martini- I see what you mean, but at the same time, surely Remy would turn to his mother for support? Or at least ask her opinion? I truly think that if she was around and available, we would’ve seen her at some point in the film- she’d be too big a character to miss out.
lizardgirl- I understand what you mean, only in the Art of Ratatouille they mentioned that the reason she was written out is because they wanted to make the movie more father-son centered. Besides there wasn’t enough screen time with the rat clan to fit her in, and if they had, all it would do would be stall the story. Remember, I’m only saying she COULD be alive, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if she was dead.
I think she’s alive, but doesn’t come into the story.
I don’t think the pixar crew could be so cruel as to list her as dead.
Remember these?
Hopper and his mother
Randall
Coral and nearly over 400 of her children
Chuckles
Thunderhead
Stratogale
Metaman
Dynaguy
Splashdown
Numerous guards
Buddy
Auguste Gusteau
If they needed to, they’d have to do something to Desiree as well.
wait…
huh?
It’s a list of all the “deceased” characters Pixar has had in their movies thus far.
martini- Hmm, yeah, good point. It’s more quantity than quality when it comes to Pixar, as in they may cut down the amount of characters and focus on certain aspects, but that makes the film all the better. I just still can’t help thinking that something must’ve happened to her, even if she isn’t dead, for her not to be in the film, but that’s just the way I think. I just keep imagining Remy being turned away by his father, being told that what he was doing was silly, and then turning to his mother for support instead because his father had rejected him.
A113- Oi, you’d better cross Randall off that list! 
To settle all, or half, of this matter, I shall quote a paragraph directly from the “Art of Ratatouille” book itself…
“The character of Desiree, Remy’s mother, was one we tried to develop for quite a while, but as the story evolved it became more about the father-and-son relationship, and she faded away. Desiree was the overworked mother of 200, but she always knew what was going on with all of her very precocious children, who were a kind of “Our Gang” group that was continually getting into trouble.” - Jim Capobianco (story supervisor for Ratatouille), The Art of Ratatouille, pg. 28
Paik, K. (2007) The Art of Ratatouille. 1st edition. San Francisco: Chronicle Books LLC
So, in other words, this particular character was “evicted from the premises” entirely, if one would be so obliged to word it that way. I know that you already mentioned this fact, martini833, but I simply wanted to state the matter in more clarity. (Well, that, and I couldn’t resist jumping in on the conversation…)
Personally, I am rather glad that Desiree was left out of the film, for her very presence, if not needed, would have been a bit of a distraction. I always settled on the fictional idea that Django lost her to a human rat trap… insert gasp here
– Mitch
okay…
but arent’ we debating wether shes alive or not?
that question hasn’t been answered yet…
And it will never be answered, because all we can do is speculate and have a best guess. Unless someone from Pixar comes along to these boards and types out the answer either way, we’ll never know. Which is why it’s fun to speculate.
I like having these “arguments”. 
i like to think of it more as…
“political debates”, perhaps, but definitely not arguments… 
Oh, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! But Martin makes it really fun. 
The way I see it, we aren’t trying to “debate” what did happened to her, but rather what could have happened to her. The Pixarian reaches of our minds aren’t satisfied with the fact that she was just cut out of the story (at least I’m not satisfied with that conclusion - I’m in the universe of the story, ya’ll, I gotta have a REASON, dude ).
OK, zipping the lip now.
…
right…
LOL you’re too funny, Sylvermagykan.
your not the first one to say that, you know…
it gets kinda annoying after awhile…
I like CGI Clownfish’s theory.
I loove your new avatar, RMSH! Oops! I wasn’t supposed to say that, was I? xD
BonT: I’m also wondering why the rats don’t have French accents. Maybe they were following Linguini from America? xD Seriously, I don’t know.
I’m not that ashamed of it.