Advertisements utilizing the real or perceived authority of medical professionals to sell products are ubiquitous on television and in print. From “four out of five doctors recommend _____ for their patients who _____ to “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on tv” the power medical expertise has with the viewing public is significant in commercial contexts. This paper explores how the fictional doctors and nurses (or to be more precise one doctor and several nurses) advocate for a more modern Britain. The characters are those in the BBC’s period drama Call the Midwife and the modernizing lenses are feminism and the National Health Service. The dedicated doctor and nurses in the post-World War II era drama set in London’s East End are routinely involved in storylines that grapple with changing roles for and attitudes toward women and unabashedly praise the advances brought by the NHS. The setting of the show in a convent and the attitudes and beliefs of the nurses who are also nuns juxtapose the feminist sentiments espoused by the lay nurses with more traditional views. Similarly, a bureaucracy-critical subtext appears in multiple episodes, usually as the good doctor is trying to do right by a patient and encountering governmental red tape. On balance though, the modernizing themes win out in the end. From the smartness of the midwives’ uniforms, to new medications and technologies, to how all of these things are provided free of charge by the National Health, the show contains a powerful message of support at a time when increasing numbers of Britons are turning to private insurance and questioning issues of access and cost. Similarly, the openness of British society and meaning of citizenship has been repeatedly questioned during the show’s run on television. Thus, Call the Midwife functions to promote a vision of a modern, open, and tolerant Britain at a time when those issues have particular resonance while providing typical high-quality entertainment.
About the presentersLaurie Gilmore Selleck
Professor of Visual Communications and Associate Dean for Assessment of Student Learning at Cazenovia College
Julia Sloan
I joined the faculty at Curry College in fall 2015 as Director of General Education. Previously, I was a faculty member at Cazenovia College teaching history, social science, and international studies. I have a Ph.D. in Mexican history from the University of Houston. My areas of research include Cold War Mexico, social protest movements, and the 1960s.