Final thoughts on ANTM

So in spite of the fact that all three moms on ANTM made the top four, the only woman who wasn’t a mom in that group wound up winning. I realize that there are plenty of other factors/reasons going into the choosing of a winner, but I want to pretend for a moment that this decision was all about Jaslene not having children where the other three did.

It sends the message that having a family, and in particular children, is an un-overcomable (not a word, but I hope you know what I mean) obstacle in the way of getting started in the modeling world. This phenomenon probably extends beyond just modeling- as I have seen with the opt-out revolution stuff and with the celebrity-actress mothers, it is hard to work in any field with a young child.

All I can say is that I was really hoping a mom would win this reality show too.

Opting back in?

There was an interesting article in the NYTimes yesterday about women “opting back in” to the workplace after having children. The author of the article claimed this was a new trend- and that jobs with more flex time and shorter hours were the new thing for these women. Is this another new set of choices? Are these women anxious to get back to work because they never wanted to leave? Why are only women being talked about as moving in that direction when in reality the workplace is shifting for everyone?

Theorizing pregnancy- surveillance and response

I attended a lecture while I was abroad in Melbourne about fetal politics, with the main thesis of the talk being that increased surveillance of pregnancy via ultrasound and via policing of pregnant women’s behaviors have priviliged the fetus over the mother.

Ultrasounds are now taken not only for medical purposes, but frequently also for emotional reasons like fostering a mother-child bond in utero or reassuring the mother that the child is, in fact, there and alive. You can even use a “personal doppler” to give yourself ultrasounds at home. Through the visualization provided by ultrasounds and 3D ultrasounds, the fetus becomes a person much sooner than birth- its gender is assigned. The woman thus becomes a Mother at the very start of pregnancy.

Quick News Item!

According to People, Jennifer Garner is working on a project to start a new television show described as “The View” for moms.

She says it will address the challenges of motherhood- perhaps particularly motherhood in the spotlight. The show will definitely be something to keep track of…

Cuddy, M.D.

I just watched an episode of another one of my favorite TV shows- House (the episode was 3×17 if anyone cares).

Celebrity Moms- Angelina Jolie

In honor of Mother’s Day, I thought I might blog about some more celebrity moms. In particular, I wanted to blog about Angelina Jolie- the biggest celebrity motherhood icon right now. In the past three years, Jolie has adopted 3 children from around the world and given birth to one biological child fathered by Brad Pitt.

Happy Mother’s Day

So, obviously, I can’t let this opportunity to blog about mothers on Mother’s Day go by unanswered. With a little bit of research today, I have learned that “Mother’s Day” started in Ancient Greece as a day to worship Rhea, the Mother of the Gods. But the more direct link to the Mother’s Day we celebrate in the US today comes from the practice in England of allowing the servants one day a year to go home to see their mothers. Fun, right?

So now we celebrate our mothers on this one day a year- and the media talks about nothing but mothers: how to honor your mother, what expensive and materialistic gifts to buy her, plus anything and everything mom-related. Hopefully, I’ll dig up something interesting tonight to post about.

Meredith’s dual moms on Grey’s

Meredith Grey has had a rough year, right? She’s lost two mothers. But what I want to talk about is how those mothers treated her- and her relationship with them- when they were alive.

Ellis, Meredith’s biological mother, was a career woman. She resented Meredith both for hurting her career and for hurting her relationship with Richard. The show tells the viewers that Ellis’ treatment of Meredith as a result of the resentment directly causes Meredith to be so screwed up.

Volver

So, a lot of the posts I have made have been about pregnancy, or about celebrity mothers of toddlers. I want to talk about parenting/motherhood in the context of older children. There are three things I think I want to talk about: I want to talk about the movie Volver, I want to talk about Meredith’s mother and stepmother on Grey’s Anatomy, and I want to talk about the Alec Baldwin/Kim Basinger custody battle that is all over the tabloids lately. This post will be about Volver.

Almodovar’s film Volver focuses a lot on mother/daughter relationships (so do a lot of films, but I want to talk about this one today). The movie really focuses a lot on Penelope Cruz’s character’s (Raimunda) and her sister’s (Sole) relationships with their mother.

Nationalism

There are many layers to deconstruct in a discussion of nationalism and motherhood. I will try to start at the top and work down, but I may lose steam as I plow through so bear with me.

At the biggest level in my mind is the view of the nation itself as a mother. The “motherland” idea has been around for a very long time. In art, the nation is consistently represented by a woman- like Lady Liberty (France) shown here.