THE ULTIMATE POP CULTURE MOTHERS BREAKDOWN
words by FRANCESCO PIZZUTI
Let’s be honest: the word mother has been absolutely used and abused in the last few years. Like many terms born from queer culture, it hit the mainstream sphere, got flattened, misused, and suddenly people were calling women “mother” who were, spiritually speaking, barely babysitters. So let’s set the record straight once and for all.
Being mother has nothing to do with literally having children, although, yes, sometimes that helps the résumé. Being mother is about attitude, presence, nerve, taste, survival. Mother can be nurturing, yes, but she is not soft by default. Being mother is about standing up for what is right, always and unapologetically. Mother can be glamorous, chaotic, political, messy, terrifyingly talented, or, preferably, all of the above.
So, for this Mother’s Day, we are not celebrating biology. We are celebrating the sacred and universal lineage of pop culture mothers: gay icons, cunty mamas, bad bitches, survivors, activists, divas, scream queens, and women who knew to be mother before any of this even existed.
CHER
@camilleseti on pinterest
As the mother of pop and one of the longest-standing mothers, Cher had to kickstart this list. She is glamour, camp, resilience, fashion, and one of the most recognisable voices in the music industry. This immortal sequin queen has reinvented herself across decades without ever becoming boring, which is perhaps one of the highest forms of motherhood.
MADONNA
@antitheticaldreamgirlx and @bibi812010
Well, this doesn’t come as a shock to anyone, does it? Madonna is not just mother. She is the blueprint, moving within controversy and reinvention, Catholic trauma and cone bras. She built a career out of doing whatever the hell she wanted while everyone begged her to calm down. She is mother as institution, mother as subversion, mother as eternal provocation; every pop girl owes rent to Madonna.
VIVIENNE WESTWOOD
@josefinalayun and @sheisknowntosew on pinterest
Oh, Vivienne Westwood, our punk mother, how we miss you!
This mother, designer and activist, fought for climate and LGBTQ+ rights and always stood strong as general enemy of boring clothes. Westwood understood that style should disturb the peace and she gave us tartan, corsets and chaos. Her legacy will always be cherished as the cultural maker mother she was.
RUPAUL
@Ralphbennn on pinterest
RuPaul is mother because, hello, she practically made the word what it is today. She has been part of queer nightlife and drag culture since the 1980s, building herself from the ground up with glamour, hustle, and total self-belief. She lived through a queer world shaped by the AIDS crisis, loss, survival, liberation, and performance as resistance, and there is something undeniably motherly about surviving such a world for that long and coming out on top.
LADY GAGA
@alister_lightbourne on pinterest
Lady Gaga is mother because she stood with the queer community before it was the brand-safe thing to do. She had us dancing alone in our rooms at eleven years old before we even had language for what made us different. Her monstrous fashion was revolutionary: the meat dress, the platforms, the alien, the absolute refusal to be normal. Gaga made pop feel dangerous again, and she did not give a single fuck.
BRITNEY SPEARS
@snowwqueenoftexas on pinterest
“She's so lucky, she's a star, but she cry, cry, cries in her lonely heart” (Lucky, Britney Spears)
Her story is profoundly disturbing, marked by control, exploitation, and family betrayal, but Britney’s power remains untouched. She is not mother because she suffered; she is mother because, despite everything, the culture still revolves around what she built and her undying talent and strength. Shaved head or schoolgirl outfit, Britney is pop royalty and glittering tragedy. A legend, forever.
EMMA ROBERTS
@taintviolent on pinterest
Never underestimate Emma Roberts’ contribution to the gay community under our watch! Her roles in American Horror Story, Scream Queens, and, even earlier, Wild Child, single-handedly invented one of the most fundamental dramatic devices of our culture, the “bitch face”, and Chanel Oberlin alone belongs in the Library of Alexandria. She is slightly underrated, but let us not forget how deeply mother she becomes when given a hallway to strut on and an unhinged monologue to spit out in one breath.
VIOLA DAVIS
@Estel_HC on pinterest
Viola Davis crystallised her mother status with her 2015 Emmy acceptance speech, which was moving, poetic, furious, and necessary. Winning for playing Annalise Keating, one of television’s most powerful Black female characters, she spoke about opportunity, representation, and the systemic lack of roles for women of color. It was a cultural moment. Also, we must mention Shonda Rhimes, creator of How to Get Away with Murder — the show Viola won for — and Grey’s Anatomy, and another mother in her own right.
MARCIA CROSS
@Axellelumiere on pinterest
To stay within the TV icons section, Marcia Cross is mother because she literally played a legendary one on television: Desperate Housewives’ Bree Van de Kamp. To the question “gay son or thot daughter?” Bree said “Yes”, and she handled it in the most terrifyingly composed way ever, yet always acting out of love, and for that alone, she belongs in the canon. Even when she was abandoning her abusive teenage son on the side of the road, she was still mother as hell — she just did what she had to do. But Marcia herself also brings incredibly real-life conviction and activism, standing up for current political injustices and consistently refusing to be complicit. Red hair, Republican-coded pearls, and radical undertones? That is mother.
PAMELA ANDERSON
@deluxshionist and @xD3viLxlI on pinterest
Constantly objectified, sexualized, and consumed by a media machine obsessed with the male gaze, Pamela Anderson still came out of it softer, wiser, and more powerful; in one word, mother. Her current no-makeup public appearances feel like an important revolution, a way to make her own rules, rejecting the spectacle that once trapped her.
LINDSAY LOHAN
@asxpvxl and @hypn0tx on pinterest
As we’ve established, mothers can be messy, they can spiral, disappear, return, rebrand, relapse, recover, and reinvent themselves a million times. Lindsay Lohan is mother because she is just impossible to erase. She gave us Mean Girls, tabloid mythology, rehab lore, courtroom sunglasses, and one of the most fascinating celebrity arcs of the 2000s. The fact that she was in the same jail at the same time as the Bling Ring girl who robbed her house? Now that is camp history, and Lindsay was always at the centre of it. Mother survived.
MERYL STREEP
@Style_for_life and @merylsheridann on pinterest
Meryl Streep being on this list is almost embarrassing because, well, obviously. She is mother in the most classical, award-winning sense, and she carries that rare quiet authority where even her silence feels expensive. Her 2017 Golden Globes speech was a masterclass in political speeches; it felt incredibly powerful for a woman of her calibre to speak up for political and human issues such as immigration with such elegance and force.
LAURA DERN
@cbloombc and @rougenoirnailpolish on pinterest
Currently resisting the urge to include the entire Big Little Lies cast here, but Laura Dern had to make the cut. While she’s more niche than some of the names on this list, she is so deeply, spiritually cunt. Watching Laura Dern on screen yell, point, unravel, and handle things with that strong, rich-woman intensity makes you want to stand up and scream “MOTHER” at your television.
RACHEL SENNOTT
@treaclychild on instagram
For the next-gen mothers category, Rachel Sennot takes the cake. She is insanely funny, a true comedic genius, with a chaotic energy that’s addictive to watch. She’s part of this new creative wave in the media industry that’s deeply self-depricating, stressed, horny, and the funniest ever — but don’t get it twisted, all of this comes from great intellect. Rachel feels incredibly current. Our neurotic mother.
ZARA LARSSON
@zaralarsson on instagram
The Khia Asylum is a distant memory for newly mother Zara Larsson. What truly cemented her mother status is her refusal of cancellation: she will not back down when it comes to her politics, her opinions, or whatever controversy people are trying to drag her into. While everyone else is calculating the safest PR response, Zara, essantially, dgafs and owns her opinions with strenght.
