Abstract
State-funded media production and consumption is a process of (re)creating spaces where citizens and other viewers can shape and project beliefs about themselves and their communities. In Denmark, these industries are subject to state regulation and are explicitly required to harness public issues, articulating them as matters with which individual citizens and their shared communities should identify. By scrutinising the way mother characters are positioned in relation to sexuality, professional work and familial bonds, the author concludes that, for the future of Danish women on-screen to present the multiplicities of feminine experiences, practitioners must resist the urge to conflate femininity with motherhood and motherhood with devotion, sacrifice and moral goodness.
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Notes
- 1.
Nymphomaniac could be considered an exception, but I do not treat it as one here because of Joe’s partner’s knowledge and encouragement of her non-monogamous approach to their relationship. Additionally, although Joe does commit illegal acts later in the film, her internalised sense of failure and immorality seems to emerge long before these acts commence.
- 2.
The original title is Undersøgelse af Kønsfordelingen i Dansk Film. Kirsten Barslund generously helped me translate the content of this report.
- 3.
This is not to say that such texts do not exist, simply that the possibility of acquiring them online or for purchase in Australia is extremely limited; I am not aware of any such texts based on my extensive consumption of and research into Danish screen material.
- 4.
A third season of Riget is, however, in the pipeline, more than two decades after the last season aired.
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Hallsworth, D. (2021). Conclusion: Manifesting “Good People” Through Fiction. In: Danish Mothers On-Screen. Palgrave Studies in (Re)Presenting Gender. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88579-3_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88579-3_7
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