Teen Momism on MTV: Postfeminist Subjectivities in 16 and Pregnant
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Volume 5, Issue 1 February 2012 Teen Momism on MTV: Postfeminist Subjectivities in 16 and Pregnant CARYN MURPHY, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh ABSTRACT The cable channel MTV developed the reality series 16 and Pregnant and its spinoff, Teen Mom, to educate young viewers about the negative consequences of unplanned pregnancy. I argue that these series construct a postfeminist, neoliberal subject position through discourses of individual choice and personal responsibility, the incorporation of a maternal role into adolescent identity, and the internalisation of gendered social expectations of “successful” female adolescence and parenting. The episodic formula of 16 and Pregnant works to individualise the experience of teen pregnancy and positions each teen girl subject as a success or failure based on her ability to adapt to motherhood. Within both of these series, the responsibilities related to bearing and raising children become part of a larger fabric of educational and social achievements associated with feminine adolescence. KEYWORDS Postfeminism, Neoliberalism, Adolescence, Reality Television Farrah Abraham and Maci Bookout appeared on the August 2010 cover of Us Weekly, a celebrity gossip magazine. Unlike conventional tabloid subjects, these young women were not pursuing careers in film, television, or music; instead, they drew national attention when they appeared in the first series of MTV’s hit reality series 16 and Pregnant and its spinoff, Teen Mom. The magazine’s headline, ‘Inside Their Struggles’, is belied by the flawless physical appearance of the teenage mothers, who are posed with their smiling children. This issue kicked off a flurry of press coverage in which the “average” young women from MTV’s series joined the ranks of high-profile teen parents including Bristol Palin and Jamie Lynn Spears on the covers of People, In Touch, and OK! in feature stories about the trials of teen pregnancy that are ultimately presented as triumphs over adversity. 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom have been documenting the lives of pregnant teenagers since 2009, in what MTV promotes as an educational effort. These series target a youth audience with depictions of how teen pregnancy causes family stress, derails romantic relationships, and radically alters career plans. They have also been criticised for glamorising teen motherhood, a 84 Volume 5, Issue 1 February 2012 charge that seems borne out in the Us Weekly cover story; Farrah, who has an eighteen-month- old, announces her plans to open her own restaurant in a major city. Amber Portwood, whose baby is twenty-one months, is lauded as a weight-loss success story (Grossbart and Abrahamson, 2010: 38-45). I argue that these television series rely on discourses of choice and agency in order to present teenage mothers as postfeminist, neoliberal subjects. Accusations of glamorisation result from the manner in which these shows individualise the experience of teen pregnancy and position each subject as a success or failure based on her ability to reconstitute her identity around motherhood. Within these series, the responsibilities related to bearing and raising children become part of a larger fabric of educational and social achievements associated with feminine adolescence. Postfeminism, Neoliberalism and Young Motherhood Research on postfeminism within media studies has taken two major directions since the early 1990s. One school of thought argues that the term postfeminism signifies a change of direction within feminist studies from a focus on inequality to a focus on difference (Brooks, 1997; Lotz, 2006). The other direction examines widespread social and cultural retractions of feminist gains as a symptom of struggle over the continuing necessity of feminism (Negra, 2004; Projansky, 2001; Vavrus, 2000). In a recent intervention, Rosalind Gill argues that postfeminism is best conceptualised as a ‘sensibility’ that is manifested in discursive themes of choice and empowerment, individualism and self-discipline, and a reassertion of sexual difference (2007: 148-149). Postfeminist media culture negates the realities of continuing gender inequities by representing women as autonomous individuals who can overcome institutionalised barriers through self-regulation and discipline. I rely on Rosalind Gill’s perspective that postfeminism is a pervasive sensibility because it positions postfeminist media culture as the object of analysis and because her work is specifically invested in the correlation between postfeminist and neoliberal constructions of subjectivity. MTV’s educational entertainment on sex and relationships becomes part of a postfeminist media culture, and as such the programming demonstrates the