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2019 | Buch

Surrogacy and the Reproduction of Normative Family on TV

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This book examines the proliferation of surrogacy storylines on TV, exploring themes of infertility, motherhood, parenting and family. It investigates how, despite reproductive technologies’ ability to flex contours of family, the shows’ narratives work to uphold the white, heterosexual, genetically-reproduced family as the ideal. In dialogue with responses from a range of female viewers, both mothers and non-mothers, the book scrutinises the construction of family ideology on television with studies including Coronation Street (1960-present), Giuliana & Bill (2009-2014), Rules of Engagement (2007-2013), The New Normal (2012-2013), Top of the Lake: China Girl (2017) The Handmaid’s Tale (2017-present) and film Baby Mama (2008). These studies raise a number of questions; is homosexuality only acceptable when it echoes heterosexual norms? Are female characters only fulfilled when they are genetic mothers? Does heterosexual romance override technology in the cure for infertility? While the answers to these questions may suggest that television still conforms to heteronormative narratives, this book importantly demonstrates that audiences desire alternative happy endings that show infertile female characters more positively and recognise alternative kinship formations as meaningful.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introduction: Family in Crisis—The Rise of Surrogacy and Its Impact on Popular Culture
Abstract
This introductory chapter explores the importance of TV on popular culture in relation to evolving media platforms, consumer practices and its interaction with modern politics—in specific relation to how normative ideologies of family and motherhood are being continually perpetuated. Here, it is made clear that this book sets out to show that such recycling of norms through TV storylines are an anxious response to increasing infertility and alternative family structures enabled through reproductive technologies. Also mentioned here is why this project focusses on the reception rather than the production of the texts. The author will give an overview of the methods used (textual analysis and audience work) why they have been used in relation to the analytical methods (queer theory, genre analysis), and how the combination of these methods and analytical approaches offer a unique feminist perspective for TV studies, specifically in the exploration of how ideologies of motherhood, normative family and sexuality are articulated through these contemporary and popular TV storylines. In addition, this foundational chapter also explores how nineteenth-century notions of family and motherhood resurface through the narratives of these modern TV shows. The author will argue here the importance of exposing what these texts ‘speak’ about the historical and political context of the time. The focus here will be on the reproductive politics in America and Australia, in relation to the texts under analysis. As a lead into the analytical chapters, the author will set out an overview of the texts that have selected for analysis. Here it will be made clear that both The Handmaid’s Tale and Top of the Lake: China Girl are shows that came out after the ethnographic research had been completed and explain why it was decided drama as a genre category was omitted for analysis. These two texts will be explored fully in Chapter 6, in the context of the core of the themes that have emerged through the research.
Lulu Le Vay
Chapter 2. I Want a Baby! Baby Hunger and the Desire for a Genetic Child
Abstract
This chapter examines the desire for a genetic child through baby hunger that drives the narratives of American reality TV show Giuliana & Bill and British soap opera Coronation Street. How the surrogacy storylines emotionally connect (or not connect) with the audience sample through the varying genre techniques will also be explored. Furthermore, the disciplinary practice of reproductive technologies is addressed, primarily in relation to maternal identities that are rendered invisible in the texts through ideologies of class and race. A debate on American and British politics and contemporary capitalism in relation to the reproduction of the family (eugenics, sexual health care, reproductive rights) will also be explored here.
Lulu Le Vay
Chapter 3. Becoming Ordinary: Making Homosexuality More Palatable
Abstract
In this chapter queer straightness is explored through the analysis of American sitcoms The New Normal and Rules of Engagement. Firstly, through how the homosexual male characters in The New Normal are made more accessible by aspiring to heteronormative family ideals, and secondly through how the lesbian surrogate in Rules of Engagement is made more feminine, and therefore more heterosexual, through pregnancy. The concept of queer straightness will also underpin a discussion of how the depiction of same-sex partnerships and the creation of family through surrogacy both challenge and reproduce hetero-norms.
Lulu Le Vay
Chapter 4. Infertile Bodies: Rescuing Infertility Through the Heterosexual Love Plot
Abstract
This chapter examines the infertile characters in the Hollywood film Baby Mama and American sitcom Rules of Engagement by focusing on how the characters are queered in relation to dominant norms. This chapter also examines how divisions are created between the female characters through infertility and inscriptions of class and race. In relation to this, the concept of straight queerness is explained further by examining what has to materialise in the narrative to enable the non-normative female characters to transition into a normative position—from infertile to fertile; non-mothers to mothers. This discussion also illustrates how the restoration narrative repositions the characters within nineteenth-century notions of domesticity and normative motherhood, which is followed by a discussion of the participants’ resistance to such conventional ideals.
Lulu Le Vay
Chapter 5. Queer Futures: Chosen Families and Alternative Intimacies
Abstract
This chapter examines the endings in all of the texts under analysis in relation to the participants desire to see alternative endings and new definitions of womanhood. This will be followed by a discussion of the participants’ rejection of the myth of the instant mother–baby bond which is portrayed in the texts, alongside their resistance to the conventional notions of family that are overwhelmingly evident. The concept of love will also be debated here, in relation to kinship formations within gay and black communities that are not so dependent on the genetic tie. Through this the overriding theme of heteronormativity as the ideal, which involves the reproduction of normative family through heterosexual love, is exposed and challenged.
Lulu Le Vay
Chapter 6. Conclusion: Why Representation on TV Matters
Abstract
This chapter summarises the core themes and arguments identified which are extended further in a discussion of the most recent popular texts featuring surrogacy storylines in American and Australian dramas The Handmaid’s Tale and Top of the Lake: China Girl. Further to this, the importance of how TV representations and reproductive politics connect in the construction and perpetuation of family ideology is also highlighted, and how this work must be acknowledged as an important moment in popular culture. This then emphasises the need for continual analysis of family ideology in the ever-changing media world, future works which the author underlines can only benefit from the foundations that have been laid throughout this book.
Lulu Le Vay
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Surrogacy and the Reproduction of Normative Family on TV
verfasst von
Lulu Le Vay
Copyright-Jahr
2019
Electronic ISBN
978-3-030-17570-2
Print ISBN
978-3-030-17569-6
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17570-2