Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/20953
Title: The Adolescent Quest
Contributor(s): Shaw, Janice  (author)orcid 
Publication Date: 2015
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/20953
Abstract: This essay explores how 'The Big Bang Theory' situates the traditional notion of the quest in a millennial context. The quest as a search for an unattainable and objectified patroness is reinscribed by the chivalrous knights being nerds, or characters who present a renegotiated contemporary image of adulthood and masculinity, and the patroness being an equally problematized "kidult" female. In this way, 'The Big Bang Theory' is one of a number of contemporary television programs and films that challenges the notion of adulthood by interrogating the current social trend of young adults adopting "practices and attitudes associated with adolescence" (Blatterer 777). The television series depicts a set of young adults who, in confounding the boundaries between adolescence and adulthood, conform to the terms "kidults" and "adultescents" as used in contemporary media. In the process the series examines a model of masculinity in television and film that generates stereotypes of gendered behavior. The Big Bang Theory contributes to a popular fictional genre that endorses conformity while it exploits it, consistent with Rebecca Feasey's claims about masculinity as it is constructed by popular television, that "contemporary programming forms a consensus as it investigates, negotiates and challenges the power, authority and patriarchal control of the hegemonic male" (Masculinity 4).
Publication Type: Book Chapter
Source of Publication: The Sexy Science of 'The Big Bang Theory': Essays on Gender in the Series, p. 72-87
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc
Place of Publication: Jefferson, United States of America
ISBN: 9780786476411
9781476619484
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: 200205 Culture, Gender, Sexuality
200212 Screen and Media Culture
190204 Film and Television
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020: 440504 Gender relations
470214 Screen and media culture
360505 Screen media
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: 950205 Visual Communication
950204 The Media
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020: 130205 Visual communication
130204 The media
HERDC Category Description: B1 Chapter in a Scholarly Book
Publisher/associated links: http://trove.nla.gov.au/version/211421120
Editor: Editor(s): Nadine Faraghaly and Eden Leone
Appears in Collections:Book Chapter

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