salient aspects of postfeminist discourse, including themes of individual choice, empowerment, and self-discipline. The theory of neoliberalism is based in economist Adam Smith’s conception of the ‘invisible hand of the market’, arguing that without state interventions or controls, the market will regulate itself to optimal levels of efficiency. Neoliberal economic policies have resulted in transformed conceptions of the public and private spheres as subject to the logics of the free market. Rosemary Hennessy claims that since the 1970s, this deregulatory philosophy has worked to extend ‘the rationality of the market – its schemes of analysis and decision-making criteria – to areas of social life that have not been primarily economic’ (2000: 75). In Young Femininity, 85 Volume 5, Issue 1 February 2012 social science researchers Sinikka Aapola, et al., document ‘the neo-liberal process of individualization’ in an examination of the changing global conditions in which contemporary constructions of girlhood are taking place. The authors argue that, ‘The neo-liberal incitement of individualism, rational choice and self-realization bumps up against discourses of femininity, creating contradictory and complex positions for girls’ (2005: 7). The recent expansion of girls’ media hails young women with multiple messages proclaiming their freedom from constraints and their ability to create themselves and their own lives, unhampered by markers of gender, race, class, or sexuality. Rosalind Gill’s position is that neoliberal and postfeminist discourses are interrelated. Both ideological positions separate the individual from social and institutional forces to form an idealised, self-monitoring subject. For Gill, postfeminism and neoliberalism ‘both appear to be structured by a current of individualism that has almost entirely replaced notions of the social or political, or any idea of the individual as subject to pressures, constraints, or influence from outside themselves’ (2008: 443). She calls for critical work on the construction of postfeminist, neoliberal subjectivity and because my analysis focuses on adolescence, it necessarily complicates already troubled ideals of individualism, autonomy, and choice. In her examination of contemporary constructions of girlhood, Anita Harris identifies two major subjectivities that dominate representations of young femininity in late capitalism: the ‘can-do girl’ who is capable of self-invention and the ‘at-risk girl’ whose future is imperilled (2004: 13-36). In media representations, both figures are used to justify an emphasis on individual responsibility that rejects the importance of social and economic forces. Although the young subjects of 16 and Pregnant demonstrate that having a baby before finishing high school is disruptive, at another level, the series presents a makeover narrative in which successful subjects are capable of renovating their lives to accommodate (and excel) at the transition. A postfeminist sensibility is also central to contemporary constructions of motherhood. Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels have coined the term ‘new momism’ to describe the intense social expectations of mothering that have emerged as the ‘central, justifying ideology to what has come to be called “postfeminism”’ (2005: 24). The label is an update on ‘momism’, a term used by pop psychologists in the 1950s to designate a phenomenon of ‘over-mothering’, in which attentive parenting supposedly had negative effects on child development. Douglas and Michaels argue that the contemporary ideal of motherhood requires a complete, selfless devotion to children. New momism reinscribes gender differences, positioning women as ‘natural’, primary caretakers (2005: 4). The authors argue that new momism ‘redefines each of us in relation to our children’, (2005: 22) aligning the individual sense of self with the mother role. Significantly, they note that teen mothers have historically fallen into the category that Harris would identify as ‘at-risk’, because they are not fully employable and have been stereotyped as overly dependent on social safety nets (2005: 190-195). In 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom, the 86 Volume 5, Issue 1 February 2012 social expectations of new momism frame the representations of teen motherhood as ‘can-do girls’ make parenting the central feature in their narratives of individual achievement. The role of the individual young woman as a freely choosing, autonomous subject is meticulously formed in each episode of 16 and Pregnant; neoliberal subjectivity is informed by the major constitutive features of postfeminist sensibility. MTV’s teen pregnancy series construct a postfeminist, neoliberal subject through discourses of individual choice and personal responsibility, the incorporation of a maternal role into adolescent identity, and