The film The Magdalene Sisters and Patricia Burke Brogan’s Eclipsed both provide an overwhelming
account of the Magdalene Laundries in the 1960’s through fictionalized inside
accounts. Eclipsed exposes the
traumatic result of years of emotional and psychological abuse on the women at
the Magdalene Laundries, while the film The
Magdalene Sisters provides an equally overwhelming and disturbing account
of the institutions by focusing on the blatant abuses done to the incarcerated women.
The film provides an archetypical history of the laundries through the three
main characters: Bernadette (temptress), Rose/Patricia (child out of wedlock),
and Margaret (victim of sexual assault); whereas all the women in Eclipsed were incarcerated due to
pregnancy (although not all of them carried their pregnancy to term).
The film focuses on the visual
abuses rendered by these institutions: physical, verbal, emotional, and
psychological. The institution represented in the film is highly regulated and
any disobedience is followed with extreme consequences. The punishments are so
extreme that it begs the question of whether or not this is an accurate representation
of the Laundries. The scene in which all the women are lined up in a row, naked
and facing the nuns provides a provocative account of the abuses: the nuns made
up cruel nicknames that poked fun at the imperfections of the women’s bodies,
as well as forcing the women to perform tasks that “amused” the nuns, such as
running in place. The major trope in this scene is women exerting power over
other women. This sexual, verbal and inarguably emotional abuse is visually
exposed throughout this entire film, causing an uncomfortable situation for the
audience that evokes anger over the injustices towards the women, and a sense
of helplessness. This is a more shocking representation of the Laundries,
designed to spark conversation and perhaps reparations over these controversial
institutions.
By contrast, the play focuses
more on the personal reactions to being incarcerated and the emotional abuse
from the Mother Superior. The women smoke, converse, play dress up and can
afford to have these luxuries in the play, due to the Sister Virginia’s
character as a sympathetic superior. The twisted reality of the Laundries is
revealed through the character’s psychological distress and unraveling. The
characters slowly begin to crack under the stress, sending one woman to her
death and the others into a spiraling despair. The effect on the audience is
equally overwhelming, watching the psyches of these young girls be abused and
break under the unjust conditions. There are a few scenes in which verbal,
emotional abuse is present, especially the scene of Mother Victoria chastising
Sister Virginia for trying to contact His Holiness without consulting her. This
trope of women exerting power over other women is seen through most of the
interactions with Mother Victoria. This emphasizes the complicated history that
the Laundries had with the Catholic Church: there is a strict hierarchy of
those among the church, and abuse of power is seen in all the power dynamics
along the hierarchy.
Both these pieces reveal
the emotional impact of the Magdalene Laundries. The film inspires a more
controversial and violent representation that expose the human spectrum of the
women (both good and bad). The women, unjustly incarcerated, are shown to lie,
steal, and threaten to find their way out of the institution. By contrast it is
the sympathy of Sister Virginia in Eclipsed
that allows for the escape of the distressed women, a much less violent ending.
The film is more effective in stirring up controversy by providing the
archetypical women at the beginning. The audience is introduced to three women:
Bernadette (temptress), Margaret (victim of sexual assault), and Rose/Patricia
(child out of wedlock). By introducing Bernadette and Margaret first, the two
least guilty women, the effect is one of powerful injustice against the system.
The control over women’s sexuality is magnified by Bernadette’s character;
Bernadette only flirted with boys, never having engaged sexually with anyone
before, yet she was still incarcerated. Margaret, a victim of sexual assault,
is also taken away to the Laundries. The silent scene, in which the information
about Margaret’s rape is passed from person to person until it reaches the priest,
emphasizes the theme of controlling women’s bodies. Margaret’s mother does not
stand up for her daughter, or even speak to anyone in this scene, instead it is
left up to the men to decide Margaret’s fate. She is not even offered help for
the traumatic sexual assault, but instead sent to the Laundries to pay for her
sin of having a sexual act done to her.
This need to control women’s bodies and their sexuality is a major trope in
these two pieces.
The film explicitly applies
anger to the injustice of incarceration better than Eclipsed because of the use of archetypical characters to represent
the spectrum of women who were oppressed by the Magdalene Laundries. However,
in the play it is implied that at least one of the characters, Nellie-Nora, was
forced into sexual contact, with Mr. Persse, exclaiming that she would not wear
lipstick because “He-He-made me wear lipstick…He-He-in the room- No!...Before
he-hurt me,” (p.37). Besides Nellie-Nora, the spectrum of women is limited to
those who either were pregnant, or had a child out of wedlock. The play,
however, provides a better critique of the role of men in the lives of women.
The characters question the role the men played and the responsibility of the
men who put them in the institution: Brigit desperate to see her children and
be a mother to them, all the while questioning her relationship to John-Joe,
Nellie-Nora trying to cope with her sexual assault, and Mandy fabricating a
relationship with Elvis to forget about Richard who left her in this
institution. In a fit of anger, Brigit says, “Why aren’t our lover-boys locked
up too? One law for them and another for us!” (p.38). In this way, the issue of
the role of men is explicitly called
to attention and focused on in the play. In the film Magdalene Sisters the injustice against women by men and by other
women is magnified and emphasized, but the role that the men played is not
directly discussed.
Overall, the effect of
reading and watching both of these pieces provides a rounded experience of the
women at the Magdalene Laundries. The film explores harsher environments, more
visual abuse, while the play explores the moral implications for men and the
effects of the traumatic events at the Laundries on the women’s psyches. Themes of violence towards women by women
emphasize the horrific nature of these institutions and provide a way to
understand the events that took place at the Laundries. The combination of
these pieces provides a view of the spectrum of women at these institutions and
degrees of punishments and abuses for those who break the rules. The pieces
help to document the grievances of the women who suffered in these unjust
systems and help spread awareness about the Magdalene Laundries.
~Avry Schellenbach
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