- “They're chickens, you dolt! Apart from you, they're the most stupid creatures on this planet! They don't plot, they don't scheme, and they are NOT ORGANISED!”
- ―Mrs. Tweedy yells at her husband Mr. Tweedy.
Melisha Tweedy, or better known as Mrs. Tweedy, is the main antagonist of DreamWorks' 4th full-length animated feature film Chicken Run, which is also Aardman's 1st feature film and Pathe's first animated feature film. Mrs. Tweedy makes her home at an unknown chicken farm. She is Mr. Tweedy's abusive wife and boss, and Ginger's arch-nemesis.
She was voiced by Miranda Richardson, who also played Lady Van Tassel in Sleepy Hollow.
Appearance[]
Mrs. Tweedy is a tall and slim woman with long, dark brunette hair pulled back into a tight bun at the top of her head. She also has blue eyes, as well as periwinkle eyeshadow. She is a lot taller than her husband.
In the film, she is seen with two outfits. In her typical daily outfit, she wears a burgundy dress with an upright collar, a black brooch at the throat, black muck boots, red gloves that occasionally go up to her forearms, and sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She also wears a sheer pantyhose, because in this outfit she has the legs colored in a tan brown darker than her nude white skin. Her second outfit seen is her nighttime pajamas, pink slippers with yellow wool socks, a pink dressing gown, and a pink bath cap. In both the outfits, she keeps her hair tied.
Personality[]
- “D'oh! Stupid, worthless creatures! I'm sick and tired of making minuscule profits.”
- ―Mrs. Tweedy expressing her hatred for the chickens for the low profits that she is having.
Mrs. Tweedy is an extremely selfish, greedy, ruthless, manipulative, and hot-tempered woman who only uses the chickens to get money, which her family is very low on. She is always looking for a chance to abuse her husband and the chickens, and despite her temper, she is occasionally shown to be quite clever and intellectual - she is the one who comes up with the idea of buying a pie machine to use to make more profit from the chickens.
She is specifically impatient and temperamental with her husband, shown when she is contemplating buying the Pie Machine, and when the Pie Machine is broken. It is also demonstrated that she and her husband have a quarrelsome disagreement on many things — when Mr. Tweedy is attacked by the chickens, he abusively calls to her "The chickens are revolting!", and she (doing other things at the time) says to herself "Finally, something we agree on".
However, she did not know he did not mean revolt in the context she was thinking of. She is also shown to be a very tough and resilient woman who is possibly happy with the idea of murdering the chickens, displayed with the evil smile that she gave to the chickens that she selected for slaughter during Roll Call right before they were killed. She is also very abusive, defamatory, argumentative, and opprobrious towards the chickens, her husband, and possibly also her dogs, as they are shown to be afraid of her. She is, however, capable of displaying some mild affection to her husband when she views things as going her way, as she flirtatiously pinched his behind while watching the chickens gorge themselves on the extra food meant to fatten them up.
Mrs. Tweedy rarely shows any emotion other than disgust or anger. It is fairly safe to say that she is also a deranged, obsessive, and psychopathic person based on her behavior. Despite her truly diabolical and sinister nature, Mrs. Tweedy was also very careful to craft her public image in a pleasing light, as shown by billboards advertising her pies, which portray her as a smiling and motherly woman rather than the stoic and uptight person she really is. She also has a curious habit of never calling Mr. Tweedy by his first name, even though they share the same last name as they are married. Instead, she constantly calls him "Mr. Tweedy".
Biography[]
In the 1950s in the United Kingdom, a chicken named Ginger (the main heroine of the film) made several failed attempts for her and her fellow chickens to escape from Mrs. Tweedy's farm in Yorkshire, England. As it turns out, Mrs. Tweedy runs the farm like a concentration camp, forcing the chickens to produce eggs to sell for profit and killing those who failed to produce any eggs for a week. As the year goes by, Mrs. Tweedy discovers that profits are constantly going down due to low amounts of eggs being laid. Her husband Mr. Tweedy correctly suspects the chickens are "up to something" due to their attempts to escape, but Mrs. Tweedy brushes this off, believing that they (apart from Mr. Tweedy) are the stupidest creatures on the planet. After seeing an ad for a pie machine, Mrs. Tweedy decides to get it to turn all of her chickens into pies in a bid to increase her profits.
