Thin blue lines: product placement and the drama of pregnancy testing in British cinema and television

Abstract

This article uses the case of pregnancy testing in Britain to investigate the process whereby new and often controversial reproductive technologies are made visible and normalized in mainstream entertainment media. It shows how in the 1980s and 1990s the then nascent product placement industry was instrumental in embedding pregnancy testing in British cinema and television's dramatic productions. In this period, the pregnancy-test close-up became a conventional trope and the thin blue lines associated with Unilever's Clearblue rose to prominence in mainstream consumer culture. This article investigates the aestheticization of pregnancy testing and shows how increasingly visible public concerns about 'schoolgirl mums', abortion and the biological clock, dramatized on the big and small screen, propelled the commercial rise of Clearblue. It argues that the Clearblue close-up ambiguously concealed as much as it revealed; abstraction, ambiguity and flexibility were its keys to success.

Figure 1.

Screen captures from The South African Clawed Toad (Rolf Meier, c.1946) showing (from top left to bottom right): title card, urine injection, test toad and an ‘extremely positive reaction’. The wire mesh, clearly visible in the bottom left image, was used in some laboratories to prevent the toad from ruining the test by devouring her own eggs. Copyright Novartis International Ltd.

Figure 2.

Screen captures from (A) Alfie (Lewis Gilbert, 1966), produced by Lewis Gilbert and Sheldrake Films, distributed by the BFI; (B) A Touch of Love (Waris Hussein, 1969), produced by Amicus and Palomar, courtesy of STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd.

Figure 3.

Screen captures from The London Programme, Production Number 22561, recorded on 13 April 1978. Presented by Godfrey Hodgson, produced by Barry Cox, report by Greg Dyke.

Figure 4.

Screen captures from Channel 4's Brookside, first broadcast 14 December 1992, later rebroadcast on Living.

Figure 5.

Consecutive screen captures from Bhaji on the Beach (Gurinder Chadha, 1993), produced by Channel 4 Films and Umbi films, distributed by Channel 4. The second ‘control’ line in the smaller box is not visible, possibly because a ‘negative’ test result was manipulated on set to give the impression of a ‘positive’ result. See also in Figure 4 (top left).

Figure 6.

Screen captures from (A) The One and Only (Simon Cellan Jones, 2002), produced by Assassin Films, distributed by Pathé; (B) Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (Beeban Kidron, 2004), produced by Little Bird, STUDIOCANAL, Working Title; distributed by Universal and Miramax; (C) Puffball (Nicolas Roeg, 2007), produced by Amérique, Dan Films, Grand Pictures, Tall Stories; distributed by Verve; (D) Albatross (Niall MacCormick, 2011), produced by CinemaNX and Isle of Man Film, distributed by Entertainment One; (E) Love Letter (Lucia Yandoli, 2012), courtesy of Lucia Yandoli; (F) Bridget Jones's Baby (Sharon Maguire, 2016), produced by Miramax, Perfect World, STUDIOCANAL, Universal and Working Title; distributed by Universal.

Figure 7.

Standard delivery notice (21 September 2015) for Brigit Jones's Baby, listing two Clearblue Digital pregnancy test packs (of two), alongside Belvita breakfast bars, Coca Cola cans and bottles and various other brand-name products. Courtesy of Graeme Atkinson and Scott Shearsmith of Prop Portfolio Ltd.

Figure 8.

Private View (Liv Pennington, 2006), Digital C type on Aluminium, 80 × 76 cm. Courtesy of Liv Pennington.