The new Comedy-Horror TV show, “The Baby,” is about motherhood’s true pains. The show may be absurdist; it’s a fiction story about a baby who is a murderous demon that brutally kills anyone who crosses him, giggling delightedly after each kill. However, the moral of the story speaks loud and clear about how difficult being a mother actually is.
“We were excited about the possibility of exploding cultural ideals around motherhood,” says co-creator Siân Robins-Grace about the starting point for the series, “and revealing the darker, violent or oppressive forces at play in that kind of ideal account of what motherhood should be. The genre of horror obviously allows you to take that to a really extreme place.”
It’s not just this specific show that has started to capture these themes; it seems to pop up more and more in the media and TV literature these days. Other movies, including “Jane the Virgin” and “The Mindy Project,” also are representing the struggles of motherhood. The former talks about how all the main character Jane’s other priorities have been bumped down after having a baby, including her personal hygiene. In “The Mindy Project,” the main character suffers to maintain a good work/life balance after having a kid, as she is incredibly ambitious with her job.
All mothers, like the ones on these shows, have to deal with their children waking up and crying at any time during the night. Often mothers would need to wake up maybe 6, 7, or 8 times in one night just to put their baby back to sleep, leaving the mothers too tired. Not to mention how overwhelmed and overworked new mothers are all the time.
Now that the media is representing more of these struggles, it feels like a breath of fresh air to many women to finally have what is happening behind the scenes of raising a child uncovered. Marianne Levy, the author of “Don’t Forget To Scream”, a book of essays about motherhood says that “Popular culture finally seems to be waking up to the idea that mothers can be interesting, dynamic characters in their own right, front and center to the story, with all the foibles and flaws and fascinating facets exhibited by the rest of humanity.”
“We were excited about the possibility of exploding cultural ideals around motherhood,” says co-creator Siân Robins-Grace about the starting point for the series, “and revealing the darker, violent or oppressive forces at play in that kind of ideal account of what motherhood should be. The genre of horror obviously allows you to take that to a really extreme place.”
It’s not just this specific show that has started to capture these themes; it seems to pop up more and more in the media and TV literature these days. Other movies, including “Jane the Virgin” and “The Mindy Project,” also are representing the struggles of motherhood. The former talks about how all the main character Jane’s other priorities have been bumped down after having a baby, including her personal hygiene. In “The Mindy Project,” the main character suffers to maintain a good work/life balance after having a kid, as she is incredibly ambitious with her job.
All mothers, like the ones on these shows, have to deal with their children waking up and crying at any time during the night. Often mothers would need to wake up maybe 6, 7, or 8 times in one night just to put their baby back to sleep, leaving the mothers too tired. Not to mention how overwhelmed and overworked new mothers are all the time.
Now that the media is representing more of these struggles, it feels like a breath of fresh air to many women to finally have what is happening behind the scenes of raising a child uncovered. Marianne Levy, the author of “Don’t Forget To Scream”, a book of essays about motherhood says that “Popular culture finally seems to be waking up to the idea that mothers can be interesting, dynamic characters in their own right, front and center to the story, with all the foibles and flaws and fascinating facets exhibited by the rest of humanity.”
