the film portrays the figure skater's mother as a strict and controlling harridan
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Into this vacuum, a misogynistic sense of her as a harridan or a drug-using flake emerged.—Daniel D'addario, Variety, 3 Feb. 2026 Given its plotting, Brooks’s movie could easily have made Iris into a harridan and Isaac into a sociopathic rogue.—Graham Hillard, The Washington Examiner, 15 Aug. 2025 As written, and as played quite winningly by Siff, Silverman’s Tekla is neither a kitten nor a harridan.—Jesse Green, New York Times, 19 May 2025 The subtext throughout is that Tendler is a harridan, a domineering scold.—Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 16 Aug. 2024 Richard Millet became a kind of referendum on what wasn’t yet termed cancel culture, with Ernaux denounced as a harridan intent on enforcing politically correct censorship at the expense of a man’s career.—Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker, 14 Nov. 2022 Throughout her tenure as House speaker, Pelosi has been painted by Trump supporters as an unhinged harridan: crazy, conniving and hungry for power.—Monica Hesse, Washington Post, 14 Oct. 2022
Word History
Etymology
perhaps modification of French haridelle old horse, gaunt woman