Here's Why "Psycho" is the Ultimate Mother's Day Movie

Anthony Perkins in Psycho

*NOTE: Originally published on Readwave. 

"A boy's best friend is his mother."

(NOTE: Spoilers for the 1960 film Psycho to follow)

When you think of Mother's Day, there are ideas of honoring the woman who gave birth to you. The one who raised you into the upright citizen that you are today. You'd be nothing without her. So when posed with the question "What is the ultimate movie to honor this holiday?," you are met with resounding confusion. Few films honor mother for what she has done to you. There are the great moms and then there's Mommie Dearest. Still, this holiday isn't meant for the mothers in our lives to show why they're audacious heroes. It is for us to pay our respects in any way possible. That is why I am bringing forward the theory that Psycho is the ultimate Mother's Day movie.

This idea may sound ill-conceived, but it makes perfect sense once you dissect the Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece. Much like the film's structure, the realization isn't immediate. In fact, it takes until 27 minutes for things to click when Marion (Janet Leigh), fresh off of stealing $40,000, stops into the Bates Motel and meets Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). Over the next 10 minutes prior to her grizzly death, we learn about Norman, including the immortal line "A boy's best friend is his mother." From there, it becomes an affair involving multiple deaths, presumably by Mother Bates while her son protects her identity by hiding her (an "invalid" of sorts) in his childhood home overlooking the motel.

To sum up the rest, Norman eventually gets found out by investigator Sam Loomis (John Gavin) and is inducted into a mental institution. In one of cinema's most phenomenal conclusions, it is revealed that Mother and Norman are the same essentially. Norman killed his clingy mother when she found a new lover and grew jealous.Afterwards, he took on her identity in order to wash away the guilt. So why did he kill Marion, who was unsuspecting in this "crime of passion, not profit"? Norman's fondness for nobody other than his mother killed Marion when he felt lust towards her. 

This may sound sick, pejorative anti-Mother's Day, but that is to look at the film unsympathetically. Should Norman have been locked up? Yes. However, the very idea of a mother figure is to have someone to emulate and look up to. Someone who raises you and influences your beliefs and interests. While majority of mothers in cinematic history only influence on a surface level, Norman is the quintessential son who loves his mother. Maybe a little too much, but most people have ridiculous relationships with our mother. Norman loves her so much that he tended to her corpse post-mortem. Even in death, her influence continues to inspire her son.

So before you judge, ask yourself how much you love your mother. Do you care for her in sickness and feel deep regret when you let her down? Would you defend her honor and keep her out of harm's way? 

There are many ways to go about this. Maybe Norman was too neurotic, but that was from a close connection to a mother who raised her son alone after Father Bates died (one of few here not done by murder). Despite never getting substantial screen time, Mother Bates through every conversation piece is a selfless woman. Maybe her son was a little oedipal, but he protected the Bates namesake by keeping their motel inconspicuous from any potential crime by keeping it off the books. He was about family legacy.

This all seems a little ludicrous, but consider the film's structure. It subverts expectations. Marion starts off our protagonist but it quickly focuses on Norman as the antagonist. Director Alfred Hitchcock had some ulterior motives to get us immersed in Norman the taxidermist's psychology. There is a reason that the last voice we hear is that of Mother Bates. This is quintessentially a perverse butterfly effect in which the mother's one mistake snowballed into Norman's eventual state.

Mother's Day is about loving mother, and few films feel like they do as well without pandering as Psycho does. Maybe it is a little unhealthy, but what is exhibited here is an extreme case of obsession and love. Try and focus on these concepts next time you watch the film and maybe they will all click. At worst, you'll just get a really great murder mystery flick out of the deal.