Shakespeare, Television, and Girl Culture

Authors

Ariane M. Balizet Texas Christian University

Keywords:

Media Studies, Television, Girls Studies

Abstract

This essay examines representations of Shakespeare in television marketed towards teen girls, paying special attention to the way that studying Shakespeare's works is crucially associated with girls' intellectual inferiority and/or the threat of physical violence or sexual assault. The teen heroines of My So-Called Life, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gilmore Girls, Gossip Girl, and Switched at Birth — though not a racially, ethnically, or economically diverse group — nevertheless represent a useful snapshot of fictional girls on American television over the past twenty years. Using de Certeau's idea of "textual poaching," this essay explores the relationship between Shakespeare and television aimed at teen girls to suggest two related but contrasting conclusions. The first is that the study of Shakespeare in teen girl TV reveals persistent, troubling patterns of girls' intellectual, physical, and sexual subordination. The second is that Shakespeare in teen girl TV also represents an opportunity for true resistance against such subordination. The imbrication of Shakespeare with girl culture on television demands that scholars of Shakespearean appropriation articulate and theorize the consequences of depicting Shakespeare as a girl's ally as opposed to her enemy.

Author Biography

Ariane M. Balizet, Texas Christian University

Ariane M. Balizet is an Associate Professor of English and Women's Studies at Texas Christian University. She is the author of Blood and Home in Early Modern Drama: Domestic Identity on the Renaissance Stage (Routledge, 2014). Her research focuses on blood, bodies, and gender in the literature of the English Renaissance, as well as Shakespeare and contemporary girlhood. Recent publications include articles on domesticity and violence on the Renaissance stage, representations of Jews in early modern poetry and drama, and film adaptations of Shakespeare. She is currently working on a book project entitled Shakespeare and Girl Culture.