Defining motherhood

In media and politics motherhood is a popular topic of debate, encouragement, or criticism. One frequently hears and reads critiques of various women’s parenting practices. It is a matter of intense public fascination, to the extent that numerous television shows are devoted to housewives and mothers, and people seem to take a self-righteous pleasure in crucifying women who veer off the “perfect mommy” path. Rarely, if ever, do we see articles or TV shows about “bad” fathers or “bad” husbands. I see this as part of the backlash against feminism and the progress made for women in the last century, because the discourse of motherhood relegates women to the domestic sphere and often labels the women who take advantage of their new rights in the workforce as “bad” mothers. However, in “Will the real mother please stand up?” Collins points out that the obsession with motherhood is more than just a frantic response to the expanding role of women in contemporary society. She also explains how these ideals are actually embedded in American laws as a means of biologically maintaining the majority of the white race in the US. This is summed up in the following quote:

“In the politicized climate of late-twentieth-century America, the issue of which women are “real” mothers best oriented for the task of reproducing both the American population and the alleged values of the US nation-state takes on added importance…Within this intellectual framework, women deemed fit to be “real” mothers encounter state supported family-planning options that support their contributions as mothers to traditional well-being. In contrast, those deemed unfit to be “real” mothers experience reproductive policies that are markedly different” (Collins, p.1).

The state seeks to regulate female reproduction as a means of controlling American population demographics. The ideal American citizen fits a very specific description, and the state enacts policies that encourage and support the production of perfect citizens, while discouraging and obstructing the production of undesirables. The female body becomes the vehicle through which certain groups are created or destroyed. Although it is not overtly stated, our laws perpetuate the goals of white supremacist eugenics. However, as evidenced by the frequent articles deploring overpopulation in “developing” (read “non-white”) nations, while lamenting low population growth in Europe and among white Americans, the discourse of eugenics is not exactly concealed. There is a palpable sense of panic among white societies about the decline of white populations because this means that the long history of white supremacy is coming to an end.


The state’s involvement in women’s reproductive health and the public discussion of the female body dehumanizes women and assigns outside agencies the power over intimate aspects of women’s lives. It disturbs me that my reproductive choices are a valid conversational topic and that simply because I am a woman, I am automatically perceived as a potential mother. I resent the assumption that I want to have children, and the horror or dismissal I am subject to when I state that I do not want to be a mother.

Does it matter if it's not real?

“Yet discussions of modernization demonstrate a certain inconsistency, particularly when addressing issues of race and politics. Jackson echoes Tolkien loyalists when he asserts that it is "inappropriate" to apply modern political thinking to a fifty-year-old story ("J. R. R. Tolkien"). But he uses Nuremburg as a reference for the army shot at Isengard in Two Towers because "that sort of imagery is so potent"; such historical references, he continues, effectively "press buttons in people" ("Audio," Two Towers)… Jackson and many others have also pointed out the Ring's affinity with technology and Tolkien's anti-industry, proecology stances ("J. R. R. Tolkien"). If such references are so potent, regardless of strict historical connections, then why are modern race and gender issues—"modern" in the sense of the last two centuries—irrelevant?”

In this quote Kim challenges the prevailing idea that race and gender considerations need not apply to contemporary media that reference fantasy, especially historically-influenced fantasy. It is interesting that filmmakers choose to add a “modern” twist to some aspects of fantasy films, which are made with the benefit of modern technology, while refusing to incorporate progressive attitudes toward race and gender. Simply dismissing these films as “not real” does not justify their use of archaic ideologies. Although the films are not based in reality, the human emotions and interactions that drive the characters are very real. Furthermore, the fantasy genre does inform actual human thought and behavior, despite its imaginative characteristics. In fact, ideology operates through cultural constructs and myths, not realities, to create “common sense” value judgments, so just because something is not “real” doesn’t mean it has no impact on real human experiences.

However I don’t know that it is appropriate to ascribe racism to the equation of black with evil and white with good. I understand how that can potentially influence perceptions of race, but it seems so much a part of Western culture that I cannot imagine how it could be eliminated. Is the perception of dark/black as evil not simply an innocent product of the fear we associate with night? On the other hand, I do find it extremely problematic when dark people are cast as evil characters in films, and I consider it imperative for filmmakers to acknowledge modern race politics even in historical fantasy.

