| Edina Monsoon | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Information | |
| Name | Edina Monsoon |
| Gender | Female |
| Actor | Jennifer Saunders |
| Spouses | Justin Monsoon - divorced Marshall Turtle - divorced |
| Children | Saffron Monsoon, Serge Turtle |
| Religion | Buddhism |
| Relatives | Patsy Stone - Wife (Unofficially) |
| Nickname | Eddy |
| Occupation | Owner of Monsoon PR |
Edina Monsoon is the main character in the BBC programme Absolutely Fabulous, played by Jennifer Saunders, who is also the creator of the show. The character is known for her extravagance and various attempts to follow new crazes and trends.
Character
Edina was born Edwina Margaret Rose Monsoon on 6 August 1951 in London; her parents' only child. She later changed her name to Edina and is nearly always called Eddie; only her mother and ex-husband Justin call her Edwina. According to Patsy, Eddie's teenage nickname was "The Shredder" due to her addiction to eating "huge amounts of tissues"; "whole toilet rolls", Eddie's ex-husband Justin verified.
Edina is the owner of a (barely) successful metropolitan PR company. It seems that this stems partly from her being at the right places at the right times, and around the right people, from the late sixties to early eighties. In several episodes, including "Fashion" and "The Last Shout", Edina demonstrates the creativity, organisational ability and shrewd business sense that have made her successful.
Eddie's self-image is based on 1960s counterculture and the world of fashion and celebrity. She is fixated on self-indulgence and her ideas of self-actualisation. Eddie subscribes to every trend that arises, including New Age spirituality—she calls herself a Buddhist—and feng shui. She aspires to move in the highest circles of creativity, fashion, and celebrity. She considers herself a follower of the latest trends, but, having no real sense of style of her own, Eddie is actually a fashion victim, parading the latest fashion trends without understanding them or understanding what looks good on her. She is a die-hard fan of Christian Lacroix and is quick to point out "It's Lacroix, darling, Lacroix".
She lives in a nice Holland Park house, which she claims cost £1.5m, (see episode 'Hospital' series 2) with her daughter Saffy, and owns a public relations firm whose only steady client is 1960s pop singer Lulu, whose professional relationship with Edina is hanging by a thread. In later years, this was switched to model Twiggy and Spice Girl Emma Bunton, who also went to school with Saffy.
Family
Eddy Monsoon was first married to Marshall Turtle and has one child with him - Serge . She was later married to Justin, who is the father of her second child Saffron. Justin is gay and lives with his partner, Oliver, with whom he owns an antique shop. Edina often seems to be extremely bitter about her divorce from her second husband, and she is also shown to be jealous of the close and loving relationship shared between Saffy and Justin. Eddie lives with her daughter.
Edina has an extremely strained relationship with both of her children. Serge fled the family home long before the start of the series because his mother drove him crazy. Saffy is likewise often bewildered and vexed by her mother's behavior. Their roles are essentially shown to be reversed, with Saffy as the stern parental figure and Edina as the absent-minded and selfish child. The many years of having to care for her mother have left Saffron uptight and resentful, while Eddy often makes snide and condescending remarks toward her daughter while wasting no opportunity to lavish praise upon her son (who never contacts her). In spite of her dysfunctional parenting style, however, Eddy has admitted that she loves her children.
Spirituality
Eddy claims to be a Buddhist, but throughout the series she is given advice by God
Style
Eddy is sometimes a fashion victim, parading the latest fashion trends without understanding them or understanding what looks good on her. Often, however, in a bizarre way, her clothing works in a way that it couldn't on anyone else. She is also a fan of Lacroix.
House
She lives in a nice Holland Park house, which she claims cost £1.5m
Career
Monsoon owns a public relations firm whose only steady client is 1960s pop singer Lulu. In later years, this was switched to model Twiggy and Spice Girl Emma Bunton, who also went to school with Saffy. Edina's regular laziness and disorganisation frequently seem to damage her business, and it is sometime unclear how she continues to be successful and wealthy.
Other stuff (to be organised soon)
Sometimes, however, it appears that her apparent lack of competence belies a shrewdness, cunning and ingeniousness that kicks in when she needs to save herself. It is clear both in the pilot episode and The Last Shout that she has a frantically creative mind and is a good organiser. Edina is desperate to give off the aura of success, wealth and fabulousness. She is extremely status conscious, loudly clarifying that her house is in Holland Park whenever someone identifies the neighbourhood as Shepherds Bush. In an early episode, Edina says that she has always voted Labour, but she notes her disdain for New Labour in the fourth series. She collects hefty alimony payments from her two ex-husbands, Justin and Marshall. Justin (Saffy's father) is gay and for a time has a boyfriend named Oliver, who run an antique shop together. Her first husband, Marshall Turtle – the father of her gay and almost perpetually off-screen son Serge – later marries brash, scheming New-Age Californian Bo Chrysalis (Gaffney), who effortlessly rules over him. Gay men play an important role in Edina's social self-image, as tokens of fashionability and political correctness. She asserts the former by claiming that "gay men love [her]" and the latter by claiming that "all [her] friends are gay". However, on one occasion, she seconds Patsy's accusation of a "gay mafia" conspiracy to explain the professional failures. Oliver - Justin's partner, openly despises her and Serge, her gay son, fears her. To Serge's partner, however, she is the ideal gay icon and they adopt each other as Mother and Son. Edina claims to be a vegetarian although she is seen eating meat on a few occasions (even raw meat). For dramatic purposes she had been described as being two stone (28 pounds) overweight. She frequently moans about being too fat; however, she hasn't the willpower to stay on any diet for long. She often says that one method she has used is to go shopping for clothes two sizes too small for her. Weak-willed as she is, she spends much of her life caught in an emotional tug of war between Patsy, her lifelong friend and corrupter, and Saffy, her sensible goody-two-shoes daughter. Although generally badly behaved and eagerly led astray, Edina seems to have some compunctions about some things Patsy encourages her to do and seems, underneath, to crave a good relationship with her children. Her willpower, however, regularly fails her.