Using a variety of critical and theoretical approaches, the contributing scholars to this collection analyze culturally specific and globally held attitudes about mothers and mothering, as represented in world cinema. Examining films from a range of countries including Afghanistan, India, Iran, Eastern Europe, Canada, and the United States, the various chapters contextualize the socio-cultural realities of motherhood as they are represented on screen, and explore the maternal figure as she has been glamorized and celebrated, while simultaneously subjected to public scrutiny. Collectively, this scholarly investigation provides insights into where women’s struggles converge, while also highlighting the dramatically different realities of women around the globe.

Ten essays explore how the roles, representations, and productivity of women are reflected in contemporary world cinema. Some of the topics are the undercurrent of class in Heavenly Creatures, female icons in recent Russian film, and the quest for external validation in female coming-of-age films. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

There is an increasing trend for contemporary French cinema to feature the family unit. As such, it now serves as the ideal locus for criticism and commentary on individual family members. One of the key members, who functions as the basis for many analytical conversations in the real world, is the mother figure. Through presenting her and her various roles in an ironic manner, contemporary French directors François Ozon, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, and Noémie Lvovsky are each able to provide insight into what society expects of mothers and how mothers and non-mothers react and exist inside the demands of a patriarchal society. In films from the early 2000's to present, Ozon, Lvovsky and Bruni Tedeschi have showcased a myriad of mothers, from the non-mothers who seek motherhood, to the young single mothers struggling to survive, and from the well established mothers seeking empowerment through that role to the grandmother depending on her daughter for survival. By presenting the spectator with such a large variety of maternal imagery, Ozon, Lvovsky and Bruni Tedeschi are each able to criticize what society demands of mothers. Mothers are expected to bear sole responsibility for raising their children, with each fault in behavior a failing on their part. They are also expected to be wholly devoted to their children, sacrificing their own dreams, ambitions, and identities to become the ideal of maternal love. By presenting these mothers, who strive to meet their society's expectations, with a hint of irony, Ozon, Lvovsky and Bruni Tedeschi point to the absurdity of such high expectations for any individual. Through the often optimistic, if not traditionally happy ending, Ozon, Lvovsky, and Bruni Tedeschi are also able to point to a changing climate in the expectations of motherhood within western society, and indicate a hope of the reality of that apparent change.

This collection belongs on the bookshelves of students and scholars of cinema and media studies, feminist and queer media studies, labor studies, filmmaking and production, and cultural studies.

As celebrities sporting "baby bumps," politicians, Olympic athletes, and talk show guests, mothers are ubiquitous throughout U.S. media and popular culture. Like lightning rods, these high-profile mothers attract accolades and judgments associated with ideals of female sexuality, gender roles, and constructions of contemporary families. Motherhood Misconceived explores this widespread cultural fascination with motherhood through analyses of mothers in contemporary U.S. film, including both mainstream and independent cinematic representations. The contributors draw on a variety of critical approaches to consider the spectacle of pregnancy; mother-daughter relationships; mothers as predators, narcissists, and absent victims; and the ways in which cultural anxieties are displaced and projected onto marginalized mothers in films such as Fargo; Transamerica; Gas, Food, Lodging; Ordinary People; and Scream. Ideal for women's studies or film studies classes, Motherhood Misconceived will help students contextualize current debates about motherhood as they play out in popular and independent film.

Noting that motherhood is a common metaphor for film production, Lucy Fischer undertakes the first investigation of how the topic of motherhood presents itself throughout a wide range of film genres. Until now discussions of maternity have focused mainly on melodramas, which, along with musicals and screwball comedies, have traditionally been viewed as "women's" cinema. Fischer defies gender-based classifications to show how motherhood has played a fundamental role in the overall cinematic experience. She argues that motherhood is often treated as a site of crisis--for example, the mother being blamed for the ills afflicting her offspring--then shows the tendency of certain genres to specialize in representing a particular social or psychological dimension in the thematics of maternity. Drawing on social history and various cultural theories, Fischer first looks at Rosemary's Baby to show the prevalence of childbirth themes in horror films. In crime films (White Heat), she sees the linkage of male deviance and mothering. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and The Guardian, both occult thrillers, uncover cultural anxieties about working mothers. Her discussion covers burlesques of male mothering, feminist documentaries on the mother-daughter relationship, trick films dealing with procreative metaphors, and postmodern films like High Heels, where fluid sexuality is the theme. These films tend to treat motherhood as a locus of irredeemable conflict, whereas History and Memory and High Tide propose a more sanguine, dynamic, and enabling view. Originally published in 1996. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.