Why Maggie Smith is Millennial in The Secret Garden
Uncanny: Mrs. Medlock helps explain Gen Z's repulsion for Millennials!
Hear me out: Maggie Smith was 58 when she interpreted the role of Mrs. Medlock in The Secret Garden. She’s 88 now and she’s more of a Millennial than the actual Millennial child actors in the film. I realize that the connection isn’t obvious. Most people pinpoint Millennials as being born between 1981 and 1996. People born within that timeframe have a reputation for being fickle, yet collaborative technological natives who value work-life balance and demand a say in all things social, political, and professional.
However, we also come off as conventional to younger generations and sickenly progressive to older populations. As a whole, we’ve generally abandoned religion and military admiration at the same time that we’re some of the most highly educated people in the United States. These are obviously things that Mrs. Medlock couldn’t relate to in The Secret Garden. But it’s not the obvious Millennial characteristics that Maggie shares with us—it’s the unpleasant reaction that her characters provoke in one of my followers—a wince—that seems to mimic how younger and older generations respond to us.
Does Maggie Smith Make Millennials Wince in The Secret Garden?
It makes at least one 1991 Millennial wince—but not me.
Some context: Britain’s The Stylist recently came out with an article commemorating the 30-year anniversary of The Secret Garden. Hitting us from an angle that poises The Secret Garden as a Milliennial masterpiece, the author speaks directly to a Millennial audience. The piece sparked enough curiosity in me to poll amongst the small, mostly Milliennial-aged audience that interacts with me on Instagram. I asked followers if they connected with the movie or not. There was also an option to explain further. Someone divulged that “anything with Maggie Smith makes me wince, that’s about it”. As I don’t share the sentiment, my brain started itching to understand why Maggie Smith makes this particular Millennial wince—I’ll refer to them here on out as the Rogue Millennial. To fully understand the Rogue Millennial’s repulsion, I began to reflect on why I loved the film—and why it was that I loved Maggie Smith in it.
The Stylist article focuses on why the movie strikes a deeply satisfying, nostalgic chord in those venturing into tax-riddled, debt-laden, politically alarmist, gender-reveal-party-saturated 30s and 40s-territory. Naturally, when I saw the article published, I immediately recalled my intimate connections with a movie that held my attention as strongly as MTV videos, dino Kid Cuisine meals, the Lilo and Stitch 625 Sandwich Stacker game for desktop, and refining my AIM away message to be as coy and aloof as a 12-year old could be.
While the article addresses rosier plot points, what drew me into the film wasn’t the flowers or the complexity of the magical maze of English, moor-garden architecture. It wasn’t the gothic mansion or Mary Lenox’s “black, black, or black” nasty attitude—which I admired. All of those things came later. What initially drew me in about the narrative was its morbidity, its loneliness, and its showcasing of “a world full of struggles between life and death”, as Polish director, Agnieszka Holland, comments. Check out this opening sequence of the film:
Mary Lenox is the main character. Cold, rude, entitled, and utterly emotionally neglected, she’s a British child living with her rich, aloof, self-absorbed parents in India. You realize quickly that Mum and Dad probably fall on the end of world history which exploited India ruthlessly yet suavely in the early 1900s. They have little to no interest in their child, and when an earthquake hits, Ms. Mary Lenox is the only British citizen left standing.
That’s when Lord Archibald Craven, her uncle by marriage, agrees to take her in at Misselthwaite Manor, a gothic paradise in merry old England. Craven is the powerful, wealthy widowed husband of her biological aunt on her mother’s side: they were twins. A kind and excited mother-to-be, Mary’s aunt passes away giving birth to her and Craven’s sickly firstborn son, Colin—now the same age as Mary—before Mary can ever meet her. Seeing that Mary was misunderstood and alone in the world made her move to England the most captivating element of the movie for me as a child. I liked the idea of losing everything and moving far away, to a place I didn’t know and that didn’t know me.
