Baby Bump Blues

With today's media and television depicting sexuality as second nature, and even worse, a selling point, it's hard to imagine a time when sex was a taboo topic. And with shows such as 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom, it's an even harder concept to imagine a time when depicting pregnancy on television was considered 'in bad taste' because it exhibited sexuality. A perfectly natural, extremely essential part of life treated as a burden.

The first person to break this taboo topic was none other than Lucille Ball. Visibly pregnant throughout most of an entire season of I Love Lucy, the producers decided to take a stance against the norm, and write Lucy's pregnancy into the show (from the episode "Lucy Enciente"), becoming the first pregnant women depicted on television on December 8th, 1952, while never actually mentioning the word 'pregnant' on the air.

But you would think that almost 60 years later that a women being pregnant wouldn't be an issue, well in the world of television, which is all about appearance, it is definitely something to take into consideration, especially for actors and actresses in specific roles. What happens when a lead character gets pregnant in a show is at the discretion of the producers of the show. Sometimes it's accepted and cleverly written in, strategically hidden, or in the worst cases the actress is dismissed for reasons supposedly unrelated to their pregnancies. Lil Sugar, a website dedicated to pregnant women, outlines some of the situations in which television shows had to adapt to their actresses real life pregnancy, for the show. The cases the website lists are all shows in which they adapted to the situation, by using large clothing, writing the baby for the character, or using the "she got fat" scenario.

Generally here in America, we have adapted to the fact that women, yes, even the women on our tv screen get pregnant. However, in Mail Online website "The Ugly Truth About Pregnancy on TV...." Denise Van Outen, and english presenter on The Big Breakfast, has not been welcomed with open arms by her UK audience. The actress, singer, presenter was scheduled to be a judge on BBC's Over the Rainbow, was dumped from the shows because she was pregnant. Outen, who is on her forth child now was well aware of the prejudice to come in her last pregnancy. A producer once commented that her pregnancy was a 'bit icky'. And when appearing as a guest on Gloria Hunniford's After noon show, she was asked why she didn't just take time off, like other actresses, and why she insist on living such a high profile lifestyle. In Outen's defense she states that as an announcer, her job is to do interviews, and this is, or should be, unrelated to the size of her belly. Where as actresses play a character, and the size of their stomach, and being pregnant, effects the character they may be portraying.

After reading the comments attached to the 'Ugly Truth' article, I found the comments of the viewers a bit off putting as well. They were as followed :


"I do not want to see pregnant women on tv esp those wearing tight skimpy tops that do not cover their bump. They earn more than enough to take a few months off. No I am not some grumpy spinster but a mother of five who had to work throughout my pregnancies. These celebs have taken the dignity of being pregnant and made it inot something very tacky."


"It's not about how the bump looks. I for one am sick of this 'family friendly' guff that's everywhere at the moment...I'm sick of seeing little girls in men's public lavatories; sick of having to pick up the slack of work colleagues who only work two days a week; and of having my work held up because the people I need to be liaising with are at home minding children. You either have a career or a child, and I don't care how politically incorrect that sounds."


And that was just to name a few. Aside from Outen's issue being in the UK, it is surprising to me that this kind of prejudice exist on something so natural. The fact that pregnancy could be considered a 'women's issue' and comparable to a period is ridiculous. The article was written in 2010, a full 58 years after Lucy bore her baby bump. Perhaps it is a prudish Brit conception to have, either way it's appalling.