Television and Youth Culture: Televised Paranoia (Education, Psychoanalysis, and Social Transformation)

This book explores youth in postmodern society through a Lacanian lens. Jagodzinski explores the generalized paranoia that pervades the landscape of television. Instead of dismissing paranoia as a negative development, he claims that youth today labour within the context of paranoia to find their identities. Cover 1 Contents 8 Introduction: Youth Living in Paranoiac Times 14 The Paranoia of the Posthuman 15 Between Post-Oedipus & Anti-Oedipus 20 Part I: Theoretical Considerations 28 1 Madness and Paranoia 30 The Vicissitudes of the Schreber Case 30 Post-Oedipal Concerns 31 Post 9/11 Paranoia 33 Televised Simulacra 37 The Power of the Simulacrum 39 2 From Self-Reflexion to Self-RefleXion: Acknowledging the Inhuman 42 From Self-Reflection to Self-Reflexion 44 Self-Reflexive Irony 48 Paranoia within Risk Societies 49 Self-RefleXion: In between Nature and Culture 52 X as the Meeting Place between Lacan and Deleuze 55 Part II: Self-RefleXive Narcissism and Alienation 60 3 Dawson's Creek's Reflexivity: Savvy Poststructuralism 62 Prelude: Horrific Screams of Teen's Hidden Angst 62 Scream and Scream Again: The Pleasures of Self-Referentiality 63 The Final Girl's Scream 68 Post-Oedipal Screams 70 4 Dawson's Creek: The Postlude 74 There Ain't No Rap but Capeside Pap 77 Young Love, Pure "Confluent" Love? 78 Confluent Fag-Hag Love 80 Ironic Self-Reflexivity—The Final Episode's Joke on Us 83 5 Freaks and Geeks: "I Don't Give a Damn 'Bout a Bad Reputation" 88 Hegemonic Masculinity 93 Resistance, Rebellion, or Deviance? 94 F&G's Music Scene 99 The Power of Refrain 101 6 And the Geeks Freaks Will Inherit the Earth 104 The Limits of Post-Subcultural Studies 104 Questioning Hegemony 105 Lacan-Deleuze on Multiplicity 108 Lindsay's Ethical Turn 117 A Diagram of the Good Girl's Escape 120 Part III: Real Paranoia 124 7 The Death Drive's at Stake: Buffy: The Vampire Slayer 126 The Usual Objectionable Suspects 127 The Heroine with a Call 129 Opening Up a Porthole: Scratching the Tain of the Mirror 130 Paranoid Psychosis: Suspending the Name-of-the-Father 133 Psychotic-like Language as Ethical Slayage 136 The Matrix of Players: The ONE=THREE of Buffy's Postfeminism 139 The Boyz/Bois/Boys and Gurls/Girls/Grrrls in Buffy 141 8 The Buffyverse Soteriology: Youth's Garden of Earthly Delights 146 The Doubled Road of Ethics 150 An Ethical Act Proper 155 Postscript 158 9/11 Addendum: Has the "Future of an Illusion" Collapsed? 158 Part IV: Televised Paranoiac Spaces 164 9 Aliens "R" Us: Searching for the Posthuman Teenager 166 Raising Sleeping Beauty from the Dead 167 Paranoiac Split 168 Facing the Alien to the Side 170 Alien Love 171 Post-Oedipal Flips 174 Alien-Angels 175 Abductions 176 Queering Kinship 177 The Roswell Beat 178 The Alliance as War Machine 179 Posthumanist Line of Flight 179 10 Smallville, Somebody Save Me! Bringing Superman Down to Earth 182 Marvel-ing Superman 182 Into the Vortex of the Tornado 188 Wholesome Goodness 189 The Alien Messiah: No Flying Allowed! 192 Fate/Destiny/Choice: Earning His Angel Wings 193 Why A Third Father? Reforming the Criminal CEO 196 Disjunctively Speaking 198 11 Stamping Out Alien-Human Freaks: Smallville's Moral Duty 200 It's Raining Mutants 201 $ S: Or Why Do Lex and Clark Not Laugh at Themselves? 204 Egghead Paranoia 206 Between Fantasy and Delusion—Is a Very Thin Line 208 Afterword—A Self-RefleXive Moment 210 Notes 214 References 234 Index 252 A 252 B 252 C 252 D 252 E 253 F 253 G 253 H 253 I 253 J 254 K 254 L 254 M 254 N 254 O 254 P 254 Q 255 R 255 S 255 T 255 V 256 W 256 X 256 Y 256 Z 256 This book theorizes five youth television series: Dawson's Creek, Freaks and Geeks, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Roswell, and Smallville from a psychoanalytic perspective drawing on the meeting ground between Jacques Lacan, Gilles Deleuze, and Felix Guattari. jagodzinski develops the notion of self-refleXivity (as distinct from self-reflection and self reflexion) to identify that aspect of the inhuman within ourselves, namely the order of the drives that these series explore. It is argued that the narratology of the post-Gothic form of Buffy, Roswell, and Smallville is the structure of paranoid schizophrenia. A hyper-self-reflexivity informs Dawson's Creek, while Freaks and Greeks deals with ethical dilemmas This book theorizes five youth television series: Dawson' Creek, Freaks and Geeks, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Roswell, adn Smallville from a psychoanalytic perspective drawing on the meeting ground between Jacques Lacan, Gilles Deleuze, and Felix Guattari. Jagodzinski develops the notion of self-refleXivity (as distinct from self-reflection and self reflexion) to identify that aspect of the inhuman within ourselves, namely the order of the drives that these series explore. It is argued that the narratology of the post-Gothic form of Buff, Roswell, and Smallville is the structure of paranoid schizophrenia. A hyper self-reflexivity informs Dawson's Creek, while Freaks and Geeks deals with ethical dilemmas Jan Jagodzinski. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.