The construction of motherhood in contemporary series: the case of The Handmaid's Tale (HULU, 2017)

Abstract

In this paper, we study contemporary series with a feminist perspective. We will analyze the construction of the image of women based on the development of motherhood in The Handmaid's Tale (HULU, 2017). The concept of motherhood is a fundamental axis of the construction of women in the audiovisual. Feminisms understand it as a mandate by which the hegemonic heterosexual sex-gender system arbitrarily distinguishes the sexual roles and practices that are socially attributed to the male and female genders as natural attributes (Preciado, 2011). We propose that this series, in English, with acclaimed actresses and actors in the American film industry and distributed by powerful platforms (HULU, Paramount, Flow), constructs images of women who stage stereotypical gender roles that the feminist agenda points out as commonplaces to be reviewed and criticized. These characters embody different ways of understanding and practicing motherhood that coexist (not without contradictions) in our time and that involve debates both outside and inside feminisms, so that the series can become a space for channeling and vehiculating these debates.