Description
Book Synopsis The BBC America series Orphan Black (2013-2017) won acclaim for its compelling writing, resonant themes and innovative special effects. And for the bravura acting of Tatiana Maslany, who plays an ever-growing number of clones drawn into an increasingly dangerous world of cutting-edge science, corporate espionage, military secrets and religious fanaticism.
Heir to pioneering shows centered on strong female characters, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dollhouse, Lost and Xena: Warrior Princess, Orphan Black models the current Golden Age of serial-form storytelling, with themes of identity, bodily autonomy, gender and sexuality playing against corporate greed and its co-opting of science.
This collection of new essays analyzes the diverse clone characters and the series, covering topics including motherhood, surveillance culture, mythology, eugenics, and special effects, as well as the science behind cloning.
Table of Contents
- Introduction: A Galaxy of Women
- Alyson R. Buckman and Janet Brennan Croft 1
- "I am not your property": The Progressive Feminism
- of Orphan Black (Graeme J. Wilson) 5
- Women's Rebellion or Radical Containment? Understanding
- Orphan Black's Feminist Message (Dani Howell) 22
- "To Hound Nature in Her Wanderings": Soccer Moms, Punks and Postfeminist Mothers on Orphan Black (Erin Bell) 41
- Making Clones, Making Mothers: Motherhood in Orphan Black (Jenny Bonnevier) 58
- Motherless Bad Girl/Bad Girl Mother: Naturalizing and Essentializing Motherhood in Orphan Black (Laine Zisman Newman) 77
- Hell and Back: Helena as Kore and Shaman in Orphan Black (Janet Brennan Croft) 95
- Living in the Panopticon: Resistance to Surveillance in Orphan Black
- (Brandi Bradley) 113
- "My story is an embroidery": Representing Trauma Within the World of Orphan Black (Alyson R. Buckman) 128
- Performing Bodies: Multiplying Cyborg-Clones, CGI and the Invisible Special Effect (Bronwen Calvert) 151
- Sheeply Empowerment: An Analysis of M.K.'s Reappropriation
- in Orphan Black (Jennifer DeRoss) 166
- cDNA/©DNA in Orphan Black: Eugenics, Surplus Life
- and the Castor Virus (Jessica Lee Mathiason) 180
- About the Contributors 205
- Index 207
