Junghyun Hwang writes the following about Jonathan Demme’s 2004 version of The Manchurian Candidate:
Masculinity as the national symbolic continues to be imagined as threatened by the sexualized female other, as literally “invaded” and manipulated by Raymond’s demonic mother, Senator Eleanor Shaw (Meryl Streep). She is no longer just a puppeteer behind the scene but is amplified into a symbolic phallus of planetary proportions, now wielding political power herself and thereby threatening to castrate America’s sons. She is ultimately to blame for a putative crisis of national masculinity as evinced by absent fathers in both conservative and liberal traditions: Eleanor’s father, reminiscent of the masculine frontiersman, is dead, and so is her husband and Raymond’s liberal father, Senator Jordan (Jon Voigt). Senator Jordan, the good father in Frankenheimer’s version, is less impressive here and ultimately killed by Raymond. (p. 13 of 15)
Do you agree with Hwang that Eleanor Shaw is even more menacing in the 2004 version of The Manchurian Candidate than she is in the 1962 version? What does this suggest about post-Cold War/post-9/11 gender politics?
I do agree with this analysis. In my opinion, based off of previous readings that described the “overbearing, domineering mothers who
turned their sons and husbands into weak-kneed fools” , the change of Eleanor Shaw’s vehicle for power is not her husband, but her son. As a result of the suburban lifestyle, women were largely in charge of child-rearing. The psyche of any son, therefore, was entirely dependent on how the mother chose to raise him. What is more terrifying than a woman using her son to allow for her husband to become President is a brainwashed son murdering his rival for the sake of his mother. From the perspective of a threatened man, one could write off John Iselin as an inherently weak man, a fluke. But since Eleanor was in charge of Raymond’s behavior growing up, it presented the weakening of masculinity as an unavoidable result of female-led childrearing. This would trigger many more anxieties of the psychological makeup and lack of control that fathers had over their sons, while also reminiscent of the Oedipal complex, in which the “Oedipus” has intercourse with his mother and kills his father.
I really like this analysis. What struck me the most about Eleanor Shaw in the remake there is much sly. In the original, Eleanor was very commanding and dominating one hundred percent of the time, she was never terribly intimate with Raymond. I don’t think that’s really the case in this remake. Eleanor does seem particularly intimate with her son, particularly in the beginning. In the campaign hub too, she comes off as a genuinely nice person and patriot- and I would argue that even her political bullying seems to come from this place of patriotism. This makes her true character and interactions- such as lashing out throughout the film, all the more menacing. I wonder if this has to do with the increase in political power woman have seen since the original movie came out. There is certainly a small notion of women “taking over,” as Elanor has taken the seat of senator from her husband and acquired more political power than before. Either way, I like Eleanor as an antagonist much more in the remake than in the beginning.