Dead Ringers and the Horror of Childbirth on the Small Screen

Abstract

The streaming series Dead Ringers (Amazon), loosely adapted from David Cronenberg’s 1988 body horror film about twin male gynecologists, viscerally represents the too-often-violent act of childbirth in order to address the crisis of maternal health care in America. As a series for the small screen, it exploits television’s capacities to show and tell as a form of public education, directing our attention to social issues, including the maternal mortality crisis and the racist history of gynecology and obstetrics. FQ contributing editor Laurie Ouellette argues that the series is “uncomfortable television” by feminist design, in that it deploys corporeal aesthetics and social criticism to unsettle audiences.