Haywire (2011) and The Disobedient Daughter Who Married a Skull
First in a series on Old Tales and Modern Media
A warrior goes through harrowing ordeals and fights various villains on his way to get back to his wife, who is also doing her best to fend off the villains and hold down the fort — am I describing The Odyssey or Die Hard? A handsome Italian guy with a nice ride falls for a modest foreign girl who rejects his bad boy lifestyle, and they try to work out their differences — am I describing the classic novel Quo Vadis, or the movie musical Grease? My “Old Tales and Modern Media” series will update occasionally (for now, on months that have a fifth Wednesday). It is a separate section from both the comic and the main blog, so email subscribers can choose which sections they want in their inbox.
“Old Tales and Modern Media” will compare themes and plot elements that contemporary storytelling shares with folk tales, fairy tales, myth, religion, and classic literature from all over the world. This is not about adaptations or other works that have a known inspiration — this is about universal human experiences and shared archetypes between different stories, even if the genres or cultures don’t match, and regardless of whether there was any inspiration or influence of the older tale on the modern one.
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“The Disobedient Daughter Who Married a Skull” is a folk tale from Nigeria. The version I have is in Monstrous Tales by Chronicle Books, the English retelling sourced from a 1910 collection by Dayrell Elphinstone. I love the Chronicle Books Tales series for its artwork, but the text of the story itself is in the public domain, and can be found easily on the internet.
To summarize the beginning of the tale:
Afiong, daughter of Effiong Edem of Cobham town, was a beautiful and headstrong young Calabar woman. Her parents wanted her to marry, but she refused all matches, as she wanted to have a young man who was handsome and strong enough for her liking.
Afiong was so beautiful that the Skull living in the Spirit Land heard of her and wanted her for himself. He borrowed different body parts from various friends — the best head, torso, arms, and legs — so he looked like the perfect man to win her over.
The Skull went to the Cobham market, fine and good-looking, more handsome than any of the local suitors. Afiong fell for him there and introduced him to her parents, who had their doubts about allowing their daughter to marry a stranger, but they eventually allowed the match and relented to letting her go with him to his mysterious far-away country.
After a few days, Afiong's father consulted the Ju Ju man, who cast lots revealing the true identity of his son-in-law: that he was from the spirit land, and Afiong was as good as dead.
Afiong found this out for herself when she and her new husband crossed into the spirit land. The Skull’s friends arrived one by one and took back their borrowed body parts, leaving him stripped down to his natural ugliness. Afiong was now very frightened, but The Skull wouldn’t let her return home, so now she was stuck in the spirit land where human beings like herself would be killed and eaten...
The seductive homme fatale is a character type that shows up in traditional fairytales, modern romcoms, and even music, such as Nigerian-born British artist Sade’s 1984 hit “Smooth Operator.”
A similar plot can also be found in the UPA / Warner Bros.’ 1962 animated feature, Gay Purr-ee, which subsequent generations of kids got to see on television, VHS, and DVD. A proud and beautiful French farm cat, Mewsette (voiced by Judy Garland), becomes discontent with her simple country life and her boyfriend Jaune Tom (voiced by Robert Goulet), leaving it all behind for the glamour of Paris. Upon arrival, Mewsette meets a cat con artist and his sister who train her to be the perfect debutante. What they don't tell her is their true plan to ship her off as a mail-order bride to the mysterious “money cat” Mr. Henry Phtt, whose portrait is apparently so ugly that Mewsette cries out in dismay when she sees it, and faces mortal danger in her attempt to escape...
But fairy tale archetypes also show up in movies for grown-ups. And the spy genre is particularly fitting because the characters aren’t always what they seem, and they are part of a different world hidden from the ordinary.
Full plot spoilers are below.
Haywire (2011), directed by Steven Soderbergh, starts in media res, after the heroine Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) is already on the run after being betrayed. The film opens at a remote upstate New York roadside café, with what looks like a local domestic altercation in sweatshirts and flannel. The apparent boyfriend Aaron (Channing Tatum) whines in slurred speech about a hangover and lost vacation time. But then the argument turns extremely physical, the first of several brutally realistic fight scenes, and it turns out that Mallory has a long story as a black ops agent for a sketchy private contractor. Mallory compels a bystander and audience surrogate Scott (Michael Angarano) for help, and Scott is amazed that kind of thing is real — almost as if he has been drawn into an entire different, magical world.
