Sister Aloysius in John Patrick Shanley's Doubt
Gender and Power Struggle in Oscar-Nominated Film
May 1, 2009
Cold-blooded and manipulative, Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) is a cookie-cutter stereotype of the heartless, vituperative old bat of a nun who haunts the Catholic school halls in Grim Reaper-esque fashion, terrifying both children and adults. After the youthful Sister James (Amy Adams) private confides to Sister Aloysius that she is a mite suspicious about the nature of Father Flynn's (Philip Seymour Hoffman) relationship with Donald Miller (Joseph Foster), the new and first black child to attend the school, Sister Aloysius mercilessly pursues Flynn's extrication from the school and parish, despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence of any wrongdoing by Flynn.
Although Doubt's writer and director John Patrick Shanley stated in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that Sister Aloysius's vindictive actions were merely suggestive of a mother-bear approach to caregiving ("That was a way of showing her love"), the film supplies enough evidence to show that they more accurately depict male anxieties about femininity and female agency. As Salon reviewer Stephanie Zacharek argues, Sister Aloysius "is designed to convey the [mistaken] idea that women in the church, circa the 1960s, were powerless and dangerous, while the men were entitled but confused, and probably mostly harmless."
More Monster than Woman—or Human
Sister Aloysius provides the complete antithesis to socially prescribed notions of femininity: She is tough as nails, self-serving, and unyielding. These stereotypically male traits at once negate her figurative identity as female and masculinize her (as does her name, Aloysius).
This gender flip-flopping also negates her identity as being fully human, for if she is neither woman nor man, she falls into an "other" category, arousing subliminal anxiety in the viewer. She signifies what film theorist Barbara Creed terms the "monstrous-feminine," seeking to devour with her agency and authority rather than nurture and provide. For example, during an initial scene that demonstrates her ravenous appetite for chastising students (which features her addressing a male student as "Boy!" à la Mrs. Bates in Psycho), Father Flynn muses, "The dragon is hungry."
In a February 15, 2009 Newsday article, Meryl Streep herself asserts how Sister Aloysius is as driven as the Jack Nicholson character in A Few Good Men to stand beside the professional choices she's made, but "because she's a woman," she comes across as being "scary and hideous."
How Doubt Doubts Sister Aloysius
Despite Shanley's claimed support for Sister Aloysius, his narrative practically rallies the audience to endorse Flynn's disposition and subsequently demonize Sister Aloysius. For one, Flynn is openhearted, playful, and contemplative where Sister Aloysius is unforgiving, draconian, and obstinate.
In addition, the fanatical manner in which Sister Aloysius engages in threatening Flynn's reputation and bullying him to the point where he finally resigns is in itself suspect. Her extremist views concerning other issues—such as labeling "Frosty the Snowman" a "heretical" song and technically declaring that no child can be trusted at face value—come off as outrageous and narratively serve to discredit her. Sister Aloysius's expression of these views often evokes a chuckle or two from surrounding characters, further damaging her believability to the audience.
Finally, there is a more-than-subtle suggestion that Sister Aloysius's frigidity and despotism are due in part to her sexual abstinence. Besides being obsessively fixated on Father Flynn's sexual behavior and very possibly his sexual orientation as well (never explicitly discussed in the film but subtextually questioned), Sister Aloysius possesses a curious disdain for open windows (which she immediately shuts) and ballpoint pens. While both are obvious symbols of the modernization that Sister Aloysius also rejects, they may be additionally indicative of her sexual anxieties.
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