Ma-Ma of Dredd

The character of Ma-Ma is a very interesting one.

Despite being a villain  and on the opposite side of the law she shares with the Judges, especially Dredd, the desire to get things done.

This is shown when she destroys a whole quadrant with hundreds if not thousands of people just to take out 2 Judges.

How exactly did Ma-Ma and her clan acquire those weapons? Did a corrupt Judge sold them to her? Maybe after stealing them from a Judge supply depot?

In some ways she is a product of her surroundings. Observe her arrest file:

She was sentenced for solicitation at the age of 16. So she must have forced from an early age to engage in prostitution.

Pay close attention to the scars on her face.

They almost look like one half of the red X from a Judge helmet. An interesting parallel. Also notice the bloody heart behind her. This is her own personal emblem. She uses it on the Slo-mo inhalers.

Why did she choose a heart? An ironical comment on the state of her life? She seems like a heartless person who lost the ability to connect with others.

Ma-Ma’s Peach Trees

She is the overlord of Peach Trees. The very first time we see her she is having a bath in what would be the penthouse of Peach Trees. She has her very own high window through which she can look down on the rest of the mega-block.

Remember how the medic said she first took over the highest floor and then worked her way down. A very interesting strategy. This is the exact opposite of what Dredd and Anderson did.

Also it would appear she had about 432 clan members when she took the whole block.Nine months to take a block? That is about the same time an average pregnancy lasts. Peach Trees could be consired Ma-Ma’s baby. After all they do call her Ma-Ma.

Isn’t 432 a small number for such a huge Mega-block? It is possible there are more clan affiliates or that she recruited more soldiers, but I find it hard to believe she was able to control Peach Trees to the extent she did.

Is the population of the block that cowardly? With over 75000 of them, they could have rebelled against her. Maybe the corrupt judges helped her to maintain her position.

Judged Ma-Ma

Ma-Ma seems to accept her penalty of death rather unsurprised.

Notice the eye roll when he calls her a common criminal and the smile when he declares her death sentence.

She has what appears to be a Judge helmet in her bedroom.

Ma-Ma makes a parallel between her and Dredd.

 

Death of Ma-Ma

Ma-Ma’s death has a lot of karma in it…

… and her death shares a lot of similarities with her introduction. It has the same music and the same crystal-like drops.

Ma-Ma is thrown through the same window we got our first look at her.

She is drugged with “slo-mo” just like the 3 drug dealers and is thrown on the same floor as they were.

Her death was also touched upon in Supernatural Dredd Part 1.

Ma-Ma made a full circle. From the bottom she got to the top and from the top she got to the bottom. With a little help from Judge Dredd.

 

Rookie of Dredd

This post will be about rookie Anderson. I have already analysed Dredd as a character and his partnership with Anderson. Now I am going to focus solely on her.

Rookie rape

She brings a sexual dynamic to the movie. Her feminine psychic is in contrast to the faceless masculine Dredd.

This brings her in danger of being sexually assaulted.

 

But not only is she not raped by Kay but she mind-rapes him.

 

 

She somehow gets into Kay’s mind.

When he tries to mentally force her to do oral sex on him, she flips the switch on him.

She has him symbolically castrated by an imaginary Ma-Ma. In the end Kay loses control of his bladder… and by extension his genitals. Anderson has in a sense raped and castrated him.

Also note Kay’s kneeling position in front of Anderson. She has total dominance over him.

 

Later Anderson is kidnapped by Kay.

Their heavy breathing during the struggle is reminiscent of that during sex. That and his comment imply that he wants to rape her in revenge for her mind torturing him.

She is seen kneeling in front of him as he prepares to execute her. This is a reversal of the previous situation.

He wants to murder her using her own weapon. However it blows up and takes of his arm. Yet again he is symbolically castrated.

As he falls to his knees Anderson gets up. Once again she is in power.

 

Rookie demon

Notice demon-like graffiti behind her.As she stand up to kill Kay she is right in between it and the camera. Almost as if she became a demon.

On the wall in that same room is a graffiti that apparently says. “this way to ghost town”.

This is most likely the same room where the clan skinned the 3 drug dealers in the beginning of the movie.

 

When Anderson emerges from the “ghost town” she is reborn as a true Judge, the who managed to overcome death.

Next post will be about Ma-Ma.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yin-Yang of Dredd

This post will analyse the gender dynamic between Dredd and Anderson.

Yin-Yang questioning

Dredd represents the masculine approach to law and order. He believes in triumph trough sheer psychical force. Anderson is the feminine side, with deeper understanding of human emotions. Also she has psychic abilities. Her capability to read thoughts of other people could be understood as a continuation of her emotional intelligence.

This is most visible in the interrogation scene.

Dredd wants to beat the answers out of Kay, while Anderson uses her skills to mentally break him. More about that in a later post.

 

The dredded marriage

The partnership between Dredd and Anderson can be seen as a marriage. Only when they combine their forces are Dredd and Anderson able to defeat Ma-Ma and her clan.

 

Anderson uses her skills on the Clan Techie and finds out he has been an unwilling accomplice that Ma-Ma constantly abused. So she lets him go.

At first Dredd questions her decision but he eventually accepts it. This shows both his character development and a change in his mentality.

It is at this moment that he completely accepts Anderson as his partner. Together they take care of Ma-Ma.

 

Without Anderson Dredd would not be able to destroy the Ma-Ma clan and without Dredd she wouldn’t have survived her first day on the job. Their partnership is what saved the day.