Fertile Visions

The Uterus as a Narrative Space in Cinema from the Americas

Anne Carruthers

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781501358562
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Fertile Visions conceptualises the uterus as a narrative space so that the female reproductive body can be understood beyond the constraints of a gendered analysis. Unravelling pregnancy from notions of maternity and mothering demands that we think differently about narratives of reproduction. This is crucial in the current global political climate wherein the gender-specificity of pregnancy contributes to how bodies that reproduce are marginalised, controlled, and criminalised. Anne Carruthers demonstrates fascinating and insightful close analyses of films such as Juno, Birth, Ixcanul and Arrival as examples of the uterus as a narrative space. Fertile Visions engages with research on the foetal ultrasound scan as well as phenomenologies, affect and spectatorship in film studies to offer a new way to look, think and analyse pregnancy and the pregnant body in cinema from the Americas.

1

Challenging the pregnancy genre

As I explained in the Introduction, there needs to be a recalibration of how pregnancy, reproduction and the body are analysed in film, and this demands a rethinking of pregnancy in narrative and genre. This chapter, therefore, will first understand where pregnancy appears in personal drama films and discuss its narrative function, before moving on to consider the usefulness of abjection when thought of as connectivity. The chapter will also touch on the importance of non-fiction films that are not given a pregnancy genre label as such but are often the source of more complex narratives of pregnancy and reproduction. Although the films included in the first part of this chapter might appear to be merely part of a list, I want to illustrate the lack of variety in the way that these films − some of which might be classed as part of a pregnancy genre − use pregnancy and reproduction in their narratives. My point is that with little apparent narrative variation, some of these films about pregnancy can encourage a depth of analysis that is not always justified. There are some films that feature pregnancy, for example, where the pregnant or labouring body serves little or only a specific narrative function.

Although pregnancy sits comfortably in films about life, kinship and the fear of mortality, the way that it is so tied to narrative and generic analytical conventions challenges the existence of any well-defined pregnancy narrative or genre. Depth in analysis is often a result of a critical discussion that begins with representation. By that I mean representation of a woman, representation of the pregnant body or what pregnancy itself represents. The lack of variety and level of repetition in each narrative, however, is not always taken into consideration as something that might affect critical and textual analysis. This may be one of the reasons why tropes of horror and science fiction are welcomed into analysis of reproduction and the labouring body in all genres of film, almost by default. It might also explain why the notion of abjection has been so readily applied to analysis. This chapter will investigate how abjection has become an important element in narrative and genre analysis of pregnancy. The reason to include abjection in my discussion is to suggest its usefulness in narrative analysis in how it can articulate connectivity. The aim is not to ignore established ways of thinking about genre and narrative but to suggest that there are other ways to begin a close analysis of pregnancy and reproduction.

Clearly, the existence of pregnancy in a film serves a narrative purpose even when it is not a significant part of the overall plot development. The presence of pregnancy appears frequently on the screen when it is needed to form the basis of a subtext for the spectator. This subtext can be used as a shorthand in the character development of the pregnant protagonist or to signal the relationship of that character to other protagonists. As Currie K. Thompson (2014) explains, pregnancy and a woman’s response to it is often used as a narrative shorthand for a woman’s character development. Pregnancy alone, he adds, can be placed in a narrative to expressly signal a sense of mood in a film. Thompson, who writes on Argentinean cinema, explains that it is the concept of maternity that creates narrative, rather than pregnancy itself.¹ The construction of maternity, he explains, can be divided into three parts, ‘witnessing a woman give birth, the discovery that a woman is pregnant, or the expectation that she will become pregnant’ (73–4). This suggests to me how difficult it is to identify a pregnancy genre – is it a film that uses pregnancy to create a mood or one that conceptualizes maternity and pregnancy? Is it a film that uses pregnancy for dramatic irony? Or is it a film about waiting for pregnancy to happen or for pregnancy to finish? Of course, a film might be about any of these things, but should each film be included or justified as part of a pregnancy narrative or genre? Furthermore, if pregnancy can be used as part of a conceptual narrative to create mood, to aid character development or to guide the spectator’s response, a logical conclusion is that a conceptual narrative can exist even if there is no pregnancy on screen. This is something that I address throughout the book, as I suggest that approaches to pregnancy and reproduction must bear in mind the non-pregnant, the un-pregnant and the post-pregnant. In Chapter 2, I develop methodological strategies for how this can be investigated in critical analysis, but in this chapter, I want to begin by looking at the different ways in which pregnancy is developed in film narratives. This is not an exhaustive list of films as the aim is to highlight the variety, or lack thereof, in films from the Americas that include pregnancy.

