“Faking a sonogram”: Representation of Motherhood on Sex and the City by Laura Tropp is the subject article of my analysis. This publication was easy to read and understandable and was especially interesting to those who follow the television series Sex and the City. The intention of the article is to compare the media coverage of two of the television stars’ real life pregnancies with Miranda’s (a character on the show) unexpected pregnancy in an effort to explain how Sex and the City challenges dominate discourses on pregnancy and motherhood. While the media glamorized the real-life pregnancy of two of the stars of the show, on the program, Miranda struggled with the burden and challenges she faced as a pregnant, single women while trying to maintain her high powered career.
The article also highlighted the various views of pregnancy and motherhood in other television shows over many decades. Situation comedies of the 1950s and 1960s embodied the feminine mystique with their wholehearted commitment to family and their happy submersions into domestic life (Kutulas, 1998) while the shows of the 1970s and early 1980s depicted women in the workplace trying to achieve the same success as men. The late 1980s and early 1990s depicted women having successful careers while being devoted to their families in shows like Growing Pains and The Cosby Show. The concept of Super-Mom is introduced by the media by suggesting that a woman can do it all. The media today still implies such achievements by focusing on the celebrity who retains their stardom status and has a family. Little mention is made of the support network provided to the celebrities in the form of personal trainers, nannies, dieticians and the ability to bring their babies to the set while working. During the media blitz of a celebrity’s pregnancy, the viewer is bombarded with images of the perfect pregnant body, over-the-top financial opportunities and the glamorization of pregnancy and motherhood. According to Troup (2006), the celebrity mom image poses a paradox for women, as having it all is still an ideal to achieve while realistically most people know these celebrities have lots of help to achieve it all. Though acknowledging the need to balance baby and work, it is clear that celebrities can accommodate their babies within their work schedules, a difficult-to-impossible task for the average mother.
The article outlines the plot of the show and how it follows various views of motherhood and pregnancy. For instance, Miranda deemphasizes her pregnancy and refuses to sacrifice her career for motherhood and appears completely nonchalant about the whole experience, Charlotte is consume with her inability to conceive and feels her biological clock is running out of time while Samantha has no desire to have children and recoils at the notation that her friends do. In one episode, Samantha uses her vibrator to soothe Miranda’s baby. She (Samantha) celebrates the joy of sex (Whore) while rejecting its original purpose: conception (Madonna) (Troup, 2006).
Miranda on the other hand depicts the more realistic view of pregnancy and motherhood. Whereas the media continually fails to do this, the creators of the show use the storyline to bring focus on this view. The show also brings about a more realistic view of single-motherhood and the challenges faced by raising a family alone, dating and working. Sex and the City reveals an irony of its own: sometimes art can paint a more credible vision of reality than coverage of the real. The program, in ways that media coverage of celebrity pregnancy does not, confronts sex/gender stereotypes regarding women and motherhood (Troup, 2006).
Linda Troup’s article analyzes the television show’s ability to express various ideas and concepts of pregnancy and motherhood that you might miss when watching the show. She uses dialogue and various scenes from the show to support her analysis. She very clearly articulates the differences between the media coverage of pregnant celebrities and how the show uses its characters to expose various views and realistic experiences of pregnancy and motherhood – especially single-motherhood. The article was easy to read even if you are not an ardent follower of the television show.
The most deliberate idea expressed in this article is how the media glamorizes a celebrity’s pregnancy/motherhood experience with no mention to the large support network available to the celebrity (implying if they can do it – you can to) while a television show can have creative license to express realistic views of the topic. While television shows of the past focused on an idea of which it wanted to express/support (feminist perspectives), Sex and the City uses each of its characters to reflect differing viewpoints. The article is able to express that “in trying to have it all, women confront the ticking biological clock, new fertility options, sentimentalized images of motherhood, and no easy solutions on how to balance family, professional, and personal life (Troup, 2006).
References
Kutulas, J. (1998). Do I look like a chick? men, women, and babies on sitcom maternity stories. American Studies, 39(2), Retrieved October 15, 2009, from https://journals.ku.edu/index.php/amerstud/article/view/2707/2666
TROPP, L. (2006). “Faking a sonogram”: representations of motherhood on sex and the city. Journal of Popular Culture, 39(5), 861-877. http://search.ebscohost.com, doi:10.1111/j.1540-5931.2006.00309.x
Thursday, November 5, 2009
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