Prostitution adjacent: the politics and performance of mediated motherhood and sex work

Abstract

ABSTRACT American television producers have created a slew of television series that focus on motherhood’s experience and meanings. This paper examines how SMILF (Showtime, 2017–2019) and The Deuce (HBO, 2017-) depict the intersection of motherhood and sex work under a capitalist and neoliberal society. Both series aired in 2017 when U.S. conversations around women’s bodily agency increased and thus, intervene in historical and current debates regarding women’s bodies and motherhood. I situate this paper within feminist television criticism informed by motherhood studies to examine cultural meanings circulated by each series. This paper reveals the connections between sex workers and mothers concerning their gendered labor and how this intersection displays neoliberal paradigms that govern mothers. While both series explore sex work seriously in the context of motherhood, I argue that SMILF and The Deuce suggest their characters’ labor is only moral if carried out for the sake of their children. Ultimately, these series complicate discourses around motherhood and sex work and reinforce dominant neoliberal narratives around the morality of motherhood in American culture.