After ordering the machine, Mrs. Tweedy and her husband attempt to kill Ginger in their machine in order to test it, but are thwarted when a visiting American rooster named Rocky rescues her and clogs the gravy sprayer, sabotaging the machine. The chickens begin to prepare their ultimate escape plan: creating an airplane out of their sheds to fly off the farm. In the meantime, Mrs. Tweedy forces Mr. Tweedy to fix the machine. After the repairs are done, Mrs. Tweedy tells Mr. Tweedy to fetch all of the chickens. However, Mr. Tweedy finds out that most of his tools were stolen for the chickens' plan, but he is attacked by the chickens and tied up. He attempts to warn Mrs. Tweedy about this, but she ignores him, unaware of what is going on.
Just as Ginger is about to set up the ramp to help the airplane fly off, Mrs. Tweedy tries to stop her with her ax, finally seeing what's really going on. Fortunately, Rocky (who left until he saw an advertisement for Mrs. Tweedy's Chicken Pies) returns and uses his bike to knock Mrs. Tweedy unconscious, accidentally throwing the ax in the air. Mrs. Tweedy came to and sees the ax land right next to her neck, making her pass out again due to the shock. With that in mind, Rocky and Ginger set the ramp before escaping with the other chickens in their plane.
However, Mrs. Tweedy wakes up and goes off in pursuit of the escaping chickens by grabbing onto the dragging rope. Now insanely mad, she climbs herself up to stop the plane, even if it means endangering her own life. Fortunately, Ginger tricks Mrs. Tweedy into cutting the rope with her ax, and she falls through the barn window and lands headfirst in the safety valve of the pie machine, causing it to explode due to the overwhelming gravy pressure, destroying much of the barn.
After the explosion, Mrs. Tweedy finds herself covered in gravy and still stuck the safety valve. As the chickens have finally escaped from the farm, Mr. Tweedy (having untied himself and barely escaped the explosion unscathed) berates his wife for not listening to him about the chickens in the first place. This only enrages Mrs. Tweedy, but before she can lash out at her husband for his incompetence, a fed-up Mr. Tweedy pushes the heavy barn door down on his wife after he finally had enough of his wife's abuse, finally getting back at her and releasing himself from her influence. It remains unknown whether Mrs. Tweedy was killed or just injured by the impact of the door falling down on her.
Powers and Abilities[]
Despite being a farm woman with a keen business sense, Mrs. Tweedy carries a hatchet that she uses to behead chickens. She manages to wield it surprisingly well in battle. Additionally, she is a rather cunning and strong woman, being most of the brawn and brains involved at the farm. Mrs. Tweedy is also capable of chasing the chickens down to the point where she was precariously dangling by a thread high above the ground, carrying her ax in her teeth.
Quotes[]
- “Mr. Tweedy. What is that chicken doing outside the fence? (Mr. Tweedy: Oh! I don't know, love. I--) Just deal with it. NOW! (slams the door behind her)”
- ―Mrs. Tweedy instructing Mr. Tweedy to deal with Ginger after catching her outside the gate.
- “Twenty-two and nine, Fourteen shillings, and threepence, Seven and sixpence times three, Two and nine, fourpence halfpenny.”
- ―Mrs. Tweedy.
- “(Mr. Tweedy: Oh, yes. Those chickens are up to something.) Quiet. I'm onto something. (Mr. Tweedy: They're organized, I know it.) I said, quiet! (Mr. Tweedy: That Ginger one, I reckon she's their leader.) Mr. Tweedy! I may finally have found a way to make some real money around here and what are you on about? Ridiculous notions of escaping chickens! (Mr. Tweedy: But... but...) It's all in your head, Mr. Tweedy. Say it! (Mr. Tweedy: It's all in me head, it's all in me head.) Now, you keep telling yourself that, because I don't want to hear another word about it. Is that clear? (Mr. Tweedy: Yes, love. But you know that Ginger one--) They're chickens, you dolt! Apart from you, they're the most stupid creatures on this planet! They don't plot, they don't scheme, and they are not organized!”
- ―Mrs. Tweedy.
Trivia[]
- Miranda Richardson appeared as the Witch in the 1988 episode "The Three Ravens" for the TV series "The Storyteller".
- Miranda Richardson appeared as Lady Van Tassel in the 1999 film "Sleepy Hollow".
- Miranda Richardson appeared as Queen Elspeth in the 2001 fantasy adventure television film "Snow White: The Fairest of Them All".