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- Title
"It's me. I'm it.": Defining Adolescent Sexual Identity through Relational Dialectics in Dawson's Creek.
- Authors
Meyer, Michaela D. E.
- Abstract
Television criticism frequently focuses on the deconstruction of individual representations in texts, a practice that privileges specific characters rather than relationships among characters. This paper examines the usefulness fictional television relationships for adolescent sexual identity formation by examining Dawson's Creek for its construction of gay character Jack McPhee. Jack's sexual identity is constructed and modified through dialectical tensions in his relationship with Jen Lindley, ultimately allowing him to express sexual identity in terras of acceptance rather than in terms of political or legal rights. This difference in narrative form illuminates potential differences between the formation of adult and adolescent sexual identity. Examining ethnographic work on gay men and their use of fictional media combined with a close reading o Dawson's Creek for sexual identity construction, this paper ultimately argues that fictional representations could serve as a template from which gay adolescents enact personal relationships. It also calls for critical media scholars to examine positive aspects of television representations.
- Subjects
TELEVISION; POPULAR culture; GAY people; GENDER identity; IDENTITY (Psychology)
- Publication
Communication Quarterly, 2003, Vol 51, Issue 3, p262
- ISSN
0146-3373
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1080/01463370309370156