Teens of color on TV : charting shifts in sensibility and approaches to portrayals of Black characters in American serialized teen dramas

Over the past several decades, the serialized teen drama genre on television has moved through a series of cycles. The genre, which began with the arrival of Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990) on Fox Broadcasting Network, focuses on portrayals of different subsets of teenagers in their school, family and interpersonal lives. Sometimes called the “teen soap opera,” the genre is subject to the scrutiny and dismissiveness often reserved for media located in the realm of women’s entertainment. Through comparative discourse and textual analysis bounded in socio-cultural consideration of each temporal cycle, this thesis asserts that close attention to this genre can valuably articulate approaches to racial representational strategies. By using two specific case studies, Felicity (The WB, 1998-2002) and Gossip Girl (The CW, 2007-2012), and engaging with a critical media studies framework, this project considers how key decision-makers constructed race through analysis of interviews, promotional materials, paratexts, the programs themselves, as well as the networks that produced them. Drawing from work in media industries studies, television studies, and race studies, this thesis argues that the two cycles had different approaches to race and representation, with a decrease in attention to what A.J. Christian (2018) calls “racial specificity” as the U.S. moved toward a more postracial, “colorblind” sensibility during the Obama presidency.