There is surprisingly little written about the lived body experience of pregnancy as a topic in the cinema, and what there is concentrates on mainstream – mainly Hollywood – cinema. Individual films can be given importance under the themes of sexual politics (Heather Latimer 2013), motherhood (Isabel Arredondo 2014; Asma Sayed 2016), women filmmakers in world cinema (Patricia White 2015) or regional cinemas (Stephen Hart 2015). These discussions are often rooted in crucial discussions about the sociopolitical implications of reproductive governance and the social and cultural representations of mothers. Some of this scholarship also tackles how cinema is funded globally, challenging what can be described as a regional film output. As I mention later in this chapter, pregnancy lends itself to the aesthetics and themes of bodily changes and alien takeovers in the horror genre. This has provided a rich scholarship on pregnancy and the maternal as they appear in the horror genre (Courtney Patrick-Weber 2020; Gustavo Subero 2016; Sarah Arnold 2013). Beyond horror, Parley Ann Boswell (2014) writes about pregnancy in cinema and literature to insist that mainstream Hollywood film always follows on from current tr ends, so that ‘if Hollywood is doing it, then everybody else has already done it’ (2). This is a bold claim, but I can find no clear evidence that cinema outside of Hollywood has tackled pregnancy in any significantly different way. Although pregnancy is certainly a recurrent theme or narrative device in horror and thriller films, and there are nation-specific cinemas that treat the topic of pregnancy and reproduction in socially specific ways, the term ‘Hollywood’ indicates that there is another cinema or cinemas to which we can refer when looking for evidence of a pregnancy narrative.² Whether Boswell considers this other cinema as independent, documentary, experimental or art house is not clear. As White (2015) suggests, funding bodies in the global North are often attracted to what interests them about perceived narratives of nations in the global South. White explains that funders are attracted to a film like The Milk of Sorrow and its director because ‘the festival circuit frames [Claudia] Llosa as a national subject whose relation to human rights, feminism, and the exotic is appealing but difficult to decipher’ (187). This is part of a much wider discussion on how Hollywood, or rather Anglo-European funders, outsources topics including narratives of pregnancy through their funding of other global cinema productions. Nevertheless, it is not clear who Boswell’s (2014) ‘everybody else’ might be. I do agree with her, however, when she says that looking at canonical films (and literature) ‘through a frame of pregnancy will change them for us, revealing aspects either that we have never thought about, or have never taken seriously’ (2).³ She argues that, through its reframing, pregnancy ‘behaves like a Trojan horse, opening a narrative to reveal all sorts of human emotions and behaviours that have little to do with pregnancy itself’ (5). Reframing and re-evaluating pregnancy inside and outside of what is understood as Hollywood or the mainstream is crucial, but identifying pregnancy and reproduction as only narrative or generic conventions means that the pregnancy genre, if it exists at all, is extremely limited.

