“They’re all little boys who need a strong mommy:” Burke’s Theories of Form and Terministic Screens Concerning Maternal Representations in <i>Sons of Anarchy</i>

This thesis aims to analyze one contemporary television series’ representations of mothers and what these depictions say about the trajectory of cultural perceptions. As one of the most pervasive forms of media in contemporary culture, television offers an opportune site of study about what American society deems important. While many scholars have begun exploring issues concerning gender on television, few have focused primarily on depictions of motherhood and their implications on society. Televised representations of mothers have traditionally remained in the background of shows, spending the majority of their screen time taking care of their children, husbands, and households in general. Today, however, maternal characters are beginning to push the typical boundaries, potentially signifying a shift in cultural perception of mothers. When conducting this analysis I utilize Kenneth Burke’s theories of form and terministic screens to examine the ways in which the current television series Sons of Anarchy both reifies and reinscribes dominant ideology through the arrangement of revealing and concealing images to both create and satisfy audience desires. Analyzing the organization of these maternal characters ultimately establishes that Sons of Anarchy essentially furthers culturally created expectations of motherhood while intermittently complicating this image of the mother.