Death Becomes Her and Beef: On Being Attracted to the Energy of a Person You Despise

In 1992’s Death Becomes Her, the long-standing “friendship” between Madeline Ashton (Meryl Streep) and Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn) quickly reveals itself to be a frenemyship fueled by jealousies and residual beef stemming from their many years of knowing one another, all the way back to being teens in New Jersey. With the film opening on Madeline’s ill-advised performance in a Broadway adaptation of Sweet Bird of Youth called Songbird!, it gives Helen the chance to see if her fiancé, Ernest Menville (Bruce Willis), can “pass the Madeline Ashton test.” In other words, is he immune to her charms and seductions the way so many of Helen’s previous boyfriends were not? For it’s clear that Madeline makes a sport of “winning” in an unspoken competition with Helen. Using her looks and wiles to outshine Helen’s “bookishness” and “class.” To this end, the yin and yang qualities in each woman speaks to their inevitable “attraction” to one another. Seeking something in the other person that she herself does not possess.

In Helen’s case, the obvious characteristics she yearns for in Madeline are cliché blonde beauty and the artful wielding of coquettishness. In contrast, Madeline, although less overt about it, secretly resents Helen for being from a more “pedigreed” social class and her intelligence level. Of the variety that leads her to become an author. Though this doesn’t happen until many years after her fateful meeting with Madeline backstage in 1978.

And it is in ’78 when Madeline is informed by her lackey, Rose (Nancy Fish), that Helen has arrived with her fiancé to greet her. She immediately asks, “How’s she look?” The intense desire to hear her underling respond with something like, “Terrible” is ruined when she instead says, “I don’t know. Smart, I guess. Sorta classy.” Madeline balks, “Classy? Really? Compared to who?” This bristling over Helen’s characterization as somehow superior because she’s not “cheap” like Madeline is something that comes up over and over again throughout Death Becomes Her. And yet, because all Madeline’s got are her trashy, smarmy tactics, she sticks to them—augmenting her sleaze tenfold by deciding to steal Ernest when she realizes he’s a renowned plastic surgeon she’s read about.

But before that, when Helen does eventually come into the dressing room with Ernest, Madeline is all “pre-posed” for her (cleavage strategically exposed), under the guise of “acting naturally.” After the encounter, it doesn’t take long before she’s “stopping by” Ernest’s operating room and inviting him out for dinner. Upon hearing about this back at home, Helen proceeds to pull viciously at the tissue she’s holding (an ongoing anger tic that she uses to cope). She then tells Ernest, “You don’t know Madeline the way I do. She wants you. She wants you because you’re mine. I’ve lost men to her before… That’s why I wanted you to meet her before we got married, because I just had to see if you could pass the Madeline Ashton test.”

Ernest insists, “Darling, I have absolutely no interest in Madeline Ashton.” Cut to Ernest and Madeline getting married instead of Ernest and Helen. Seven years later, in 1985, we see Helen holed up alone in her apartment, having gained ample weight and residing with a number of cats—as though she’s decided to surrender fully to her enemy by admitting that she’s no match for her, and she might as well just lean into all of her weaknesses…eating included. As the door is broken down to her apartment due to not paying rent, she could care less if the walls are crumbling around her, because there’s a scene of Madeline being strangled on TV that she is practically orgasming over as it happens.

Six months later, at the psych ward, her therapist urges, “For you to have a life—for any of us to have a life—you have got to forget about her. You have to erase her from your mind. You need to eliminate—” That’s where Helen cuts her off and decides to take the “eliminate” advice only. Someone would likely tell Beef’s Amy Lau (Ali Wong) and Danny Cho (Steven Yeun) the same thing and they, too, would abide by the selective advice Helen opted to heed instead. For Amy and Danny, their beef begins later in life than the one between Madeline and Helen. Namely, after they proceed to engage in an ongoing feud sparked by a road rage incident started in the parking lot of Forster’s, a Home Depot-type store owned by Jordan Forster (Maria Bello). Jordan also happens to be the billionaire dangling the promise of buying Amy’s successful plant “boutique,” Kōyōhaus, and absorbing it under the “Forster’s umbrella.” Toying with her psychologically in such a way as to make Amy particularly irritable.

