Serialised Sexual Violence in Teen Television Drama Series by Susan
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Berridge, Susan (2010) Serialised sexual violence in teen television drama series. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2326/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the Author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Serialised Sexual Violence in Teen Television Drama Series Susan Berridge MA, MLitt Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies School of Culture and Creative Arts University of Glasgow September 2010 2 Abstract Serialised Sexual Violence in Teen Television Drama Series This thesis examines the kinds of stories about teenage sexual violence that are enabled (or not) by US and British teen television drama series between 1990 and 2008. This genre is centrally concerned with issues of sexuality and, in particular, sexual vulnerability as teenage characters negotiate the transition from childhood to adulthood. Sexual violence narratives are common within this context. This thesis argues that a fuller understanding of representations of sexual violence is enabled by contextualising these narratives in relation to overall series’ and generic contexts. I employ a structural methodology to map where these storylines occur within series’ and generic structures across fourteen texts, uncovering striking patterns that point to the value of analysing several programmes alongside one another. This then provides the starting point for a deeper textual analysis of how sexual violence functions narratively and ideologically. Through doing this, I am able to provide insights into a variety of different forces that shape how these narratives are framed. Contextualising my analysis of representations of sexual violence allows me to account for the specificities of episodic and serial narrative forms, the generic hybridity of individual programmes, the wider conventions of the teen drama series genre, the gender of the series’ protagonist and US and British contexts. Additionally, I identify the genre’s dominant sexual norms and explore how these norms intersect with representations of sexual violence. 3 Table of Contents Abstract 2 List of Tables 5 List of Figures 6 List of Accompanying Material 8 Acknowledgements 9 Author’s Declaration 10 CHAPTER 1 Introduction 11 CHAPTER 2 Literature Review: Troubling Teens and Anxious Adults 25 CHAPTER 3 Methodologies: Accounting for Medium and Generic Specificities 64 CHAPTER 4 Glances, Dances, Romances: An Overview of Sexual Narratives in Teen Drama Series 81 CHAPTER 5 Personal Problems and Women’s Issues: Episodic Sexual Violence Narratives in US Series 104 CHAPTER 6 Previously On…: Overarching Sexual Violence Narratives in US Series 128 CHAPTER 7 Heroine Television: Sexual Violence in Female-Fronted Teen Series 157 4 CHAPTER 8 Sugar Rush and Skins : Sexual Violence in British Teen Drama Series 181 CHAPTER 9 Conclusion 207 Appendix A 218 Appendix B 237 Appendix C 241 Appendix D 243 Bibliography 244 Teleography 265 Filmography 268 5 List of Tables Table 3.1 Numbers of Episodic and Overarching Sexual Violence Narratives in Teen Drama Series 77 Table 5.1 Type of sexual violence and roles of victim/perpetrator in US episodic narratives 106 Table 6.1 Type of sexual violence and roles of victim/perpetrator in US overarching narratives 130 Table 7.1 Oppositions between Veronica Mars and Feminist Lilith House in season 3 of Veronica Mars 172 Table 8.1 ‘Youth and television: opposing constructs?’ (Lury, 2001: 13, adapted from Thornton, 1995: 115). 183 6 List of Figures Figure 5.1 Kelly’s Halloween costume in Beverly Hills 110 (213 ‘Halloween’) Figure 5.2 Peyton is pushed to the back of the frame in One Tree Hill 117 (108 ‘The Search for Something More’) Figure 5.3 Greg’s voyeurism of Lana prior to his transformation in Smallville 120 (102 ‘Metamorphosis’) Figure 6.1 Tyra clings to Landry following an attempted rape 135 in Friday Night Lights (120 ‘Mud Bowl’) Figure 6.2 Monstrous ‘Derek’ lunges again in One Tree Hill 138 (416 ‘You Call it Madness, I Call it Love’) Figure 6.3 Ryan’s mistrust of Oliver is highlighted in The O.C. 140 (117 ‘The Rivals’) Figure 6.4 Ryan protectively carries Marissa in The O.C. 147 (107 ‘The Escape’) Figure 6.5 Again, Ryan protectively carries Marissa in The O.C. 147 (325 ‘The Graduates’) Figure 6.6 Institutional homophobic abuse in Dawson’s Creek 150 (214 ‘To Be or Not to Be…’) Figure 6.7 Institutional homophobic abuse in One Tree Hill 150 (210 ‘Don’t Take Me For Granted’) Figure 6.8 Familial distance in Jack’s coming out scene in Dawson’s Creek 152 (215 ‘That Is the Question’). 