When I first saw the film, I had been living in New Jersey for a couple of years after moving from Arizona at age 5. The opening scenes in India vaguely reminded me of the southwest and while Jersey didn’t have any type of English feel, I appreciated each place’s vivid greens and rainy days.
As the film progressed, I saw Mary making little boyfriends—cue blue-collar farm hand Dickon and dear, prissy, cousin Colin. I was reminded that my only friend in Arizona had been a boy, and I was finding myself with many little boyfriends as a little girl. It wasn’t that I was a boy’s girl, or had trouble making little girlfriends. It was only that as a child, I couldn’t grasp—aside from the clothes, and that boys appeared to have different types of operational junk, and the difference in name patterns—what separated me and the girls from the boys at school. However, by the end of the film, when I saw the nature of Mary and Dickon’s relationship restructure itself innocently although sexually, and how that angered Colin because he was crushing on his cousin Mary, I began to understand what divides boys and girls.
Enter Millennial Mrs. Medlock
Later, for me, Maggie Smith’s interpretation of Mrs. Medlock represented complex, painfully familiar desires and feelings I grappled with as a child. Feelings of possessiveness over my benefactor (Mom), envy, frustration, abandonment, spite, pettiness, bitterness, and impatience were among the great formations of my childhood emotional arsenal.
Maggie Smith represented those formations on screen in her own, puckered way. As Lord Craven’s right-hand head-of-servants, she strikes every belligerent, frigid, micro-managerial, condescending chord that exists in that film. At the same time that I was envious and frustrated continuously as a child, I was eager to please, hardworking, militant in completing tasks, and frantic with anxiety. The slightest critique—the softest of scoldings—sent me to a dark, Burton-esque place. Maggie Smith’s 02:38 reaction below will give you a good idea of how well my reactions corresponded to any given event.
Smith’s expert interpretations of a detestable, cantankerous housekeeper would cause anyone to wince—that’s part of her power onscreen. In the context of her performance in The Secret Garden, I can fully relate to the Rogue Millennial’s astutely-provoked unpleasantries.
It’s understandable if, as a child, Maggie Smith failed miserably to float their cinematic boat—and it’s understandable that negative experiences in our childhood stick with us. It’s natural that a negative impression could stick to an actor that we’ve seen as kids.
For example, I feel exceedingly pissed off when I see Ethan Hawke’s face. He often plays cocky, blind, power-hungry men who fail to protect their families and themselves. He’s tragic. Still, I’ll watch Sinister, Boyhood, and Regression with gusto. I enjoy the emotional reactions that my one-sided connections to the characters he portrays produce. But even with Hawke in mind, I still couldn’t pinpoint how every Maggie Smith movie that Rogue Milliennal saw triggered a wince.
To be clear: home Rogue Millennial communicated that it wasn’t just her in The Secret Garden that made them wince. They clearly said, “anything with Maggie Smith makes me wince”.
Anything?
I Have No Reasonable Right to Hate Ethan Hawke
The only reason I hate Ethan Hawke isn’t that he’s too mannered when acting, or that he might have cheated on his wife (irrelevant), or that his gorgeous daughter attracted me despite her father having that smug, shit-eating bird-like face that spoke all the worst qualities of the men he played. Then it dawned on me: it was Ethan Hawke’s mug that pissed me the hell off, something he has zero control over.
It was this cocky Hawke face that then prompted me to ponder Maggie Smith’s face. As it turns out, Rogue Millennial isn’t the only viewer who might see her face and wince.
Maggie Smith began her acting career long before I was born. She’s distinguished, rich, influential, highly respected, an outstanding professional, and it’s her bulging eyes—a symptom of Graves Disease—that often pierce the souls of audiences, making them feel small and at fault.
Imagine Maggie Smith staring into the heart of Rogue Millennial as they gazed at her through a screen!
It’s clear from the photograph: Maggie Smith probably isn’t hitting a soft and fuzzy note when she stares into the depths of our post-post-modern souls in her signature way. Her face gives petulance, disdain, and superiority. It’s an aged face, as well—and it occurred to me that maybe any wince she causes in a viewer might stem from how unkindly Hollywood audiences take to the elderly—especially elderly women. We often detest them and their seemingly sexless—and therefore—useless form.
