Looking over this year’s Best Picture nominees at the Oscars, one legendary female character archetype – the phallic mother – looms large in The Reader and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (is Harvey Milk a proxy phallic mother to the gay rights movement in Milk? discuss). We’ll therefore be taking this edition of our weekly psychoanalysticle Freudian Fridays to discuss the storied lineage of phallic mothers in our pop culture encyclopedia.

The phallic mother, for Sigmund Freud’s followers, is a deeply disruptive cultural force; she is not a woman with a penis, but a woman with the symbolic power of a potent male. She’s an older woman (though not necessarily a mother) whose sexual appetite and social powers haven’t been contained by age or marriage. Here then are Listicles’ Top 10 Phallic Mothers.

Cruella DeVil in 101 Dalmatians

She dresses scandalously, has had extensive plastic surgery, drives a big car and gets what she wants. (Interestingly, Disney seems to have a thing for phallic mothers.)

Sorceress Maleficient in Sleeping Beauty

Another powerful older woman, Maleficient doesn’t drive a phallic car (Sleeping Beauty is set in Medieval times, remember) but she does carry a big stick.

Ursula in The Little Mermaid

Another easy Disney entry, Ursula is basically an animated, octopus version of Mae West. Also, her underwater lair is shaped like a vagina.

Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development

She may not be sexy in the fratty sense of the term, but she’s incredibly powerful and plays her family members off one another to get what she wants time and again.

Barbara Baekland in Savage Grace

This film might qualify as a phallic mother revenge fantasy, since this sexy, manipulative mother is basically constantly miserable until (spoiler alert) her murder at the film’s end.

Carolyn Burnham in American Beauty

This is the other side of the phallic mother role, as Annette Bening’s character rediscovers her socio-sexual power over the course of the film.

Mrs. Bates in Psycho

All the more powerful and phallic for no longer being tied to a living body, momma Bates initiated Psycho’s series of murders as her son became interested in a different woman.

Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate

Obviously, Mrs. Robinson uses her phallic powers to bed impressionable young Dustin Hoffman.

Luisa Cortés in Y tu mamá también

This multi-tasking phallic mother – technically a cousin – initiates two horny teenagers into adulthood.

Gertrude in Hamlet (basically any version, especially Lawrence Olivier’s)

Gertrude’s role in the murder of her husband and re-marrying of her brother in law has been interpreted many different ways, but is often seen as a plot she participates in to secure her ongoing position of power. Notice in this version that Olivier (playing Hamlet) is 11 years older than the sexy lady (Eileen Herlie) playing his mother.