7 Figure 7.1 A shared gendered identity between Veronica, Mac and Parker in 171 Veronica Mars (302 ‘My Big Fat Greek Rush Week’). Figure 7.2 Final scene of Veronica Mars 175 (320 ‘Weevils Wobble but they Don’t Go Down’). Figure 7.3 Final scene of Buffy 178 (722 ‘Chosen’). Figure 8.1 Sexual violence as a catalyst for romance in Sugar Rush (110) 194 Figure 8.2 Teenage nihilism in the trailer for Skins 197 Figure 8.3 Tony privileged over Effy in Skins (108 ‘Effy’) 203 8 List of Accompanying Material Appendix A: Cast Lists of Teen Drama Series 218 Appendix B: Narrative Timelines 237 Appendix C: Functions of Sexual Violence in US Episodic Narratives 241 Appendix D: Functions of Sexual Violence in US Overarching Narratives 243 9 Acknowledgements This thesis was made possible by funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. I am also very grateful to the Arts Faculty and the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies for funding my attendance at conferences throughout this period of study. I would like to thank Karen Boyle and Christine Geraghty for their valuable insights, advice, guidance and enthusiasm throughout this project. I admire you both greatly and could not have wished for better supervisors. More broadly, I’d like to thank other members of the Film and Television Studies department – particularly Chris, Alexia, Amy and Kat – for talking ideas through with me and for their encouragement. To Matt, Vicky, Mike, Sarah and my (new and old) family - thank you for listening to me, alerting me to relevant programmes and articles and, most of all, for always being there with supportive words. Special thanks to Oliver, Sam, William, Logan and Ailish for providing much needed smiles along the way. Finally, thank you to Duncan – smarter than Brian Krakow, more handsome than Brandon Walsh, funnier than Bill Haverchuck and, really, beyond compare. You have always been there for me, even all those days when I was stressed, whiny and overly emotional. I love you more than I can express. This thesis is dedicated to the memory of my parents, who may not have been around for most of my teenage years, but who installed in me, from the very start, a sense of self- belief that made this PhD possible. 10 Author’s Declaration This thesis represents the original work of Susan Berridge, unless otherwise stated in the text. The research upon which it is based was carried out in the Theatre, Film and Television Studies Department at the University of Glasgow under the supervision of Dr. Karen Boyle and Professor Christine Geraghty during the period of October 2007 to September 2010. 11 Chapter 1 Introduction Why sexual violence and why teen television drama series? Halfway through my thesis, I completed narrative timelines of fourteen teen drama series upon which I mapped where sexual violence storylines occurred (see Appendix B). I displayed these timelines at a departmental training event, at which a visiting academic commented, ‘I thought Smallville was about Superman. Who knew that it was really about sexual violence?’ This is an over-generalisation - Smallville (The WB/CW, 2001- ) is indeed about Clark Kent’s teenage years prior to becoming a super hero - yet it highlights two important tenets of this thesis: that sexual violence narratives are prevalent in teen drama series and that striking patterns begin to emerge when these storylines are positioned in the context of overall series’ and generic structures. This thesis emerges out of three distinct but overlapping passions: feminism, television and ‘coming of age’ narratives. The media representation of key feminist issues, such as sexual violence, has been a central concern of mine for some time. In earlier studies, I have examined sexual violence representations across Hollywood and independent cinema and various television formats including soap operas and talk shows. The object of this thesis is to explore the relationship between representations of teenage sexuality and sexual violence specifically in the context of the teen drama series, a genre that is centrally concerned with issues of sexuality as teenage characters mature. Their sexual development is key in marking this transition from childhood to adulthood and series often emphasise significant moments in this process such as first kisses, dates and sexual experiences. At the same time, the liminal teenage period is portrayed as a particularly vulnerable stage and teenage characters’ fallibility and vulnerability, including their sexual vulnerability, is a recurring and prominent generic theme. Programmes highlight this vulnerability through issue-led storylines involving sex and sexuality, underage drinking and drug use. What this thesis is interested in is exploring how this vulnerability is gendered and sexualised in significant ways.