Ethan Hawke aside—as I personally feel he’d bow to her as a professional—Maggie Smith is a phenomenal actress. She’s won nearly every award that exists in her field. She’s convincing, captivating, infuriating, and consistent. Personally, she seems unbothered and unphased by competition, demands respect, and very clearly isn’t fucking around.
Of course, this isn’t about changing Rogue Millennial’s mind—that would be impossible. Time fossilized their opinion into an “anything with Maggie Smith makes me wince” predicament. I can’t change that. But, if I’m correct, and it’s the “black, black, or black” nastiness that Maggie Smith’s face so nimbly executes in films that generate Rogue Millennial’s contempt, then this little essay is a testament to just how much looks matter to human beings.
So much of people’s response to us relies on our faces, their structure—where the wrinkles form when they do. So much of what we decide often comes down to how things look. At times this saves our lives and at others, it robs us of the enjoyment that Maggie Smith films would otherwise radiate within us. And then, so much of Millennial life is unseen.
Why Millennials Make Gen Z Wince
Like ol’ cousin Colin, so much of who we actually are as Millennials is hidden. He’s locked in a manor, but we’re locked in Instagram photos, we’re embedded in HTML, we’re festering in downcast Reddit threads. So many of us are invisible, lumped together—our reputation erupting across pop culture like a fragile, trophy-hungry zit in 2023. Gen Z thinks we lack a sense of humor. Our parents think we’re overly sensitive and high-strung. Most of our grandparents have passed away—too haggard and wealthy to regard the aesthetic of a generation twice removed. When I read “anything with Maggie Smith makes me wince,” I realized that eventually, someone somewhere has or would or will feel that “anything with Millienials makes me wince”.
While older generations are quickly fading from important conversations, Gen Z has commenced their online and real-life domination. While I’m confident they have no idea what they’re up against when it comes to concepts like capitalism, misogyny, and budgeting and I’m willing to wait to conclude on them overtly, they have categorized us unpleasantly. Vice collected some Gen Z attitudes toward Millennials—see if you can detect the parallels to Mrs. Medlock’s frantic need to please her boss or Maggie Smith’s piercing stare:
Millennials are too obsessed with Harry Potter
We’re straight-up in denial—about what, I’m not entirely sure
We steady stay trying to prolong our youth
We’ll grow a plant and marvel at how we didn’t manage to kill it
Gen Z is going off of our newly aging faces, their Secret Garden structure. They can see our wrinkles forming!
What I personally see here is a flawed, incomplete, but highly humorous description of a generation whose imagination was largely influenced by the Harry Potter Universe, a sense of the unreal being real, an appreciation and striving toward longevity when it comes to success, and the marvelously scarce characteristic of competence in our everyday political, social, and professional life.
This is the face of a Millennial.
The Millenial Maggie Smith in All of Us
She’s older. She’s stronger. She’s more domineering. She presides over Mary, Dickon, and Colin (how I’m referring to Gen forever more). She guards secrets. She’s alone. She’s loyal to her paycheck. She has a heart.
She makes people wince.
It is my Millennial stance that to be as regarded and responsible for the moods of others as Maggie Smith seems to be for me and the Rogue Millennial is exactly what pisses off Gen Z so permanently.
Maggie Smith, if you make motherfuckers wince, I want to make motherfuckers wince, too.
Research:
https://www.stylist.co.uk/entertainment/film/the-secret-garden-millennial-classic/812387
https://www.vice.com/en/article/4ay3gw/what-gen-z-thinks-of-millennials
https://time.com/247/millennials-the-me-me-me-generation/
https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15974-millennials-in-the-workplace.html
https://www.looper.com/736124/the-untold-truth-of-maggie-smith/
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2010/02/24/millennials-confident-connected-open-to-change/