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Feminist Frequency[br]Conversation with pop culture

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and bitchmedia

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Tropes vs women

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A trope is a common pattern in a story or a recognizable attribute in

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a character that conveys information to the audience.

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A trope becomes a cliche when it’s overused.

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Sadly, some of these tropes often perpetuate offensive stereotypes.

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#5 Mystical pregnancy

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One thing I love about speculative fiction is its ability to explore difficult topics.

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Because of it's separation from our current timeframe, it can comment on socio-economic and cultural issues in really engaging and interesting ways.

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But one thing that I've learned from watching a lot of science fiction and fantasy television is you

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never, ever want to get pregnant on TV.

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Yup.

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Some of the our most celebrated female characters come out of the sci-fi genre but it's not all sunshine and roses.

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It’s common practice for Hollywood writers to have their female characters become pregnant at some point in their TV series.

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These story lines are almost always built around women who have their ovaries harvested by aliens or

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serve as human incubators for demon spawn - basically the characters are reduced to their biological functions.

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I'm sure you've seen this trope many times before.[br]Remember back in the mid 90's on the X-Files

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when FBI Agent Dana Scully found herself abducted and forcibly impregnated

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which, of course, later culminated in a hybrid human-alien child.

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More recently on the second season of BSG, Starbuck had her ovaries harvested

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by the cylons in an attempt to create human-cylon embryos.

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Then we have Gwen Cooper, co-star of the Doctor Who spin off Torchwood, who is bitten by an alien

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one night and the next morning she wakes up to find herself extremely pregnant with the aliens’ spawn.

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This trope was inflicted on Cordelia from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spin off show Angel

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not once but twice!

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Vala in Stargate SG-1 is forcibly impregnated and she is made to birth a rapidly aging child thing.

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"Hello Mother"

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"I heard that children grow up quickly but this is ridiculous"

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Xena and Gabrielle both have had baby troubles of the mystical variety at different times in Xena: Warrior Princess.

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On the show Fringe, Olivia's alternate reality doppleganger Faux-livia, finds herself at the center of a kidnapping conspiracy

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to accelerate her pregnancy in order to extract the blood of her newborn baby

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which will power a doomsday device.

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Deanna Troi from Star Trek the Next Generation is perhaps the quintessential example of the mystical impregnation trope

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as her character’s body and mind are regularly occupied, borrowed, violated and invaded by alien beings.

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During Season 2 in the episode "The Child" Counselor Troi is impregnated with a rapidly aging alien fetus by a flying ball of “space” energy.

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Imagine finding out you're pregnant, giving birth 36 hours later, raising the child within a day and then it dies, or in this case vanishes.

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We don’t see Troi dealing with the long term emotional ramifications of such a traumatic event

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and the experience is never mentioned again throughout the series.

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And my apologies in advance to my more religious viewers because we really can't forget the original Mystical Pregnancy narrative...

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The Immaculate Conception.

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As the story goes, an all powerful being descended from the heavens and impregnated a young woman

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with the Chosen One destined to save Earth and the souls of humanity.

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Yup.

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It's almost an unwritten rule that at some point during a sci-fi or fantasy television show,

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the writers will inseminate their female leads with some sort of ghastly pregnancy experience.

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The Mystical Pregnancy is one of the plot devices that I loathe the most because while other tropes

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represent women in stereotypical ways, this one hits us on a biological level.

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Yes, some of us are physically capable of having babies

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but no that does not mean you get to take advantage of, and abuse, that for the sake of your story.

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Fanvidder, Laura Shapiro calls the Mystical Pregnancy a type of reproductive terrorism because it

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makes becoming pregnant seem disgusting, frightening and nightmarish.

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Laura goes on to say, "The problem from my point of view is that pregnancy and birth are natural processes that are

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being distorted into torture porn, ways of punishing women and exploiting their terror to up the dramatic stakes."

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This trope can’t be brushed off as “just entertainment.” Human beings since the

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beginnings of the verbal storytelling, used narratives to understand ourselves and the world around us.

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When we hear a story repeated enough times it can affect the way we think about reality.

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The Mystical Pregnancy is just another sexist narrative that exploits women for being female.

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These stories are especially striking at this point in American history because women's reproductive rights,

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which have always been threatened are currently under vicious attack by conservative and religious groups.

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Some states are trying to pass legislation that will criminalize miscarriages or make abortion procedures

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so strict and complicated that it renders them nearly impossible.

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Planned Parenthood is even in danger of being defunded through direct ideological attacks

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on women's ability to control what happens to their own bodies.

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So, all you Hollywood writers, you should all feel real guilty right about now for continually

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using the tired old Mystical Pregnancy trope to violate and degrade women's bodies on television.

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I sincerely hope that after this lesson you will stop terrorizing your female characters with the

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magical-demon-impregnation-from-space-story-lines.

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You know,

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maybe you should just stop writing pregnancy altogether until you can do it with some

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respect and dignity and with the appropriate amount of emotional impact.

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I’d love to see a show set in some dystopian future that deals with issues surrounding women’s reproductive rights

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as the core plot line, not just as some throwaway episode or for dramatic effect.

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Pregnancy is not a “here one week, gone the next” kind of a thing,

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and it seems as though Hollywood might need to be reminded of that fact.

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Now check out a clip of Laura Shapiro's fanvid "Stay Awake" about the Mystical Pregnancy

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and be sure to click on the link so you can watch the whole thing.

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"Though the world is fast asleep

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Though your pillow's soft and deep

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You're not sleepy as you seem

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Stay awake

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don't nod and dream"