Mothers on American Television

Kim Akass is Professor of Radio, Television and Film at Rowan University

'Akass (Rowan Univ.) interrogates the representation of mothers and motherhood in prestigious American television series. She argues that despite the existence of more women showrunners and more television series featuring women, the objectification of women and the reinforcement of patriarchal norms and women’s inequality have not diminished.'CHOICE'Akass’s central theoretical framework is feminist psychoanalysis and, drawing on a range of thinkers including Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Karen Horney, Luce Irigaray, and Dorothy Dinnerstein, she uses it to assess the state of motherhood on American television and to diagnose the malaise running through many televisual depictions of motherhood...’Critical Studies in TV

• IntroductionPart I: Mothers on network television1 Motherhood, culture and society2 Motherhood on network television, 1940s to 1980s3 Motherhood on network television, 1980s onwardsPart II: Original dramas4 Sex and The City (HBO, 1998-2004)5 The Sopranos (HBO, 1999-2007)6 Six Feet Under (HBO, 2001-5)7 Deadwood (HBO, 2004-6)Part III: Adaptations8 The Killing (AMC/Fox/Netflix, 2011-14)9 Game of Thrones (HBO, 2011-19)10 The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu, 2017-)11 Big Little Lies (HBO, 2017-19)ConclusionSelect bibliographyIndex