Maternity and reality TV: between illusory redemption and promotion of conservative values

On February 3, 2020 Nabilla Vergara arrives on the set of the show Channel + click in front of the presenter Mouloud Achour. Pastel blaser, makeup present, but sober, the one we knew until then mainly for her escapades and buzz is no longer an average candidate for reality shows, now she is a wife and mother, as she states in the very first minutes of the interview: “Now I am a married woman. I think when you get married it’s important to bear your husband’s name” and add “I am very happy, I am learning this new job as a mother”.

We recall that Nabilla is also a talented entrepreneur and that she already has several companies under her belt, but this is not what she proposes.

The hyperperformance of motherhood as a redemptive posture

Valérie Rey-Robert, feminist essayist, author of Reality TV – The factory of sexism reports that “candidates capitalize a lot on their motherhood, this is what they propose in their networks well before their job or business. They always have this phrase in their mouths: ‘being a mother is the most beautiful job in the world’”.

Fabienne Lacoude, founder of the MILF newsletter and author of Daronne and feministadds that“besides moral posture there is a more pragmatic aspect which is to give another dimension to one’s career and go on to conquer new markets in terms of influence: pregnancy, childcare, children’s fashion. »

Nabilla Vergara, Jessica Thivenin, Carla Moreau, Laura Lozina, Manon Tanti… many candidates have embarked on the road to salvation by exchanging fights, unsophisticated language, clubbing and love conquests for round bellies, baby showers, layettes and bugaboo product placement. As a counterweight and reversal to the hypersexualization suffered or accomplished by individual candidates, access to motherhood is a form of virtuous ritual towards a more “orderly”, “clean”, more respectable image.

Thus, reality TV stars promote very stereotypical images, depending on what is expected of them. And beware of transgression! The mother can quickly become a “whore” again if she has too much fun. We think back to Nabilla wiggling her hips in a Dubai nightclub or Jessica and Manon going to filming and being branded bad mothers by hundreds of Internet users, embodied figures of a sexist society. .

From slutshamed, candidates are now mumshamed

Motherhood as a means of redemption? It does not work, “Whatever they do, they will be judged. If they haven’t lost the pregnancy weight fast enough, if they have lost it too fast, if they are choking on their babies, if they are doing anything other than taking care of their babies, etc. »recalls Valérie Rey-Robert. Reality TV candidates, like ordinary mothers, are subject to untenable standards : it’s too much or it’s not enough, but it’s never what it should be, a bit like the number of sexual partners to be neither too “slutty” nor too “pudica”.

According to Fabienne Lacoude, the form of respectability acquired through motherhood comes at a price in the materiality of “judgments with which they are confronted severely and constantly. How their children eat, how they dress, what activities they do, what kind of education they receive”.

Moreover, Valérie Rey Robert remembers him this so-called acquired respectability is not so for the intrinsic qualities of people who are considered subjects and masters of their lives. The latter are (partially and conditionally) respected because they are i women of and the mothers of : “They are perceived and taken into consideration as objects, not as acting subjects, they are objects of the men they have married and objects of their children. They are not respected as such but only because they fill the roles to which they have been assigned..

Normative scale of what makes a ” good mom”

Motherhood exposed on reality television transmits all the traditional values, “according to the codes of hetero-patriarchy, with the emphasis on overwhelmingly white, heterosexual families, whose couples marry before having children. Gender stereotypes in education are also very significant: gender disclosures, games and activities for girls or boys, etc. » Fabienne Lacoude analysis.

As regards the tasks in the couple, we observe a very clear distribution, with candidates who take care of their interiors, decorations, furniture and who are responsible for much of the parenting and household responsibilities. Whether it is the staging of candidates on their own networks or their media coverage in reality shows such as Mamans & Célèbres, the public is confronted very head-on with the normative scale of what makes a good mother, and on the basis of what behaviors she can be validated as such.