This interview originally aired on Thursday, December 19, 2024.
When the classic television program I Love Lucy featured the pregnancy of its star, Lucile Ball, the show broke new ground in its depiction of pregnancy and forever changed how the subject was portrayed on screen. It influenced American attitudes toward pregnancy which in the early 1950s was a taboo topic in entertainment.
Despite strict censorship rules that forbade the use of the word “pregnant,” the show approached the topic delicately, using terms like “expecting” instead. The episodes chronicling Lucy Ricardo's journey to motherhood were met with widespread acclaim and viewership. The episode “Lucy Goes to the Hospital,” which depicted Lucy giving birth to Little Ricky, drew an unprecedented 44 million viewers, more than the number who watched President Eisenhower’s inauguration the next day. This demonstrated that audiences were ready for more realistic and relatable portrayals of family life.
The show’s depiction of pregnancy was both humorous and heartfelt, making it an accessible and normal topic for millions of viewers. By bringing the experience of pregnancy into the public sphere, I Love Lucy reduced the stigma surrounding it and paved the way for future television shows to address family issues more openly.
The 1970s sitcom Maude also broke new ground in American television by addressing the highly controversial issue of abortion in a two-part episode titled “Maude’s Dilemma.” Airing in November 1972, just months before the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision, the episodes dealt directly with Maude Findlay (played by Bea Arthur) discovering she was unexpectedly pregnant at the age of 47. The storyline’s frank discussion of abortion challenged societal taboos and demonstrated the power of television as a medium for addressing complex and divisive social issues.
Set against the backdrop of the burgeoning women’s liberation movement, Maude approached the subject with sensitivity, intelligence, and humor, reflecting the feminist ideals of its title character. After weighing her options with her husband Walter (Bill Macy) and confiding in her daughter, Maude ultimately decides to have an abortion. The episodes portrayed the decision as deeply personal and multifaceted, emphasizing the importance of choice and autonomy for women.
While the episodes received praise for their honesty and relevance, they also sparked significant controversy. Critics, particularly conservative groups, decried the show for addressing abortion so openly, arguing it was inappropriate for network television. Despite this backlash, the episodes garnered high ratings and cemented Maude as one of the most progressive and fearless sitcoms of its time.
In the first book-length study of pregnancy in popular comedy, Victoria Sturtevant examines the slow evolution of pregnancy tropes during the years of the Production Code; the sexual revolution and changing norms around nonmarital pregnancy in the 1960s and ‘70s; and the emphasis on biological clocks, infertility, adoption, and abortion from the 1980s to now.
Across this history, popular media have offered polite evasions and sentimentality instead of real candor about the physical and social complexities of pregnancy. But comedy has often led the way in puncturing these clichés, pointing an irreverent and satiric lens at the messy and sometimes absurd work of gestation. Ultimately, Sturtevant argues that comedy can reveal the distortions and lies that treat pregnancy as simple and natural “women’s work,” misrepresentations that rest at the heart of contemporary attacks on reproductive rights in the US.
Guest:
Victoria Sturtevant is an associate professor of film and media studies at the University of Oklahoma. She is the author of A Great Big Girl Like Me: The Films of Marie Dressler and co-editor of Hysterical! Women in American Comedy.
The publication of It's All in the Delivery was made possible by the support of the William and Bettye Nowlin Endowment in Art, History, and Culture of the Western Hemisphere.
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This interview was recorded on Thursday, December 19, 2024.