On a completely different note, I wanted to briefly address the pervasiveness of primitivism in the environmental movement (as evidenced by the “crying Indian” commercial we saw in class). The paradox of romanticism lingers on and manifests itself in modern environmental discourse: Environmentalists (read white and wealthy) glorify a “simpler” lifestyle that lacks the complexity of industrialization and nostalgically recall the “harmonious” relationship between “savages” and nature, yet they dictate the solutions to climate change, pollution, etc. and criticize many of the environmental practices that these same “primitive” peoples employ (such as “slash and burn” farming). Despite its ostensibly liberal roots, the environmental movement simply uses a new language to perpetuate the same old colonialist b.s.

Eating the blue people

Sitting in class this week, feeling like an idiot in my moccasins, I cringingly realized how guilty I am of “eating the Other”. As bell hooks points out, I do it with a sense of pluralism and progress, and, ultimately, out of a desire to differentiate myself or add some ‘spice’ to my bland white façade. It comes from a need to disassociate myself from that which whiteness represents to me: racism, patriarchy, exploitation, republicans, consumption. But in an attempt to be “disloyal to western civilization” (p.5) I unknowingly reinforce it by consuming pieces of cultures that I don’t belong to.

hooks is astute in her observation that “white youth” are undergoing an “identity crisis” (p 4). This longing for some kind of cultural identity and community, and an effort to distance themselves from general white culture is apparent in (typically liberal) white young people. They cling to whatever semblance of ‘ethnic-ness’ they have in their genes, even if it’s just being a quarter Irish, at least it’s something. There is a particular desire to be part of a group that has been oppressed or persecuted. For instance, I have always been baffled and amused by the fact that, upon discovering that I’m Jewish, so many people tell me they “wish they were Jewish!” (Notably, this has stopped happening since Israel was portrayed as a bully in the latest Israeli-Palestine conflict). But why on earth would people want to be Jewish? Do they really want nagging, neurotic parents and a hypochondriac grandmother? (Ok, in my case, these stereotypes totally apply). People seize any connection to past victimization that they can use to shield themselves from guilt and separate themselves from the sordid history of European colonization – “I’m an eighth Cherokee, so I understand the suffering.” Admittedly, I’ve waved the Holocaust around a few times myself, so I’ve certainly succumbed to the temptation to claim an alibi. But how do you deal with the guilt of being the oppressor while continuing to benefit from the privileges that come with the package?


So, to completely change the subject, I saw Avatar this weekend, and came out spewing criticisms and saying “problematic” every other word, until my brother called me “esoteric and elitist.” To me this film epitomizes what hooks describes as “imperialist nostalgia.” The following quote applies perfectly to Avatar:

“In mass culture, imperialist nostalgia establishes a contemporary narrative where the suffering imposed by structures of domination on those designated Other is deflected by an emphasis on seduction and longing where the desire is not to make the Other over in one’s image but to become the Other” (p. 4)

I am sure that the parallels between Avatar and Pocahontas (and especially the animated film, Atlantis) were apparent to most people. Not only was the story essentially the same, but the recycling of romanticized myths about American Indians was blatantly obvious. This film works to assuage white guilt because it allows a, presumably, mostly white audience to vicariously participate in a rewrite of history, a nostalgic fantasy where, instead of destroying, we become “one with nature” and adopt a simple, harmonious, primitive lifestyle. Yet this fantasy is so pleasurable only because it maintains white patriarchal supremacy. The hero, a masculine white marine, ultimately saves the day by becoming the chief of the primitive aborigines. Although he does literally “become the Other” by taking on a new body, he is still a white man controlling a non-white population, who could not have survived without his paternal white wisdom. In the process, of course, he “claims the body of the colored Other (the chief’s daughter, naturally)…a symbolic frontier that will be fertile ground for [his] reconstruction of the masculine norm for asserting [himself] as [a] transgressive desiring object.” Thus, the “natural” order is reasserted – the white man dominates the blue people and “owns” the woman, even while superficially appearing to undermine white imperialism.

Could this film have been made with a black man as the hero, or, even less likely, a woman? I think not.