting in his extreme behavior. The Babadook could also be interpreted as being drawn to the family because of the mother’s fear and hatred. This paralells the story of snow white where Snow White’s mother forces her daughter into hiding and an eventual coma over fear and jealousy of her looks.
I believe all three elements are drawn from the movie. The inclusion of magic is not merely referenced through the paranormal occurrences in the house but is also vividly portrayed in Sam’s fascination with it, evident in several scenes throughout the film. Upon closer examination, it also becomes evident that the monster is adorned in the attire of the archetypical magician. — long hat, long cap, etc. The common trope of spooky bedtime stories for children is taken further as the narrative unfolds, leading to the actual manifestation of the story’s monster, exemplified by the appearance of the Babadook in this instance. The mother’s reluctance to believe her son stems from an unspoken disparity in maturity that often hinders adults from taking their children seriously. However, in the context of the horror theme of the movie, the narrative hints at overcoming this specific barrier, where the mother has no other choice than to believe her son.
The Babadook borrows many archetypal stories about children and their parents. The film follows a mother, who is clearly struggling with grief, and her son, Samuel, a fascinating character. As many others have stated, there is a trope where a parent seems dismissive or unloving towards their child for some reason, and the child is trying to gain the mother’s attention and figure out why she is acting the way she is. Somewhat similar to the Snow White fairytale, the mother is constantly struggling to love her child, like the queen, jealous of their children’s existence. However, while in snow white jealousy and beauty are the themes played within the story, the story of the babadook itself is definitely one of motherhood, grief, and jealousy. The ending of the film is a happier ending than the fairytales that we are familiar with, where the mother finally becomes conscious of her emotions, with the help of her child, and learns to live with her grief (the babadook).
Rowan Safley
As mentioned above, The Babadook puts the adult in the antagonistic role and the child in the protagonist’s. It also notably changes from the beginning in which Samuel is wild into the second half in which Amelia becomes haunted when they find the first Babadook book. This marks the change from the conventions of a horror movie in the tradition of The Exorcist into the fairy tale that characterizes much of the film.
The Babadook builds on the archetypal fairy tale as it functions as an allegorical story. While the world that is created for us is magical, it is also realistic and the magic is understood as the pain of grief. Fairy tales traditionally acted as precautionary tales relating closely to the real world, they are guides for people to live their lives. One factor that I was most fascinated by is the contribution of the Babadook to the modern tradition of fairy tales including those of Angela Carter. While fairy tales traditionally end in a rather black and white message, where the villain is usually destroyed in a gruesome fashion, it has become more popular for contemporary tales to play with these messages and provide more realistic endings. Amelia cannot destroy her grief, it will always be there, however, she can gain power over it. The Babadook is not necessarily an evil presence but rather a complex human emotion that is difficult to grapple with. In the final scene when she we discover that she will feed the Babadook and keep it in the basement, I was immediately reminded of other modern adaptations such as The Tiger’s Bride.
As mentioned in other comments, The Babadook reflects the basic archetypes of fairy tales particularly in the role of a child protagonist and a sour relationship between the child and their parent. Though the film includes a supernatural form of evil as the antagonist, the Babadook, it does ultimately seem to be just an embodiment of Amelia’s troubled mind and negative thoughts towards her son and situation. This situation is also a possible reference to the common trope of the death of a parent that launches the rest of the story. It then becomes the child’s journey to overcome the difficulties presented by their parenting or lack thereof.
