Scene Analysis

    Women have an interesting role in the movie Beasts of the Southern Wild. The title itself has its own subtle insinuations towards the masculine beasts that rule the Bathtub. In several different scenes, by several different people, we get an insight into how women are viewed in the ill-fated world of Hushpuppy. First off, besides children, the only women in this movie are either a teacher (a rather feminine occupation) who believes the end of the world is coming or are fully absorbed in the "beast" life and drink rowdily with the men. There are no maternal, overly loving women present in the movie, save for one scene towards the very end. Throughout the movie, we see an overwhelming need in Hushpuppy to prove to her father that she is the man. She continually shows him typical boy behavior, to prove that she has what it takes to survive in beast mode and rule the Bathtub with him and his affections. Assuming that the other children have mothers, or did at one point, these women didn't do a good job in providing for a child's need to feel nurtured. As the children swim away from the Bathtub in an effort to find Hushpuppy's mom, it's an attempt to feel useful and maybe even a little bit feminine by taking care of the family.
    All her life, Hushpuppy has heard stories of her mom as being so beautiful and full of love, that she has this idea in her head of what all women are like: kind, gentle, supportive. But when she meets this woman we are not assured is her mother, she breaks all the ideals Hushpuppy holds. She tells her how it is, and how life isn't always happy and easy, and that it's easiest just to take care of yourself. Even if this woman isn't her mother, it does cover one thing: that women feel a natural protection over children and want to make them feel loved. As Hushpuppy and this woman dance, it highlights the bond between women and children that encourage them to do well by others, in this case, help her father. The song playing in the background as they dance keeps repeating "if that's not love, it'll have to do." Which I interpret to mean even if you don't know someone, or don't know how to help them, you have to give it the best you can to make them feel loved.
     Now I'm still not convinced that the movie would have progressed any differently had Hushpuppy had a decent mother. The Bathtub is an environment where the weak don't survive, like in the scene with Aurochs where eat their own dead, and it would destroy anyone that felt an overwhelming need to protect someone else. It's a fend for yourself type of place, as Hushpuppy showed us in the scene where she is cooking cat food with a blowtorch, and a mothers love could be seen as a hindrance to the mother, and the child, if they ended up weak. Maybe it would have made Hushpuppy incapable of living in the Bathtub, and she would have left, but that could have happened without the mom. She could have seen that her mother could not have survived in a place so harsh and unrelenting. But the dedication she feels to her father and his dying wish compelled her to stay and be strong.