Additionally, the show's projection of this sacrificial maternal body onto the body of Charisma Carpenter, using her real-life pregnancy, extends the abjection beyond the frame onto the body of the actress. As the actor's body changes, the character audience know and expect erodes, leaving an increasingly "crazy pregnant lady"
("Orpheus," A4015). Interestingly, this escaping of the frame seems to extend even to writers' readings of the show, as when critic Ian Shuttleworth cites Carpenter's pregnancy as the cause for the show's weaknesses in its fourth season, blaming the "(literally) growing biological demands made on the actress" (251) for the show's failure to present a coherent and compelling story. This aligning of maternity and female biology with failure and lack furthers the abjection, and mimics the logic of the glass ceiling, which denies women access to corporate and other structural power by treating the potential for maternity as a sure sign of female weakness and inability to sustain
career focus. The culmination of Cordelia's pregnancy leaves her in a coma, while the culmination of Carpenter's leaves her unemployed, written out of a series after four years and out of a character after seven, seemingly purely due to becoming pregnant without producer permission.
