Men at the heart of mothering
Finding mother inFinding Nemo
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3659145 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Suzan G Brydon (Saint Louis University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 131-146 |
| Publication date | 2009-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Gender Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0958-9236 • E-ISSN: 1465-3869 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09589230902812448 |
| OpenAlex | W2161231386 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
| References cited | 20 |
After years of perpetuating myths of the subservient, ever-cheerful woman (or killing a maternal figure off at the start of a movie), Disney explored new ground in its blockbuster, Finding Nemo. Building on previous Disney critique by Elizabeth Bell and others, I argue that this film provides an expanded notion of who 'mother' is and what 'mothering' means. Firstly, I provide a brief review of social 'mothering', summarizing maternal functions as discussed by various feminist scholars. Secondly, I create a typology that assists our understanding of how Disney traditionally defines mothering in its discourse. Using elements of this typology, I then explore the ways in which Marlin, the father in Nemo, is engaged in mothering. Finally, I discuss the potential impact on viewers of portraying men as mothers and what has occurred in Disney films post-Nemo with regards to images of mothering. Keywords: rhetorical criticismDisneymotheringgenderfamily rolesmedia criticism Notes 1. Bell defines 'somatexts' as the texts (re)presented by the animated bodies of the characters in Disney films. These somatexts act as embodiments of mothering. As Bell describes it, Disney films 'prescribe the characters of women ... not [as] fixed texts, but ... starting points for cultural constructions of the feminine ... [T]hey have also captured performative enactments of gender and cultural codes for feminine sexuality and agency' (1995, p. 120). 2. By traditional here, I refer to mainstream representations of motherhood, usually indicative of a biological mother/child relationship within a nuclear American family structure
Aesthetics · Art · Criticism · Human sexuality · Literature · Mainstream · Mythology · Performative utterance · Rhetorical question · Sociology · Typology · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Media Studies and Communication · Media, Gender, and Advertising
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Hard Labour
| Unique citing works | 9 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,75 |
| Citation span | 2014 - 2025 (12) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 9 |