Abstract:
This critical analysis explores the conflicted position of women as ''trailing
spouses" and the effects on families who relocate globally under the auspices of a
multinational corporation, by utilizing a discursive analysis of two contemporary films
and available literature. Current portrayals of women and children in contemporary media
provide emotional yet conflicting images of the perfect woman, wife, mother, child and
family. The basic tenets of a North American patriarchal economic system are being
televised around the world. Technological advancements have made it possible to
advertise political agendas on a global television screen. Much of what we see is
propaganda couched in films and advertisements that are designed to romantic~e the
practice of deriving profits from the unpaid labor of woman and invisibility of children
and child rearing. I intend to show that the materiality of trailing a spouse globally
conflicts with these romanticized images and supports feminist literature that asserts the
notion that mothers and children are oppressed and managed for the benefit of capital.
