Motherhood, reproduction and up-bringing stories in the post-television era

Abstract

The objective of this study is to analyze current television fictions starred by mothers and focused on the process of reproduction and upbringing, in order to observe how the biological processes linked to motherhood and rearing are represented. After centuries in which the search for pregnancy, infertility, abortions, gestation, perinatal losses, delivery, breastfeeding and postpartum have been silenced in cultural works, or treated in a symbolic way without including the feminine subjectivity, we want to observe if the current moment of gender claims, as well as the greater production of fiction and the ease of accessing specific contents, has generated a greater plurality of discourses. From the content analysis of five series premiered in recent years we observe production features, which stages of reproduction are most commonly shown, the connotations they obtain, the problems they show and from which perspective issues such as conciliation, father’s role, family relationships and changes in the body are displayed. The study concludes that the digitization and distribution of streaming content has led to an increase in works that focus on the reproduction stage, that there is a relationship between the increase of women in creative teams and the greater exploration of these issues and that the discourse proposed in these series distances itself from the traditional representation of motherhood and includes a detailed description of vital stages that had no place in television fiction before.