Why don't I see deliveries in TV series? Characteristics of childbirth representation in contemporary television
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51698/tripodos.2025.58.03Abstract
Infertility, miscarriages, gestation, perinatal losses, childbirth, breastfeeding, and postpartum have long been underrepresented in cultural works, and the audiovisual in particular (Visa-Barbosa, 2019). They are also often addressed symbolically without taking into account female subjectivity. However, there has recently been discussion about how delivery is represented, particularly in light of feminist studies.
As a result, in the first section of this article, we will examine how television series have approached the representation of childbirth, looking at its main characteristics. We will come to the conclusion that these characteristics can be summed up as its representational absence due to its sexualization, the passivity of the maternal figure, in the medicalization of childbirth, and in the terrifying representation of childbirth as an event.
In the second section, we'll use the television adaptation Dead Ringers (Amazon Prime, 2023), whose inspiration comes from David Cronemberg's 1988 film of the same name, as a case study to show how these representational qualities are not only confirmed but frequently even elevated through an aestheticization and the addition of a critical point of view, raising ethical concerns in the process.
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La infertilidad, los abortos espontáneos, la gestación, las pérdidas perinatales, el parto, la lactancia materna y el posparto han estado subrepresentados durante mucho tiempo en las obras culturales, en particular en los medios audiovisuales. Cuando se abordan, estos temas suelen representarse simbólicamente sin tener en cuenta la subjetividad femenina. Sin embargo, la representación del parto se ha convertido recientemente en un tema de debate, en particular en el contexto de los estudios feministas. En la primera sección de este artículo, examinamos cómo las series de televisión han representado el parto, analizando sus principales características. Concluimos que estas características incluyen su ausencia de representación debido a la sexualización, la pasividad de la figura materna, la medicalización del parto y la representación del parto como un evento aterrador. En la segunda sección, utilizamos la adaptación televisiva Dead Ringers (Amazon Prime, 2023), inspirada en la película homónima de David Cronemberg de 1988, como caso de estudio para mostrar cómo estas cualidades de representación no solo se confirman sino que a menudo se amplifican a través de la estetización y un punto de vista crítico, planteando preocupaciones éticas en el proceso.
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