Mothers on Mothers: Maternal Readings of Popular Television

From Supernanny to Gilmore Girls, from Katie Price to Holly Willoughby, a MOTHERS ON wide range of examples of mothers and motherhood appear on television today. Drawing on questionnaires completed by mothers across the UK, this MOTHERS ON MOTHERS book sheds new light on the varied and diverse ways in which expectant, new MATERNAL READINGS OF POPULAR TELEVISION and existing mothers make sense of popular representations of motherhood on television. The volume examines the ways in which these women find pleasure, empowerment, escapist fantasy, displeasure and frustration in popular depictions of motherhood. The research seeks to present the MATERNAL READINGS OF POPULAR TELEVISION voice of the maternal audience and, as such, it takes as its starting REBECCA FEASEY point those maternal depictions and motherwork representations that are highlighted by this demographic, including figures such as Tess Daly and Katie Hopkins and programmes like TeenMom and Kirstie Allsopp’s oeuvre. Rebecca Feasey is Senior Lecturer in Film and Media Communications at Bath Spa University. She has published a range of work on the representation of gender in popular media culture, including book-length studies on masculinity and popular television and motherhood on the small screen. REBECCA FEASEY ISBN 978-0343-1826-6 www.peterlang.com PETER LANG From Supernanny to Gilmore Girls, from Katie Price to Holly Willoughby, a MOTHERS ON wide range of examples of mothers and motherhood appear on television today. Drawing on questionnaires completed by mothers across the UK, this MOTHERS ON MOTHERS book sheds new light on the varied and diverse ways in which expectant, new MATERNAL READINGS OF POPULAR TELEVISION and existing mothers make sense of popular representations of motherhood on television. The volume examines the ways in which these women find pleasure, empowerment, escapist fantasy, displeasure and frustration in popular depictions of motherhood. The research seeks to present the MATERNAL READINGS OF POPULAR TELEVISION voice of the maternal audience and, as such, it takes as its starting REBECCA FEASEY point those maternal depictions and motherwork representations that are highlighted by this demographic, including figures such as Tess Daly and Katie Hopkins and programmes like TeenMom and Kirstie Allsopp’s oeuvre. Rebecca Feasey is Senior Lecturer in Film and Media Communications at Bath Spa University. She has published a range of work on the representation of gender in popular media culture, including book-length studies on masculinity and popular television and motherhood on the small screen. REBECCA FEASEY www.peterlang.com PETER LANG MOTHERS ON MOTHERS MOTHERS ON MOTHERS MATERNAL READINGS OF POPULAR TELEVISION REBECCA FEASEY PETER LANG Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • Frankfurt am Main • New York • Wien Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Control Number: 2015955236 An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access for the public good. More information about the initiative and links to the Open Access version can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org Cover image: © RetroClipArt – fotolia.com ISBN 978-3-0343-1826-6 (Print) E-ISBN 978-3-0353-0791-7 (E-PDF) • E-ISBN 978-3-0353-9745-1 (EPUB) E-ISBN 978-3-0353-9744-4 (MOBI) • DOI 10.3726/978-3-0353-0791-7 Open Access: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivatives 4.0 unported license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This publication has been peer reviewed. © Rebecca Feasey, 2016 Peter Lang AG. International Academic Publishers Bern www.peterlang.com For Barnaby Contents Acknowledgements ix Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Media methods research: Finding audiences and giving a voice to mothers 7 Chapter 2 Maternal preferences: From ordinary celebrity to the sitcom star 53 Chapter 3 Emulation, not identification: Sartorial styles, domestic skills and maternal discipline 107 Chapter 4 Bad mothers and poor role models: Maternal inadequacy and the problem of perfection 161 Conclusion: A call for maternal diversity 217 Bibliography 235 Index 257 Acknowledgements I would like to say thank you to all of the mothers who took the time and effort to complete my questionnaire, as I am fully aware that you all had far more pressing demands on your time. Your words have been enlightening and entertaining in equal measure. I hope to have presented your views and opinions as you see them on the representation of motherhood on British and American television; the pleasures and frustrations that you have spoken of are the cornerstone of this research and my hope is that your candid views will go some way to informing future planning and produc- tions. Thank you not only for your answers to my set questions, but also for your broader comments regarding your own mothering