Stork Myth and Birth Narratives

In the past few months, the research I have been doing is mostly focusing on the Stork Myth and other representations of birth narratives in children’s media. Specifically, Dr. Daniel is looking at two children’s movies, Storks (2016), and The Boss Baby (2017), which both portray babies coming from a factory in the sky. Luckily, my work as Dr. Daniel’s research assistant has not been largely impacted by COVID-19 and the move to online classes. Most of the research can be done online, so I am thankful to be able to work remotely.
An exciting part of this research topic was the interdisciplinary aspect of my literature review, as there are so many themes to unpack within this topic. I was not expecting the number of sub-themes that I have filled within our Box folders, and thankfully Dr. Daniel has been patient with my organization methods! In particular, I enjoyed reading work from Kerry Robinson and Cristyn Davies, two queer theorists from Australia who have written extensively about sex communication with children. Their work sheds light on sexual information used as a tool of power and whether children should be considered sexual citizens. Another intriguing sub-section of research was concerning Disney culture and how race and gender are constructed in children’s media (Bell et al., 1995; Wills, 2017; Shea, 2016). I also got to look deeper into the origins of the Stork Myth, which seem to come from Hans Christian Anderson and Grimm Brother’s tales. However, their version of the tale is much more gruesome and revenge-driven. Although I feel as if I have made a significant dent in the subject matter, I am excited about my future research over the summer.