Danny just so happens to back out of his parking spot unthinkingly (/in a glazed-over state of depression) right at the instant when Amy’s looking for someone to take her misplaced rage out on. But, unluckily for her, she has no idea that Danny, too, is filled with rage he’s looking to unleash on an unsuspecting victim—having unintentionally tapped into “unlocking” her nemesis. As for that word, which comes from the Greek goddess of the same name, it bears noting that said goddess was in control of vengeance, “distributing” (the loose translation of “nemesis”) retribution and justice. Except her modus operandi was not to do so right away, perhaps being the inspiration for the old chestnut, “Revenge is a dish best served cold” (the riffing tagline for Beef is, “Revenge is a dish best served raw”). A.k.a. when the person deserving of it (or who one believes is deserving of it) least expects it because so much time has gone by and, surely, somebody couldn’t possibly hold on to a grudge for that long…right? Dead wrong.

Both sets of characters, Madeline and Helen/Amy and Danny, are testaments to that notion. That “letting go” is not an option. Not just because it serves as fuel/a raison d’être, but because there’s an underlying attraction beneath the all-out contempt. Dare one say “love”—thus, the oft-recited phrase, “There’s a fine line between love and hate.” And clearly each character pair sees something of themselves reflected back in the other. Some similar wound that calls to them. In Amy and Danny’s case that wound is feeling totally placeless in a world that prizes people who “belong.” Despite Amy’s financial success, her personal life is constantly strained, as she admits to Danny in the final episode, “Figures of Light,” that she can never really tell her husband, George (Joseph Lee), much of anything. When Danny asks, “Why not?” she replies thoughtfully, “I think when nowhere feels like home, you just retreat into yourself.” Or you make a home in your nemesis, oddly enough. Being that Danny and Amy are the only ones who can really understand one another because they can speak freely without judgment or the fear of “conditions,” their attraction in “Figures of Light” transitions from one of hate to pure love, with both admitting that they’ve never been able to talk to anyone the way they can talk to each other.

The same ultimately goes for Madeline and Helen. Even after another seven years go by in Death Becomes Her, bringing us to then-present day 1992. This time, the shoe has shifted to the other foot in terms of Madeline reposing in bed as she struggles with her own weight gain state, all Norma Desmond-ed out in various facial bandages designed to help make her look young(er). When Rose hands her an invitation to Helen’s book party, she learns that, ironically enough, the title of Helen’s novel is Forever Young. Feeling personally attacked, she goes to her med spa to get some touch-ups. But they won’t give her what she wants, forcing her to attend the party looking like herself. A big mistake, she realizes, when she sees how good and thin Helen looks at the same age as her: fifty.

Hot with envy after the party, Madeline decides to go to Lisle von Rhuman’s (Isabella Rossellini), whose address was given to her by the spa owner, Mr. Franklin (William Frankfather), mysteriously appearing out of nowhere at the spa when Madeline declared money was no object with regard to getting her youth and beauty back. Not yet aware that Helen is already a beneficiary of what Lisle has to offer—eternal youth via a potion—she doesn’t understand that her unwitting “power play” is another form of competition as well. One that will undo Helen’s plans to “eliminate” (per the word her therapist used) Madeline for good. Because the thing about the potion that Lisle fails to mention is that it not only supplies one with eternal youth, but also eternal life. Which means that Madeline and Helen will now be adversaries forever. Just a pair of Beverly Hills ghouls haunting the streets with their immortality.

Nonetheless, the appeal of being hated by a committed enemy is that there is no fear of losing “unconditional” love. For the conditions of burning hate dictate that you must always hate that person no matter what. So any “outrageous” or “immoral” thing they might tell you is actually a boon to that cause. In this regard, Amy has effectively found what she’s looking for in Danny, because one of the running themes in Beef is that she knows no one can love her unconditionally—not even her daughter, June (Remy Holt)—for who she truly is. Not without her plastering on that smiling veneer and providing a sugar-coated “lite” edition of her personality. Danny feels the same, though it comes across to a lesser degree. Granted, his form of securing “unconditional” love is extracted through the master manipulation of his brother, Paul (Young Mazino).

