Monster-in-Law Bechdel Test Results by Wes Huntington

Monster-in-Law stars Jennifer Lopez and Jane Fonda, in one of the funniest comedies of the early 2000s.   Lopez stars as Charlie (short for Charlotte), a woman who apparently has a lot of jobs such as a dog walker and spots a handsome man while reading her horoscope on the beach.  He later runs into her on several occasions after that, and then finally reveals his name to be Dr. Kevin Fields (Michael Vartan), a surgeon who has moved back to Los Angeles from San Francisco.   Unfortunately things turn for the worse when Kevin introduces Charlie to his mother, Viola (Fonda), who has recently been fired off her own television show and is in the midst of a nervous breakdown.    It gets worse when Kevin proposes to Charlie in front of his mother.   What ensues is a hilarious tug-of-war of love and letting go.  

So, the $64,000 question is: does it pass the test?  After much deliberation, yes it does.   In addition to having the overall theme of love for Kevin from both Viola (as his mother) and Charlie (as his fiancée), there is a second theme and that is the theme of letting go.   The letting go subplot stems from Viola, as she has deemed that Charlie isn't the right girl for her son, but eventually lets go when she realizes that they didn't need her approval to marry each other.  There are two significant female roles in Viola and Charlie, and they are polar opposites when they have their cat fights over the entire relationship (like the hilarious example of Viola trying to incapacitate Charlie when she slips chopped almonds in the gravy, which blow up Charlie’s lips before the wedding day).  They do talk to each other on occasion, albeit awkwardly at points (and tensions rise), but eventually they come to an understanding when Viola's ex-mother-in-law Gertrude (Elaine Stritch) gives her approval of Charlie and when they both realize that the arguments Gertrude had with Viola would happen to both Viola and Charlie in thirty years.   In addition to talking about Kevin for most of the film, they do talk and eventually argue over details of the upcoming wedding, such as the wedding book.  For example, Viola brings her a peach colored one, when normally for weddings they are white.   Finally, is the film a feminist film?  No it is not, in my opinion.  Instead it basically follows the gender roles of both men and women: women falling in love with a man, having to deal with potential hostile in-laws (who are probably not ready to see their son/daughter getting married), and getting married to the man.