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Thin blue lines: product placement and the drama of pregnancy testing in British cinema and television.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Type

Article

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Authors

Olszynko-Gryn, Jesse 

Abstract

This article uses the case of pregnancy testing in Britain to investigate the process whereby new and often controversial reproductive technologies are made visible and normalized in mainstream entertainment media. It shows how in the 1980s and 1990s the then nascent product placement industry was instrumental in embedding pregnancy testing in British cinema and television's dramatic productions. In this period, the pregnancy-test close-up became a conventional trope and the thin blue lines associated with Unilever's Clearblue rose to prominence in mainstream consumer culture. This article investigates the aestheticization of pregnancy testing and shows how increasingly visible public concerns about 'schoolgirl mums', abortion and the biological clock, dramatized on the big and small screen, propelled the commercial rise of Clearblue. It argues that the Clearblue close-up ambiguously concealed as much as it revealed; abstraction, ambiguity and flexibility were its keys to success.

Description

Keywords

Advertising, Female, History, 20th Century, Humans, Marketing, Motion Pictures, Pregnancy, Pregnancy Tests, Television, United Kingdom

Journal Title

Br J Hist Sci

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0007-0874
1474-001X

Volume Title

50

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Sponsorship
Wellcome Trust (088708/Z/09/Z)
Wellcome Trust (1360)
Wellcome Trust