Resistances to institutional motherhood: Najwa Nimri in Spanish serial fiction

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to analyse some of the images of resistance to institutional motherhood offered by Najwa Nimri in her portrayals of violent, criminal mothers in three Spanish television series: Locked Up, Money Heist and Holy Family. Although she manages to “break away” performatively from the traditional mother archetype, Nimri nonetheless exhibits qualities of the “good mother”, transfiguring some of her values and revealing the inherently violent nature of institutional motherhood. Drawing on star studies, philosophical perspectives on the notion of resistance from Michel Foucault to Andrea Soto Calderón, and the feminist discourses of Adrienne Rich and Hélène Cixous, this study focuses on moments where Nimri positions herself in the liminal spaces between the good mother and the bad mother, between tradition and the depiction of a non-normative motherhood. It is in these spaces of resistance that she amplifies one of her “performance signs”: an ironic nuance that she introduces into her characters through her body or her speech. This performative projection underlines the attitude of resistance in Nimri’s characters, revealing the possibility of a female subjectivity capable of projecting “new” images of motherhood.