The conflation of Hollywood and mainstream cinema, I have suggested, introduces a confusion between commercial cinema from Hollywood and the notion of the popular. Kelly Oliver (2012) in her important work on pregnancy in cinema, for example, does not explain how she defines her Hollywood corpus. While it is clear that she is talking about popular films that are intended for commercial cinemas, there is some difference between the box office figures of a film such as Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up (opening weekend: $30, 690, 990) and Hilary Brougher’s Stephanie Daley (opening weekend: $3, 401).⁴ It is not my intention to argue that Hollywood or mainstream only means box office success, but my point is that Hollywood is often used as an explanatory term to describe an enormously diverse set of films. It is worth mentioning that Oliver draws on other films that are outside of Hollywood, such as 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days/4 luni, 3 saptamani si 2 zile (2007, Cristian Mungui) from Romania, Bella (2006, Alejandro Gomez Monteverde) from the United States and Mexico, and Moon (2009, Duncan Jones) from the UK in order to widen her discussion. Boswell (2014) also widens her mainstream Hollywood discussion to other nations, notably to French New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless/À bout de souffle (1960) to explain Godard’s influence on a generation of North American filmmakers. She argues that Breathless contains a pregnancy narrative that is not developed, even though the ‘silent pregnancy runs the show, in unconventional ways: without melodramatic fanfare, and through a rear-view mirror’, to insist that the pregnancy is shared with the spectator through dramatic irony and ‘informs everything in the film’ (172; 173). Boswell makes an important observation when she says that the dramatic use of pregnancy, as an embodied state, is then not used to further any plot development. It is not necessary, however, to go all the way back to 1960s France to see evidence of the superficial narrative treatment of pregnancy.

Pregnancy is often only important when it highlights conflict between characters as maternity, under the guise of pregnancy, functions as narrative device or turning point. In Alicia Scherson’s film Tourists/Touristas (2009, Chile), an aborted pregnancy underlines the fragmented relationship between husband and wife Carla (Aline Küppenheim) and Joel (Marcelo Alonso). The pregnancy functions as a narrative turning point. Importantly, the pregnancy, because of abortion, ceases to exist, which means that there is no pregnancy on screen. It is the memory of pregnancy and the way that it was ended that causes conflict in this film. In Kept and Dreamless/Las mantenidas sin sueños (2005) by Martín de Salvo and Vera Fogwill (Argentina/France/Netherlands/Spain), a young mother, Florencia (Vera Fogwill), with a backstory of being irresponsible in many ways, lies to her mother about being pregnant so that her mother will give her money. Again, there is no pregnancy on screen, only the financial implication that pregnancy will have to the main character. In Maria Full of Grace/María llena eres de gracias (2004, Joshua Marston, Colombia/Ecuador/USA), the ultrasound scan confirms María’s (Catalina Sandino Moreno) pregnancy, and the photograph of the scan establishes her in a new geographical location, which has implications for the legal status of her and her child. The lived body experience of pregnancy, however, is not sustained within the narrative. In Lion’s Den/Leonera (2008, Pablo Trapero, Argentina/South Korea/Brazil/Spain), a pregnant woman Julia (Martina Gusman) is charged with killing her partner and must give birth in jail. The birth in jail is given little narrative time, which means that the birth is used as a narrative device to increase the level of threat or obstacles that the main character must overcome in the narrative. In Junebug (2005, Phil Morrison, USA), pregnancy creates a mood of suspense and unspoken familial guilt. Ashley’s (Amy Adams) pregnancy is the narrative device through which to understand the conflict that exists in an extended, and fragmented, family. Ashley’s pregnancy unites the family as they wait for the birth. Although the pregnancy in this film forces the family to spend time with each other, when the baby is stillborn the family fragments once again. The pregnancy loss is added to the familial group’s memory, but essentially the pregnancy has been used as a narrative glue for the characters. In Revolutionary Road (2006, Sam Mendes, USA/UK), the discovery of pregnancy creates conflict for the main protagonists, as April (Kate Winslet) and Frank (Leonardo de Caprio) reveal their opposing views about their future lives. April wants to go and live abroad, but Frank has been promoted and wants to stay in the United States. The pregnancy, which will be their third child, emphasizes the conflict between the two characters. The pregnancy also offers each protagonist a narrative way out. Frank uses it as an excuse to take his promotion and stay in the United States while April dies after performing an abortion at home alone. In Undertow/Contracorriente (2009, Javier Fuentes-Léon, Peru/Colombia/France/Germany), pregnancy is used to emphasize the battle that the main character (who is having a sexual relationship with both his wife and his male lover) has with his sexuality. In this film, the pregnancy helps to develop the male character’s narrative conflict and emphasizes what he might lose if he leaves his wife. What these films demonstrate is that pregnancy often underpins the emotional subtext of the narrative, but pregnancy often has a subsidiary, and therefore undeveloped, role as a narrative device.