The one-upping lengths that Amy and Danny go to in order to make the other’s life hell is similar to what Madeline and Helen do, expending all their energy on keeping the other down, and plotting her destruction. “You should learn not to compete with me, I always win!” Madeline screams after they both get over the reality that each of them is dead and forever young, equalizing the playing field a little too much for both women’s taste. Helen is the one who starts the fight (featuring that illustrious hole in her stomach) with the shovels as they proceed to go at it in yet another fierce competition, this time more literally. Helen ripostes to Madeline’s claim, “You may have always won, but you never played fair!” This is something Danny could easily say to Amy, who has the financial means and security to get at Danny with far more ease.

Finally fathoming it’s mostly pointless to keep fighting, Madeline reminds Helen, “We can’t even inflict pain.” Helen snaps back, “I’ll tell ya about pain! Bobby O’Brien! Scott Hunter! Ernest Menville! That’s pain! I loved every one of them and they loved me… They were all I had and you took them away from me. Not because you loved them, not because you cared. But just to hurt me on purpose.” As the two delve deeper into their long-marinating beef, Madeline counters to Helen playing the sole victim, “Do you think I was blind, deaf? I couldn’t hear what you and your snotty friends were saying about me? You thought I was cheap.” Helen rebuffs, “Oh, please. You’re insane.” Madeline demands, “Then how come you never invited me to one of those parties at your parents’?” Helen shrugs, “Because we didn’t think you’d feel comfortable. It wasn’t usual for… It wasn’t usual for us to have…” “Trash in the house!” Madeline cuts in. Helen redirects, “You’re avoiding the issue. You stole my boyfriends to hurt me on purpose!” “I did not!” “Admit it!” Madeline insists, “No, you admit it. You look me in the eye and you admit you thought I was cheap.” Helen gives in, ceding, “Okay, I thought you were cheap.” As a reward for her honesty, Madeline confirms, “Well, I hurt you on purpose.” And so, like Danny with Amy, Madeline kept using the one thing she had—her “trashy wiles”—to get back at someone “classier” such as Helen.

Having buried the hatchet with one another after an ultimate fight (which is what happens in Beef when Amy and Danny run each other off a cliff in their cars), the two now join forces to get Ernest to do their bidding and ensure that their youthful corpse bodies are kept looking fresh (Ernest is an expert in this after being forced to become a reconstructive mortician)—generally by spray-painting their skin in a flesh-colored tone. Unfortunately, their shared enthusiasm for making Ernest “one of them” so that he can be around forever to deliver the needed “maintenance” on their bodies backfires when Ernest comes to understand that living forever sounds like a nightmare. Managing to escape from their clutches after they knock him out and take him to Lisle’s house, Madeline and Helen are forced to reconcile the fact that despite being sworn enemies for all these decades, they’re the only two people on the planet who can truly understand one another. But that’s as horrifying as it is comforting, with Helen noting, “Who could have imagined? You and me…together.” Madeline returns, “Yeah, I know.” Helen continues, “Depending on each other. Painting each other’s asses. Day and night.” Madeline laughs along nervously, “Oh, yeah. Forever.” Helen repeats, “Forever” as their forced jovial laughter turns to near tears.

Cut to thirty-seven years later in 2029, and the duo’s skin is peeling at Ernest’s funeral. Regardless of their misery, they still obviously get off on their bickering—it’s like a life-force they can use to funnel into remaining “sharp” and “with purpose.” That much can also be said for Amy and Danny as they let their feud steer both their lives completely off course…but at least they can tell they’re still alive as a result (unlike Madeline and Helen).

In the poster for Beef, Amy and Danny are shown staring at each other with an intensity that looks as much like hate as it does love. Ergo, the aforementioned aphorism: “There’s a fine line between love and hate.” And there is something to being attracted to the energy of a person you seemingly despise, seeing a quality in them that you can relate to…or a quality you perhaps despise in yourself. No matter how outwardly “different” your nemesis might come across in relation to your own persona.