I Don’t Hate Norma Bates: How Studying Film and Television Can Make You a Better Writer

To be a good writer, you must be an avid reader. You should study other writers’ work. We’ve all heard this advice—and it’s true. But “reading” and “studying” doesn’t pertain only to books. We can examine stories that come to life on screen and teach so much about setting, character development, pacing, and plot. As enjoyable as it is to curl up with a novel on a wintry night, it’s just as much fun to lounge on your couch in front of a glowing TV—and you don’t have to feel guilty about taking time away from your craft. For writers, watching films and television series can be an education. 

Since the pandemic began, many of us have turned to movies and TV as an escape. Personally, I’ve used the stay-at-home opportunity to explore classic films that I haven’t seen, including Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). 

Of course, I knew the basics: Norman Bates is a disarmingly handsome and solicitous young man who owns a motel where a woman is murdered. But there’s more to the story and its characters, which are nuanced and morally ambiguous in Joseph Stefano’s suspenseful script. 

One of the main characters, Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), is not just a damsel-in-distress but also a thief-on-the-run who impulsively steals money from her employer’s client. As she flees Arizona to meet her boyfriend in California, she seems both anxious and empowered, shifting from a regretful gaze to an amused smirk. 

She has committed a felony and doesn’t appear completely penitent—but the script succeeds in portraying Marion as trapped in an unsatisfying job where lecherous, powerful men demean her. During the era in which she lives, the only way to escape the patriarchal corporate culture is to become a wife, but her boyfriend doesn’t want to be her husband until his financial debts are paid. This narrative gives Marion a reason for stealing, and it’s one that resonates as well on the silver screen as it would inside a chapter of a novel.  

Marion is relatable—and so is Norman (Anthony Perkins). When Marion first checks into his motel, he offers to make dinner for her, and while he prepares it inside his eerie Victorian home, Marion hears his mother, Norma, verbally abusing him. Norma implies that her son has “disgusting” ulterior motives for his kindness to a female stranger, and the dialogue between her and Norman reveals that she doesn’t want him to associate with women at all. His freedom seems to have been limited by maternal oppression, just as Marion is oppressed in a male-dominated, midcentury America.

It would be hard not to feel sorry for Norman—and Marion does. While she urges him to break away from his mother, his personality changes from charming to sinister and back again. Like Marion, Norman is depicted as a fundamentally decent person with conflicting layers, which is why he’s a character that most viewers root for—even (or especially) when he’s covering up his mother’s alleged atrocities.  

Psycho examines Norman’s fractured mental state, but like most films, its analysis is restricted to less than two hours. The film left me craving more, and I was able to find it in the TV series, Bates Motel (2013-2017), a reimagining/prequel to Psycho that delves deeply into Norman’s shattered mind and his intense relationship with his mother. 

In Psycho, Norma is portrayed primarily as a villain who drives her son to insanity, so it might seem impossible to transform her into a character that evokes sympathy—even fondness—but the writers of Bates Motel pull this off, providing a valuable lesson in fiction writing. 

Norma (Vera Farmiga) is abnormally attached to Norman (Freddie Highmore), an intelligent and sensitive teenager. Her physical affection with him is inappropriate, she’s envious of the girls who give him attention, and she consistently ruins his chances to have typical high-school fun. She deprives him of freedom and she explodes in rages, causing irreparable harm to her son that results in tragic destruction. 

Still, I don’t hate Norma Bates. 

Norma is a character who is spiritually broken, who has suffered trauma from her parents, her brother, her two husbands, and society. She’s never had education or money or authentic love…except from Norman. He’s her treasure, and she clings to him obsessively. She is terrified of Norman leaving her, so she stands in the way of him having a girlfriend, of driving a car, and of becoming an adult. 

Her behavior can’t be condoned—but, considering the backstory that the Bates Motel writers have given her, it makes sense. It makes Norma worthy of compassion as a complex personality who often tries to be a good mother, protecting Norman at all costs and in the most horrifying circumstances. She’s wounded but tough, and she struggles to bring sunshine into her home by acting like a 1950s sitcom housewife, cooking a pot roast while wearing a vintage dress and playing a Bobby Darin record on an old phonograph. 

Like Marion and Norman in Psycho, the Norma of Bates Motel is exposed from various sides as a complicated character who, despite her ghastly flaws, is worthy of compassion—and, sometimes, of admiration. Creating such a character in a script requires the same artistry as it does in a book, and reading isn’t the only way to learn how to do it. Watching films and TV with a critical eye—studying what works and what doesn’t—can provide valuable lessons.  

..

Lorraine Zago Rosenthal is an author and entertainment writer.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lorrainezago

Website: http://lorraine-zago-rosenthal.blogspot.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lorrainezago/

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: How To and Tips, On Writing