Screening Posthuman Procreation and Monstrous Motherhood in Raised by Wolves

Abstract

Representations of posthuman birthing and artificial motherhood are at the center of the universe of the sci-fi series Raised by Wolves (2020-2022). This paper investigates how the series’ cinematographic aesthetics fabricate discourses on human procreation, posthuman motherhood and maternal heteronormativity. In the series, these topics are negotiated within the categoric triangle of woman, animal, and machine. Embodied by the series’ gynoid protagonist ‘Mother’, these categories become blended into a monstrous-feminine other whose uncanny performances of maternity outline the potential fascination and horror of (post)human gestation. Applying a close reading of two scenes screening Mother’s performances of birthing and of Mother’s own ‘birth’, this paper debates the subversive potential of the corporeality of the monstrous machine-mother in the light of a patriarchal remodeling of the feminized body for the purpose of procreation, and discusses how the series’ adaptation of the notion of the abject is used to constitute the technologized monstrous-feminine.