Abstract

The presence of pregnant celebrities has become ubiquitous in recent star coverage, yet the appearance of pregnancy in popular culture is a recent phenomenon. Given the burgeoning visibility of the pregnant body in popular representation, this thesis provides a discursive analysis of the construction of pregnancy in celebrity tabloid magazines to unravel the changing cultural conversations taking place about the meaning of the pregnant body. Through examining images and their accompanying text this work argues that the construction of pregnancy in the star realm is contingent on the context in which it is presented and the discourses at play in constructing the particular body. The analysis is divided into four types of bodies to examine their cultural, social and political meanings, including The Presumptive Body, The Attractive and Sexy Body, The Awkward and Excessive Body, and the High Risk and Dangerous Body. While the construction of the pregnant body is based on context, also offered is a reading of the broader cultural significance of pregnancy coverage that constitutes these bodies as public space, which while promoting traditional notions of femininity, simultaneously opens a space for productive and positive accounts of the changing meanings of the pregnant body.