Moms have always had a strong presence in animated movies, and Pixar is no exception.
In celebration of Mothers Day, we decided that it would be a good idea to determine
which mom from this beloved studio is truly the most good.
I'm Brad with WickedBinge and this is Pixar Moms: Good to Most Good.
For this list, we’ll be ranking based on the relationship between these mothers and
their children.
Moms that perform heroics will gain a higher ranking and those that aren’t much of an
influence in the protagonist’s story or were part of the major conflict will gain
a lower spot.
We’ll be starting with the least good and working our way down...
Starting off as our least good mother we have Renata Linguini.
Since by the time the events of Ratatouille are taking place she's already passed on,
we felt it didn't make much sense to place her higher on the list.
But she still deserves a mention since it was her letters that got her son a job at
Gusteau's and revealed that Linguini was the chef's son and heir to Gusteau's culinary
empire.
It was clear that Renata had been concerned about how her son would succeed when she passed
on, and wanted to ensure he had a place he could turn to.
After all, Linguini himself expressed to Remi that he had been fired from basically every
job he ever had.
But Renata had been confident that her son could at least make it as a garbage boy in
his father's restaurant.
Next on our list is Miguel's mother from Coco, Luisa Rivera.
Like much of the family, she tried to talk to Miguel about following the family and joining
the business.
She was seen scolding Miguel about not listening to the family rules and was not initially
supportive of the idea of Miguel hiding his love of music from the family.
Following Luisa is another mother figure from Coco: Elena Rivera.
Addressed as Abuelita during the movie, she was the main force that ensured the family
stuck with the rule of no music that she herself had been raised with.
She was incredibly strict but also very loving and protective.
After all, there's few people that can brandish a sandal at a man and have him back away in
fear while at the same time cooing over the innocence of her grandson.
The reason we place her lower on this list is because of her overreaction when discovering
Miguel's collection of Ernesto's music and merchandise.
Seeing her smash that guitar into pieces was hard to watch, but we know that she thought
it was coming from a good place.
After all, family was the foundation she based her life off of.
She had grown up with stories of a man who abandoned her own mother to be a musician
and didn't want to see more heartbreak occur.
But we aren't going to rank her as someone evil because she was touched seeing Miguel
reach through to Mama Coco in his own way.
And having Coco have some recognition of her surroundings again was enough to get Elana
to see that music didn't have to be something that split the family apart.
It could also bring them together.
Next, from A Bug's Life, we have The Queen.
Mother to Princess Atta and Dot, she's fairly laid back considering her status in the colony.
She was a glass-half-full type, and often tried to give her daughter Atta some peace
of mind when it came to the heir training to take over.
The Queen only had one moment where she displayed any sort of anger towards another and that
was when it was exposed that Flick had been lying about the so-called warriors they had
been counting on.
She made it clear that she didn't see the colony as a gathering of servants under her
command.
She saw them as a family that had to work together to keep Hopper from destroying what
little way of life they still persevered.
Next we have Arlo's mother from The Good Dinosaur, Mama Ida.
Some could argue that she didn't have as much influence as her late husband, but we have
to disagree.
She also believed in a life of hard work with everyone pitching in their fair share and
praised her kids when they went above and beyond.
When she lost her husband to a mudslide, she stepped up to try and support the farm as
much as she could, clearly working herself into the ground.
Though Arlo had blamed himself for his father's passing, Ida was never shown to be cold or
distant from her son.
Instead she made it clear that she was proud he was trying to take on more tasks to make
sure the family would make it through the winter.
When Arlo returned, Ida was the first to see him and celebrate his return before insisting
he place his mark with the rest of the family.
Taking our next spot is Riley's mom, Jill Anderson.
Since Inside Out was mainly from Riley's perspective and the emotions she held, we simply know
her as Mom for the story.
But we do get an insight as to how Jill thinks of her daughter and husband.
Jill is a patient woman who is rarely ever angered.
Though she can be exhausted with her husband now and then, she always gently coaxes him
towards the right direction in order to keep peace around Riley.
When her daughter begins to act unusual, she becomes concerned and tries her best to lift
Riley's spirits by trying to get her daughter involved in the activities Riley normally
loved, like signing her up for ice hockey tryouts.
After Riley returns home, Jill expresses her own sadness for being away from being uprooted.
And we can't forget the way she made a point to thank Riley for staying their happy girl
through all the stress of moving.
It wasn't until afterwards when Riley broke down claiming she couldn't be the happy little
girl during these hard times that Jill found another way to try and comfort her daughter,
but with Jill's leading emotion being sadness we have all the confidence that she understood
the inner struggle her child was dealing with.
Next on our list is Andy's mom and the original Pixar mother, Jennifer Davis.
From the very beginning of the Toy Story franchise, she's shown to be a loving and stable parent.
She raised her two kids on her own and supported Andy's imagination.
Even as Andy grew, she made sure to keep his childhood memories safe.
Though there was a horrible mixup, she would never intentionally throw out the toys that
Andy had grown to love over the years.
Not to mention she had been the one to try and stop Woody from being taken in the second
movie.
How many times in sitcoms had a beloved toy been sold off by accident only for that person
to try and cover their own butt?
But Jennifer wasn't going to make that mistake, instead locking Woody up with the money.
It wasn't as if she could have expected the lunatic to pry open the box when her back
was turned.
We've already featured Coco once on this list,, but we couldn't leave out Mama Imelda.
The mother of Mama Coco herself, her legacy was the one that set the livelihood and traditions
for Miguel's family.
After having her heart broken by Hector and feeling betrayed about having to raise their
daughter alone, she forbid anything relating to music in her home.
But she wasn't a bitter woman motivated by spite.
