Beyond Bars

How Print and Visual Media Contributed to the Exploitation of the Dionne Quintuplets and the Gosselin Sextuplets

Abstract

This paper explores the depiction of the historic Dionne Quintuplets and the modern-day Gosselin Sextuplets in order to demonstrate how the emergence of mass media (e.g., television, photography, and print) made these children’s likeness into commodities. The author also focuses on consent and freakification of aspects related to the nuclear family and gender roles.