It’s All in the Delivery: Pregnancy in American Film and Television Comedy

In It’s All in the Delivery, Victoria Sturtevant makes a compelling case that pregnancy represents “fertile ground for comedy” (13). However, despite serving as the comic engine for countless films, television shows, and stand-up specials, humorous depictions of pregnancy have rarely been the subject of scholarly analysis. Sturtevant fills an important gap in feminist comedy studies, offering a comprehensive survey that stretches from the early days of the production code era to our current age of streaming media, referencing over a hundred American films and television shows, ranging from the well-known I Love Lucy (1951–57) and Juno (2007) to the lesser-known Rabbit Test (1978) and Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. (1992). Sturtevant skillfully details how comedic representations of pregnancy reflect and construct cultural perceptions of female embodiment, motherhood, reproductive freedom, sexuality, and gender roles.Given the reversal of Roe v. Wade with the 2022 Supreme Court Dobbs decision, the critical examination of pregnancy in popular media is particularly important and urgent. Sturtevant points to several recurring tropes in comedic texts about pregnancy that are also core themes in anti-choice rhetoric, including the sidelining of pregnant women’s subjectivity, the erasure of the emotional and physical toll of childbearing, and the framing of the fetus or embryo as a complete and separate person—what Sturtevant calls a “free-range fetus”—rather than as a part of the pregnant person’s body. Still, Sturtevant’s central argument is that comedy has a lot of potential for subversive depictions of pregnancy. She notes that the genre’s propensity for exposing and breaking social taboos, for subverting expectations, and for indulging in the profane and grotesque has contributed to frank representations of pregnancy that counter dominant sentimental narratives and narratives that focus on shame. In so doing, Sturtevant deftly shows how comedy’s ambiguities can render it regressive as well as transgressive, a tool of oppression as well as liberation.The opening chapter, “Confinements: Enter the Stork,” covers the first half of the twentieth century. The second chapter, “Hysterical Fatherhood: Male Pregnancy On-Screen,” surveys the 1950s through the early twenty-first century. The third chapter, “Bad Pregnancies: Social Problems and Bad Seeds,” explores unwed and teen pregnancy. The fourth, “Baby Bust: Infertility and Its Discontents,” discusses infertility, miscarriage, and adoption. Finally, the fifth, “Shmashmortion: Terminating Abortion Stigma Through Comedy,” examines abortion stigma. Across these chapters Sturtevant reveals familiar tropes that have been largely overlooked within humor scholarship through an engaging mix of anecdotal examples and longer case studies. For example, she points to the common comedic scene of men becoming hysterical, blustering fools when their wives go into labor. While the portrayal of men as weak and excessively emotional might be viewed as a powerful counter-stereotype, Sturtevant stresses that this exaggerated reaction is a form of masculine appropriation of women’s pain and sacrifice that at times literally pushes the laboring woman outside of the frame. Sturtevant makes the astute observation that many pregnancy comedies have really been about men and analyzes how these narratives construct cultural notions of masculinity as well as femininity. For instance, Sturtevant points to how infertility comedies equate men that have a low sperm count with “impotence, effeminacy, and weakness” (120) and depict men’s use of assisted reproductive technologies as an emasculating, humiliating experience of perceived failure.Sturtevant also challenges harmful representations by stressing their factual inaccuracies. She points out the baselessness of the trope that female infertility is primarily caused by stress, careerism, and emotional unpreparedness, arguing that this stereotype bears “no real relation to the medical causes of infertility and delayed conception” (120). Beyond placing blame on women’s ambition, Sturtevant maintains that this narrative also mistakenly suggests that infertility is primarily an upper-middle-class problem when, in actuality, poor and working-class women have higher rates of infertility.While It’s All in the Delivery mainly relies on the close analysis of comedy texts (and occasionally promotional paratexts), it also contextualizes these analyses by addressing technological, political, and economic developments that influence the representation of pregnancy on screen. For example, coded references to contraceptives became more prevalent in the Depression era, when many families tried to avoid pregnancy due to its financial burdens. Changes in anesthetic technology and protocols meant more women were awake and alert during hospital births, which led to more scenes that depicted the process of labor rather than merely showing men pacing in the waiting room. The advent of cable television allowed for more abortion storylines, which had often been quashed in broadcast television, even in outrageously “offensive” series, such as Family Guy (1999–present), due to pressures from advertisers.Sturtevant acknowledges how depictions of pregnancy have shaped and have been shaped by race and racism, elucidating how these narratives are part of a long history of celebrating white reproduction. Whiteness, in fact, is a key theme in the book, which Sturtevant emphasizes not only by pointing to the dearth of representations of women of color but also showing how representations of pregnancy are tied to eugenic discourses. Nevertheless, aside from a few notable exceptions, the book focuses on texts that feature white characters. This focus on whiteness, and on notably American texts, opens the door for future analyses that explore comedic representations of pregnancy in global or transnational contexts and in nonfictional genres such as reality television and short-form media. Ultimately, It’s All in the Delivery is a valuable and timely contribution to feminist media and comedy studies, offering an incisive and insightful framework for understanding how humor shapes and reflects cultural attitudes toward pregnancy, gender, and reproduction.