While The Babadook approaches and explores grief in a new way, the movie borrows from longtime archtypal stories to build its emotional backing. Many of these archtypal stories can be found in old fairytales, perhaps even originating from them. Two instances of these parallels to fairytales stood out to me, are from Babadook to Rumpelstiltskin and Snow White. While culminating in different ways, both the Evil Queen in Snow White and the mother in The Babadook hold extreme resentment for their children. The Evil Queen resents Snow White for her beauty, while the mother resents Sam really for his existence/life (instead of her husbands). In their eyes, Snow White and Sam took the thing they valued most, the crown of being the most beautiful in all the land, and Amelia’s husband. This resentment is the driving force behind their evil acts, escalating over time as they try to punish their children, no punishment ever seemingly enough to make up for their loss, except for the death of the child. The other parallel I notice is that there exists an obsession with child “ownership”. The Babadook beckons the mother Amelia to give Sam to her, just as Rumpelstiltskin desires vehemently to own the child. Throughout the film, it seems that the biggest desire of the babadook (other than to terrify Amelia, Sam, and the audience alike), is to have Sam.
One way in which I think The Babadook borrows from archetypal fairytale stories is putting the child in the role of protagonist and adult in the form of antagonist. By the end of the film Amelia is possessed by the monster and serves as the threat to Samuel. He must both try and evade her and find a way to save her. Although Samual is a young boy this responsibility falls on him, similar to other folk tales and fairy tales. Stories that are similar to this like Hansel and Gretel in particular come to mind but many other fairytales have young protagonists at the center of their stories. Typical it is the child in which the monster or antagonist is obsessed with or the child who is the only one who can see or understand the monster at first.
I agree with everyone else who has replied to the discussion in that The Babadook borrows the use of children as central characters and/or focal points for a moving plot in fairy tales. One specific similarity that piqued my interest is the disdain of children held by the parental figures in the film and in Little Snow-White. I think it goes without saying that the mother in The Babadook, in the beginning of the movie, hates her child. At one point in the movie, she tells her son that she wished he died on the day he was born rather than his father. The theme of hatred towards a child’s existence has previously been seen in the wicked woman in Grimm’s Little Snow-White. In this fairy tale, the woman hates her step-daughter for being “a thousand times fairer” than her. Although both of these parental figures have completely different reasons as to why they view their children in a negative light, the children at the end of the day are left in similar situations. They are forcefully placed in adult situations and experience a loss of innocence — Snow-White’s loss of innocence being her escape to the forest and Samuel’s being his realization that his mother may not like him.
I agree with Jess that there is some sort of strange obsession with children in these stories, and the Babadook is no exception. I think a story like the Ungrateful Son is an anecdotal warning against the danger of greed that uses a fantastical and abstract punishment to condemn the son’s choice to hide his chicken, and while strange, it is straightforward. The character of the Babadook, to me, seemed like a male predator, possibly representing a pedophile, and the caution of the book is to never let them into your parents house. However, that doesn’t make much sense because it is the Babadook that brings the book and again brings it back when it is thrown out. Maybe this is to peak a child’s curiosity, but it feels counterintuitive to the aim of the Babadook to give such an advanced warning. The other aspect of this movie that makes no sense to me is why she keeps it in the basement after it is ‘defeated.’ Over all, this movie was very confusing and definitely had strange sexual undertones, but was enjoyable nonetheless.
A notable aspect in many 19th-century dark fairy tales is their obsession with the ownership of children and the profound tragedy associated with their loss. This thematic trend is exemplified in stories such as Rumplestiltskin and Rapunzel, in which the “evil” witch or entity compels affluent families (often of royal stature) to give their child as punishment for their misdeeds (being greedy with marital status, stealing flowers from the witch’s garden, etc). Similarly, the Babadook exhibits a strange fascination with “owning” Sam, with whom he first torments. This peculiar fixation might be rooted in the Babadook’s response to Amelia’s resentment and disdain for her son, prompting the entity to exploit their twisted relationship in an endeavor to snatch Sam away. In fact, it can be argued that the Babadook possesses Amelia in order to get a hold of Sam, seeing that the Babadook had thus far been unsuccessful in directly tormenting the boy. The evil entity even goes as far as to use Amelia’s dead husband to convince her to give over Sam and offers her a deal, where she can get Oscar back if she “brings the boy.” Thus showing that the Babadook ran parallel to other 19th-century fairy tales in its obsession with taking innocent children as as a form of punitive retribution.