DYSPHORIC MATERNITY IN THE SPANISH TV POLICE DRAMA

Abstract

The representations of motherhood make up a complex and sometimes contradictory field of study, conditioned like few other areas of the social sphere by the political-ideological tendencies of each historical period. Since the 1990s, post-feminism has been appropriating some tenets of the feminist third wave to propose an idealized version of the good mother that combines, apparently without problems, the care of her children with her professional development. The figure resulting from this neoliberal model, of a naturalistic and essentialist nature, represents an unattainable horizon for the majority of working women. These imperfect mothers have found in the television thriller a fertile imaginary where they show the impossibility of the ideal motherhood. The series Néboa (La1, 2020) illustrates this trend through a dystopian view on the subject, very critical of the post-feminist imaginary.