Film, Media, Theater 330MD - Advanced Courses in History and Theory: 'Mediating "Motherhood"'

This course investigates the ways media have mediated cultural perceptions of "moms" and "motherhood," from the maternal melodramas of Hollywood Cinema to ultrasound images used to justify government policies regulating women's health decisions. Along the way we consider how reality TV has represented moms as figures of excess, nurture, irresponsibility, and domesticity; how the horror genre probes the uncanny, creepy, and violent aspects of motherhood; motherhood as refracted through social media influencer culture; and counter-hegemonic representations of trans parenthood. We discuss the entanglements between representation, regulation, and resistance around these mediations of mothers.

Prereq: 8 credits in Film, Media, Theater.