MOTHERING · Abnormal Motherhoods: Precariousness, Sterility and Anciery in 20th and 21st Century Spanish Cinema

Many depictions of motherhood in 20th-century European media fall under what Susan Maushart described as the “mask of motherhood” (3). With this expression, she refers to narratives that envision motherhood as healthy and unproblematic. However, since the last decade of the 20th century, this situation has changed, where maternity has become a controversial subject, and discussions over issues such as ambivalence towards the child, sterility, and maternal stress are conspicuous in different media. This is where the planned project, which regards motherhood as a central question in gender studies, picks up. Despite this increased visibility, many maternal experiences do not fall under the category of “normal” in normative societal discourses, and mothers affected by them are portrayed as ill or unfit. “Abnormal” motherhood encompasses practices that lie outside “... the limits of a norm previously established by hegemonic thinking; and, vice versa, normality is what remains after establishing the edges of the abnormality” (Huertas 26). Taking Spain as the main case of study, I analyze 20th and 21st-century films of mother-child relationships deemed “abnormal” and “sick,” characterized by sterility, poverty, and anxiety, in contrast to “normal” motherhood, imagined as fertile, healthy, and unproblematic.