practices and family dynamics, and helpful suggestions and recommendations regarding this research endeavour within and beyond the scope of the form. For all of your emotional honesty and candour, once again, I say thank you. I was and continue to be incredibly grateful for your time and efforts, and although it was never my intention, there was the suggestion in a small number of comments that I may have instigated a sense of frustration or disappointment not fully realised until now in relation to those images of motherhood and motherwork that you tend to watch on the small screen. And for that I am both delighted and apologetic. Introduction The lived reality of motherhood has changed in recent generations, and, likewise, depictions of motherhood in the media have been seen to fluc- tuate and shift. Although research exists to account for the hypothetical or academic reading of such changing maternal depictions, little research exists to account for the ways in which maternal audiences respond to representations of motherhood in the media. The social, political, self-help and entertainment marketplace present a rather unified and monolithic image of ‘good’ mothering, with the ideology of intensive motherhood being singled out as the only acceptable form of motherwork and maternal investment for expectant, new and more experienced mothers in the contemporary period. The ideology of intensive mothering, or what I shall refer to as the ‘good’ mother, demands that mothers are responsible for the social, cultural, creative, educational, emotional, physical, nutritional and cognitive development of their children. The figure in question is asked to uphold impeccable domestic standards while maintaining a slim appearance and serene demeanour. These stay at home caregivers should, according to the demands of intensive mothering, not only dedicate their entire waking hours to their children, but should find fulfilment and satisfaction in this nurturing role (Maushart 1999; Green 2004; Borisoff 2005; Douglas and Michaels 2005; Warner 2007). Although the ‘good’ mother is presented as an ideal maternal figure, the reality is that very few women are able to, or would want to, devote their entire being to their children. Women who work outside of their domestic role are deemed inappropriate mothers due to their time away from their children (Borisoff 2005), and the reality of the stay at home mother is often at odds with the serene and satisfied ‘good’ mother due to the physical labour, emotional intensity and financial implications associated with this ideal (Held 1983). Andrea O’Reilly makes the point that the ideology of intensive mothering ‘has become the official and only meaning 2 Introduction of motherhood, marginalizing and rendering illegitimate alternative practices of mothering. In so doing, this normative discourse of mothering polices all women’s mothering and results in the pathologizing of those women who do not or can not practice intensive mothering’ (O’Reilly 2004, italics in original). And the fact that many mothers are unable to mother within the appropriate ideology of intensive motherhood does not seem to lessen the power of this maternal model, rather, as I have suggested elsewhere, it simply means that many expecting, new and existing mothers struggle to uphold, yet continue to speak about, the value associated with this maternal ideal (Feasey 2012a). A wide array of popular media texts are said to construct, circulate, conform to and thus confirm the appropriateness of the ideology of intensive mothering, with parenting manuals, mainstream film, news reports, advice columns, women’s magazines, celebrity-led publications, and adver- tising being said to act as ‘the major dispenser’ of the ideals and norms surrounding motherhood (Douglas and Michaels 2005). And although it can be argued that television plays a part in upholding the ‘good’ mother myth, it has also been seen to present mothers as inept, ineffectual and fragile. Indeed, television appears committed to the depiction of single, sexual and scared mothers who are variously struggling with authority and finding little in the way of maternal satisfaction, which might go some way towards exposing the romanticised maternal ideal as precisely that, an ideal. With this in mind, this book will draw on an online questionnaire in order to shed light and offer critical insight into the varied and diverse ways in which expectant, new and existing mothers of different ages, from different class and maternal backgrounds, make sense of popular representations of motherhood on television. The volume will examine the ways in which these women find pleasure, empowerment, escapist fantasy, displeasure and frustration within popular depictions of motherhood, considering the ways in which such responses inform their own maternal thoughts and practices.

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