Flashbacks show that Mallory, a Marine veteran, is the daughter of Lt. Colonel John Kane (Bill Paxton). Her father is also an author, and she is looking at one of his books after a completed mission when her ex-boyfriend, and more recently ex-boss, shows up. Leading the private intelligence agency, Kenneth (Ewan McGregor) knows how to negotiate for good pay, and he talks Mallory into taking one more job as “eye candy” pretending to be one half of a power couple with British MI-6 agent Paul (Michael Fassbender). Mallory is beautiful, the men are handsome, the whole cast is very good-looking.
To David Holmes’s intriguing soundtrack, Mallory and her fake husband meet in Dublin, get dressed up, leave their guns behind in the hotel room, attend a high-class social event where they are assumed to be newlyweds, and meet their contact — everything seems to go without a hitch. Until Mallory investigates and discovers that her previous completed mission had been a sham — the target they had supposedly rescued got murdered at the hands of the supposed good guys. She realizes she is being set up. The fake husband and wife return to the hotel, and he attacks her. Mallory fights back and kills Paul, then returns a phone call from none other than the primary homme fatale Kenneth, who asks Paul's number “is the divorce final?”
Unlike The Skull, Kenneth is not an active love interest — Mallory has already broken up with him for some time when the movie begins, and she is also in the process of quitting his firm. But still, he represents the temptation for a certain kind of life, and Mallory’s mistake was accepting one more job from him — a job that was too easy and too good to be true.
Mallory plans to return to her dad’s house in Nevada, but Kenneth's world won't allow it to be so simple. She has to run and fight her way past a bunch of agents and law enforcement trying to capture or kill her...
How do the stories end?
Afiong and Mallory both persevere through the bad situations they find themselves in, earn their escape back to the normal world and their parents, and consider advice from an elder to make safer and more sensible life choices going forward.
Stuck in the spirit world, Afiong lives in The Skull’s house with The Skull’s mother, a very old woman who can hardly get around. Afiong takes such good care of her mother-in-law that the latter is impressed with her kindness and skill, so she hides her and offers to use her magic to send Afiong home before the spirit world's cannibals can get to her — provided that Afiong promises to obey her parents afterward.
The Skull’s mother sends Afiong home in style and luxury. She gets Afiong's hair done in the latest fashion, gifts her anklets and other accessories, then summons the winds for Afiong’s ride home. First a tornado shows up, and the Skull’s mother decides that is not good enough, and then a gentle breeze shows up and brings Afiong to her family home.
Afiong’s parents are glad to see their daughter alive, and throw a party for Afiong and her friends with eight days of feasting and dancing. Afiong’s father tells the story to the head chief, who passes a law that parents should not allow their daughters to marry strangers from a far country. Finally, Afiong consents to her parents’ match, and she settles down for a long-lasting marriage with many children.
In Haywire, Kenneth’s employer and an older CIA agent Alex Coblenz (Michael Douglas) has also been having doubts about this public-private partnership, and questions Kevin on his agency’s lack of oversight and accountability. Coblenz is roughly equivalent to The Skull’s Mother, and behind the scenes, he helps Mallory return to the United States. Mallory makes her way back to her father’s house where her pursuers also converge, and changes her hair and makeup in a way that reflects her military roots. Her father John Kane questions Kenneth why his mysterious group does not appear to have backup from the legitimate authorities.
Between fighting off the villains at her father’s house and tracking down Kenneth to settle her score with him, Mallory meets the older CIA agent, who now disagrees with whatever Kenneth is up to, and had always been impressed with Mallory’s skill. He says there is a certain appeal to being off-grid and not answering to anyone — but that if Mallory goes to work directly for the government, she’ll earn less and have to declare her income and have taxes deducted, but she will get her good name back.
Both these stories feature an active female protagonist, emphasizing her family relationship as a daughter, and are cautionary tales showing a tension between a world of allure and risk versus making a safer long-term choice. Both feature love interests who present temptation in the homme fatale role, but again, the theme is not about romance so much as it is about creating a secure life.
The ending to “The Disobedient Daughter Who Married a Skull” emphasizes that Afiong is a valued member of her family and community, and gives definite closure to the adventure with a public celebration.
The ending of Haywire is much more ambiguous about what Mallory will do going forward, but since she has personally taken out the sketchy private contractor, they are obviously no longer an employment option. She will likely accept Coblenz's job offer — and remain in a secret life connected with the only few people she can trust.