- "Eyes on the prize, Violet, eyes on the prize."
— Scarlett to her daughter
Scarlett Beauregarde is Violet's neurotic stage mom in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She is portrayed by actress and singer Missi Pyle. She is referred to by Violet as "Mother" throughout the film.
Appearance[]
Scarlett is a very tall woman, nearing 6 feet. She has blonde-hair with a bob style haircut. She is nearly identical to Violet, having the same features and always wearing the same clothes as her daughter, but significantly taller, and more physically mature. In all her appearances, she wears a pink or blue tracksuit, similar to Violet's.
Personality[]
Scarlett embracing Violet
On the surface, Scarlett seems like a normal mother proud of her daughter's achievements, as shown in her interview after Violet found the Golden Ticket. She also regularly acts innocent, flirtatious, and "cute" around the other contestants, and especially flirts with Willy Wonka.
Beneath her facade, however, Scarlett is the stereotypical white wealthy American suburban soccer mom. She is extremely competitive, shown with her victories with batons. As she is a single mother raising her daughter, she effectively puts her own image onto Violet, right down to them always dressing the exact same and both having color names that end in "let", and treats her on a coach-and-athlete relationship. As such, Scarlett hammers in her own competitive nature into Violet and is the only thing that Scarlett cares about, as she ignores anything else about her daughter, including her manners and poor behavior. As such, she is arguably the worst parent in the tour, as she actively encourages Violet's worst traits, causing Violet to be alienated from everyone else but her, and therefore she could remain fully in control of Violet.
Scarlett tries flirting with Wonka
Thus, her innocent facade is actually her attempts at manipulating the competition, or at least make her and Violet not seem like as big of a threat. She also hoped to use this innocence to attract Wonka's attention, hoping that it could manipulate Wonka into giving Violet an advantage in the competition. However, behind Wonka's back she shows disdain towards his eccentric behavior, and she drops her facade when Violet transformed into a blueberry.
Due to initially seeing her daughter as a means to an end, a pathway to further glory and fame rather than a human being with emotions and thoughts of her own, she initially possessed little sympathy towards Violet's ultimate fate. Though she was initially shocked and surprised at her daughter becoming a blueberry, her feelings were mainly due to her worrying about how her daughter could compete and win the final prize of the tour, going as far as to consider the idea to enter Violet into a country fair. However, she nevertheless learns her lesson and finally shows parental instincts when she rushed over to Violet after learning that she was going to be juiced, in order to help Violet when she was stuck in the Inventing Room silo door. When she is last seen, Scarlett is leaving the factory with a now-juiced and blue Violet who is highly excited about her newfound flexibility. Scarlett, however, is not impressed. She sternly reminds her daughter that she is still blue, disagreeing with her daughter for the first time and implying that she will give up coaching her daughter and begin to act more like a mother to her in the future. This indicates a shift in her perspective, moving away from solely focusing on Violet's winning potential and towards a more caring and supportive role.
Violet Finding the Ticket[]
Scarlett showing off her baton trophy
Scarlett is first seen in the Beauregarde's large trophy room in their Atlanta, Georgia residence showing off Violet winning the Golden Ticket to the press and media. She quickly establishes her stage mother persona by flaunting Violet's 263 trophies and medals while also trying to display her own baton trophy. It is in this scene that Scarlett is established as a stage mother who vicariously lives through her daughter. She not only has a strange neurotic looking gloat but also has Violet dressed the same as her right down to matching bob haircuts.
Arrival at the Factory[]
Scarlett and Violet outside the factory.
On the day of the tour, Scarlett and Violet are seen standing in between the Gloops and the Teavees. Scarlett further shows her strange stage mom tendencies with the disgusted look she gives to the other children and their parents and she tells Violet to keep her "eyes on the prize". When she sees the welcome performance and its subsequent destruction, she looks at it confusingly. After entering the factory and seeing Violet try to get into Wonka's good graces, Scarlett misreads Wonka's reaction and gives Violet and encouraging nod and another neurotic smirk.
The Boat Ride[]
Scarlett during the tunnel scene. The cyan light shining down on her foreshadows her and her daughter's fate.
Violet watches as the Oompa-Loompas rowed over the candy boat. She asks Wonka why they were laughing, and he states he believes it's from the cocoa beans. During the boat ride, she sits in front of Wonka, Charlie and Grandpa Joe.
The Inventing Room and Violet's Transformation[]
After the boat ride and arriving in the Inventing Room, Wonka presents the group with his latest invention, the Everlasting Gobstopper, which Violet mistakenly compares to gum only for Wonka to shoot her down leading to Scarlett giving her daughter a disapproving look. After seeing the creation of the Three Course Dinner gum, Violet decides to chew it against Wonka's warnings which leads to a smug look from Scarlett, who believes that this will increase her daughter's chances at winning the grand prize.
Scarlett considering Veruca's suggestion for Violet.
However despite Scarlett's encouragement, things quickly get out of hand when Violet's nose begins to turn purple leading to Scarlett turning to Wonka who quickly ducks out of sight. Scarlett then shows an immensely cowardly side to herself and rather than trying to help her daughter, she simply backs off with the rest of the group leaving Violet to transform into a huge blueberry. It is at this point that Scarlett shows a truly callous side to her nature with the line "But I can't have a blueberry as a daughter. How is she supposed to compete?" Showing that rather than actually caring about her daughter's well-being, Scarlett only really cared about how she could live through Violet's achievements. Scarlett even contemplates placing Violet in a country fair due to Veruca's suggestion.
During the Oompa-Loompa's song and performance, Scarlett is seen glaring furiously at the Oompa-Loompas as they sing and dance. However by the end of the song, Scarlett is seen looking genuinely concerned for her daughter. Wonka then orders the Oompa-Loompas to roll Violet into the boat and take her along to the Juicing Room so that the juice can be squeezed out of her immediately. Scarlett then shows more parental instinct as she whimpers and dashes to help push a swollen Violet through the Inventing Room door.
Fate[]
Scarlett is last seen leaving the factory with the now-blue and incredibly flexible Violet, who is seemingly unfazed by her transformation and is even joyous of her newly discovered talent of super-elasticity, completely disregarding the lesson she was meant to learn. Meanwhile Scarlett, judging from her expressions and her tone of voice she is not only disappointed at having lost the grand prize in the end, but is also disappointed in Violet and by extension, perhaps even herself for allowing their overly-competitive, "winning is everything" attitudes to get the best of them, as well as disappointment in herself for encouraging her daughter to disobey Wonka's orders to spit out the experimental chewing gum. They are not seen again for the remainder of the film, but it is likely that they returned home to Georgia.
Trivia[]
- Her name is seen when she is showing off her trophies.
- Scarlett Beauregarde, like Rupert Salt, has been praised by viewers of the film for her development, as she too has a character arc and learns a lesson by the end of the film, realizing that she needs to be more of a mother and less of a sports coach to Violet by not pushing her to constantly win.
External links[]
Gallery[]
| Characters |
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Golden Ticket winners
Augustus Gloop (1971) Families
GLOOP: Mrs. Gloop (1971) • Mr. Gloop (1971) Other characters Arthur Slugworth • Fickelgruber • Lofty • Mr. Turkentine • Mr. Wilkinson • Noodle • Oompa-Loompa • Prince Pondicherry • Prodnose • The Shopkeeper
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