E-Book Overview
Looking at how the family is represented by the media, and by scrutinizing the manner in which it is regulated, this book uncovers the ways in which academic research and welfare policy have colluded with political rhetoric and the popular media to re-invent a mythical ideal family. Representing the Family: combines perspectives from a range of theories including media and cultural studies, sociology, and social history to show how certain types of family life are pathologised; highlights the discrepancies between contemporary representations of the "ideal" family and lived experience; and compares the British experience with that of the United States and Australia.
E-Book Content
Representing the Family Representing the Family Deborah Chambers SAGE Publications London • Thousand Oaks • New Delhi © Deborah Chambers 2001 First published 2001 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, only with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. SAGE Publications Ltd 6 Bonhill Street London EC2A 4PU SAGE Publications Inc 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd 32, M-Block Market Greater Kailash - I New Delhi 110 048 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 7619 6472 X ISBN 0 7619 6473 8 (pbk) Library of Congress Control Number 2001131821 Typeset by SIVA Math Setters, Chennai, India Printed and bound in Great Britain by Athenaeum Press, Gateshead CONTENTS List of Illustrations viii Acknowledgements x 1 1 2 3 REPRESENTING THE FAMILY Moral Godfathers and Political Rhetoric on Family Values Sociological Research on the Family and Constructions of Race White Studies Academic Reinventions of the Nuclear Ideal Transformations of Intimacy and the Normal Chaos of Love Pure Relationships and Confluent Love Individualism and Chaotic Love The Family as a Discursive Construct and Regulatory Ideal Faulty Families 3 10 15 17 20 20 23 25 29 MYTHS OF FAMILIAL ORIGINS 33 The Myth of Family Origins Nationhood, Race and Familial Heritages The Regulation of the Modern Patriarchal Model of the Family The Ideology of the Separate Spheres Sexology and the Regulation of Marital Heterosexuality The Rise of the Modern Functional Family Bad Mothering and the Regulation of Maternal Responsibility The Construction and Inferiorisation of Non-white Families Conclusion 35 36 41 42 43 49 52 55 57 THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE MODERN FAMILY? 60 Regulating Feminine Individualisation through the Companionate Marriage 61 representing the family 4 5 6 vi The Rise of the Dysfunctional Family The Ideology of Motherhood in Hollywood Melodrama Popular Culture s Dysfunctional Families Representations of the Family by the Family: the Photograph Album Reinventing Family The Meanings of 1950s Suburban Family Albums Visual Dialogues about and between Public and Private Spaces Conclusion 64 67 71 DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES 92 75 76 82 87 89 Popular Media Representations of the White Nuclear Ideal News and Popular Media Morality Tales of Family Man Representations of White Fatherhood in Mainstream Films The