By contrast, the centrality of pregnancy as a key narrative device in contemporary popular cinema has allowed extensive plot lines around the complexities of parenthood and new reproductive technologies. As Oliver (2012) notes, a new generation of films, particularly from the United States since 2000, has engaged with different ideas about family or kinship groups. Assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), have introduced different ways of seeing the family. Kinship groups in these films are drawn not only from biological connection but also by scientific means, and sometimes by subterfuge. In Labor Pains (2009, Lara Shapiro, USA) and Preggoland (2014, Jacob Tierney, Canada), for example, the false pregnant belly demonstrates how the status of being pregnant adds to the perceived positive personal qualities of the pregnant person, even though they are not actually pregnant and there is no pregnancy on screen. In Baby Mama (2008, Michael McCullers, USA), the faked pregnancy in the uterus (prosthetic belly) of the surrogate Angie (Amy Poehler) hides an actual pregnancy. The foetus in the surrogate’s uterus belongs, biologically, to the surrogate’s husband. The main protagonist Kate (Tina Fey), by contrast, has a ‘hostile’ uterus that supposedly cannot support a pregnancy. The comedy and pathos are finally resolved by the notion that Kate’s uterus can hold a pregnancy but only through natural conception with the right male partner. Surrogacy, however, as a popular theme is not always about parents but occasionally about grandparents. In The Brothers Solomon (Bob Odenkirk, 2007, USA), the two brothers John (Will Arnett) and Dean (Will Forte) become increasingly close in their relationship when they try and create a grandchild for their father. They also become close to the surrogate Janine (Kristen Wiig) and her extended family and partner, creating an ever-expanding kinship group. In Misconceptions (2008, Ron Satlof, USA), surrogacy is positioned as a religious calling when an evangelic Christian woman Miranda (A. J. Cook) and a gay man Terry (Orlando Jones) form a close friendship when Terry moves in with Miranda to help with her pregnancy. In Quinceañera (2006, Dir. Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland, USA), pregnancy has an effect on the wider community, and this is shown through the narrative of Magdalena whose pregnancy is controversial because she is not yet an adult (woman), and because she claims that she is a virgin and has not had sexual intercourse. In Saved! (2004, Brian Dannelly, USA/Canada), teenager Mary (Jena Malone) has sex with her boyfriend for procreation and to prove to him that he is not gay. Mary sees this as giving her virginity not as a gift to her boyfriend but to God. When Mary is then ostracized because of her pregnancy, she then finds kinship with her gay boyfriend and other solitary teenagers so that pregnancy is not only the main focus of the narrative but also a vehicle for bringing groups of characters together.

Pregnancy as a vehicle or device for characters with disparate personalities and lifestyles to form an alternative kinship group is a common filmic trope. Unpregnant (2020, Rachel Lee Goldenberg, USA) forces pregnant Veronica (Hayley Lu Richardson) into a friendship with Bailey (Barbie Ferreira) because she has a car and can drive her across the state lines to have an abortion. In Who Says It’s Easy/¿Quién dice que es fácil? (2007, Juan Taratuto, Argentina), the main protagonists, Aldo (Diego Peretti) and his pregnant tenant Andrea (Carolina Peleritti), fall into a relationship which results in Aldo being present a...