She was a single mother who was going to make sure her child would be supported and that
the family would have some way to take care of itself, establishing the shoe-making business
that lived long after she did.
She reveals to Miguel that she and Hector chose different paths and that she had to
make the choice she thought would be best for her daughter.
In the end, Imelda decided to allow her anger towards Hector not get in the way of Miguel's
happiness and even came around to the idea of helping to get Hector's picture home so
their daughter could remember him.
Next is a mother from one of the newest Pixar films, Libba Gardner.
We learn from Joe that she was his only parent after his father passed away.
Though Libba acknowledged her son's talent with music, she hated the idea of him trying
to land gig after gig and instead tried to convince Joe to take the full time music teaching
position the school offered him.
When 22 inhabits Joe's body, we learn that she had been the one the family relied on
as Joe grew up, with his father being unable to support them as a musician.
She didn't want to see her son choose the same difficult path her late husband did and
fought hard with him to find a way to be able to take care of himself when she was no longer
around.
But that didn't mean she wasn't going to be there to let him know she was proud of who
he was.
Libby gifted Joe his father's suit and had been there to cheer him on during his first
show, making sure he knew she would still be there whatever path he chose.
Taking our next spot is one of the more tragic rankings: Coral from Finding Nemo.
Her death had been traumatic for Marlin and upsetting for many young viewers, but there's
no denying the bravery that Coral displayed when trying to protect her young.
It's a cruel fact in both the animated world and the real world that the young are often
the defenseless casualties that fall when predators are on the hunt for an easy meal.
Though Coral wasn't able to save more than one of her many offspring, the fact that she
fought for them at all was nothing short of impressive.
Now we know she isn't exactly a biological parent, we feel we have to mention Dory.
Without even knowing Nemo, she aided Marlin on his search.
And when she ran into Nemo, she drug him to his father to be sure that they were reunited.
In the second film, we see that she and Nemo have grown close and that she was a protective
and playful role in his life, always looking out for his safety and well-being while also
making sure Marlin didn't panic about leaving Nemo to explore things on his own.
Dory herself even states that she saw Marlin and Nemo as close to her as her own parents.
It's never explicitly said that she and Marlin become a couple, but even without that Dory
clearly filled a motherly role that Nemo wanted in his life.
Following Dory is her own mother Jenny.
Along with her husband, she spent every waking moment trying to help Dory find ways to still
live a safe and fulfilling life with her short term memory.
We see through Dory's memories that Jenny had worried about her daughter's safety when
she and Charlie would no longer be around to protect her.
And we see when the family is reunited that Jenny and Charlie had stayed in place and
laid out countless shells hoping to see their daughter again.
Jenny is one of the most committed mothers in animation.
She never lost hope of seeing Dory again and praised her daughter for finding her way back
to them in her own way.
Our bronze medal of motherhood is going to Queen Elinor.
Though she had a very strained relationship with Merida for much of the movie, she was
always trying to think of her daughter’s future.
We give her a slightly lower ranking since she wasn’t very willing to hear out Merida’s
fears about being married, but don’t have it in us to send her to a lower spot.
After all this story does take place in a different time when setting up marriages was
far more accepted.
As the story progresses, Elinor is able to better understand her daughter by mending
the distance that had been growing between them over the years.
There might be some that insist she deserves to be placed lower due to her insistence to
marry Merida off paired with her destroying Merida’s bow in a fit of anger, but we’ve
already established in previous lists that the princess was a bit of a self-centered
brat that didn’t need to assume the worse of her mother.
And Elinor gets a lot of hero points for protecting her daughter from the feared Mor’du, slamming
the cursed prince into a pillar until he was finally crushed and no longer a threat.
We’re giving The Silver Medal of Good to Laurel Lightfoot.
From the beginning, she’s shown to be attentive of her sons.
She’s able to approach everything with a pretty good sense of humor, declaring war
should Barley not keep his game pieces picked up and flat out flipping the older sibling
when he challenges her to show off her growing strength.
Since the boys were still struggling with the idea of their father not being around,
she tried to be patient with them when it came to having them adjust to their new step
father being around.
When Ian and Barely were in danger, seeking out a way to see their father again and gain
closure, Laurel broke the law to get the Manticore’s help and took on a cursed dragon of concrete
and metal to protect her sons.
Laurel proved herself to have a warrior’s spirit, which is really saying something since
she clearly didn’t have any proper training, only relying on what experience she gained
from her at home workout routines.
Finally taking The Gold Medal of Good Mom is Mrs Incredible herself, Helen Parr.
A former super, she was more committed to taking on a civilian life than her husband.
She would argue with Bob about giving up a life of hero work, claiming that they needed
to put the lives of their children first.
Time and again Helen protected her kids from danger.
From an exploding plane to violent henchmen to a Super-hunting robot, she wasn't going
to let anything happen to them if she could help it.
However, Helen isn’t perfect by any means.
In her fighting to protect her kids, she also wound up hurting their confidence when it
came to using their powers.
Helen was determined to make sure that her children wouldn’t be held in the crossfire
but that meant making them constantly live in fear of being exposed and holding their
abilities back.
That wasn’t an irrational fear to have, but it did end up causing conflict in their
home.
Still any conflict that Helen may have caused with her and Bob disagreeing doesn’t change
the fact that Helen was very no-nonsense when telling her kids the dangers of the world
around them.
One of the most memorable moments in the first film is when Helen is telling them not to
let the henchmen catch them because they would be killed.
That had to have been a rough thing to tell your children, but Helen knew they couldn’t
afford to sugarcoat the truth.
But what do you think?
Who is the most good mother from the Pixar universe?
Let us know in the comment section.
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