Representations of Single Motherhood in British Cinema, 1945-1970

这项博士研究将探讨从1945年到1970年英国电影中单身母亲的代表性。在这一时期，单身母亲的形象变得尤为重要。由于堕胎法、避孕做法和1969年《离婚改革法》的变化，人们对单身母亲的态度发生了变化，离婚变得更容易了。虽然有关于单身母亲的历史研究，研究单身母亲的生活经历及其与慈善机构和国家的关系，但历史学家在很大程度上忽略了流行文化和媒体中单身母亲的代表性。因此，该项目提出了一种新的单身母亲的方法，包括研究电影提供的单身母亲的形象，以期阐明战后英国对单身母亲的“大众”态度，而不仅仅是“官方”态度。这反过来又将有助于讨论电影和社会中“母性”的文化建设。这一方法将涉及基于档案研究的历史分析，分析电影提供的单身母亲形象，沿着评估这些形象如何与当时更普遍的政治和社会辩论对话。通过检查流行的电影形象，研究将探讨单身母亲作为一个意识形态上的矛盾人物，邀请社会接受和同情，以及道德判断和“惩罚”的方式。通过这种方式，研究将有助于英国电影研究，这在很大程度上忽略了这个数字，并揭示如何关注流行的图像复杂化我们的理解不断变化的规范，以及对性别，家庭，阶级和性的态度在战后时期的妇女的历史。

This PhD research will explore the representation of single motherhood in British cinema from 1945 to 1970. This was a period in which the figure of the single mother became particularly important. Attitudes towards single mothers shifted as a result of changes in abortion law, contraceptive practices and the 1969 Divorce Reform Act, which led to divorce becoming more accessible. Although there have been historical studies of single motherhood, which examine the lived experiences of single mothers and their relationships with charities and the state, historians have largely neglected the representation of single motherhood within popular culture and the media. This project therefore proposes a new approach to single motherhood involving the study of the images of single motherhood provided by cinema, with a view to shedding light upon 'popular,' rather than just 'official,' attitudes towards single motherhood in postwar Britain. This, in turn, will contribute to discussions of the cultural construction of 'motherhood' in cinema and society more generally. This approach will involve a historically grounded analysis, based on archival research, of the images of single motherhood provided by cinema, along with an assessment of how such images spoke to the more general political and social debates of the time. Through the examination of popular cinematic imagery, the research will investigate the ways in which the single mother functioned as an ideologically ambivalent figure, inviting both societal acceptance and sympathy as well as moral judgement and 'punishment'. In this way, the research will contribute both to British film studies, which has largely neglected this figure, and to women's history by revealing how a focus on popular imagery complicates our understanding of the changing norms, and attitudes towards, gender, family, class and sexuality in the postwar period.