Maureen Brewster
Bump Watch: Fashioning Celebrity Pregnancy as Performance and Project
In this thesis project, Bump Watch: Fashioning Celebrity Pregnancy as Performance and Product, I examine celebrity pregnancy as a discourse. I employ a multidisciplinary approach to research the ways in which celebrity pregnancy is produced and mediated as a ritualized performance of symbolic bodies rather than an embodied experience.
This investigation of the spectacular media discourse surrounding the "baby bump" positions the bump as a garment that is worn upon the body as a fashioned performance, transforming it into a fashionable product that reflects a specific regime of reflexive discipline. I examine the social media activities of celebrity mothers as "practices of the self" and discuss their role in altering the consumption and production of pregnancy in contemporary culture.
The written thesis is accompanied by a Tumblr site with additional imagery and discussion, offering new insights into the production and consumption of the fashioned body in new media.
