Let’s start off by saying that the One Tree Hill network show on the CW is more than a major teen hit soap opera. Many may find this series to be just another teen drama, but to fans it is an entirely different story. The relationships are complex and yet they still seem real. Unlike those who used to watch the soap opera Passions which involved a lot of science fiction throughout the series. The show was created in 2003 by Mark Schwahn. The idea was to captivate the nature of teens and their daily lives as once was said in a paraphrased television interview. However, the show gained its most popularity as the teens grew up into college students, lovers, mothers, and fathers etc. Each character’s history created the future that would lie ahead for them in up and coming episodes. This response is to breach from the ideas of sex, identity, and how that is represented.
Take the character Brooke Davis for instance. She has always been a beauty who is completely selfless yet incredibly sexual when it comes to her relationship with her male counterparts. However, as Davis grows she utilizes her strengths and suppresses her weakness in men to become more of a figure of business like qualities. She has her own multi-million dollar fashion company at the age of 22. Not bad. She often feels lonely because she has been neglected by a mother who is verbally abusive towards her and tries to steal her company right under her feet. Since Brooke is missing the emotional attachment she wishes she had with her mother she gains more mother like qualities and cares for others. She also expressed the need for wanting a baby of her own to love and to nurture. According to Chris
The character Nathan Scott was always known as a handsome athlete who is scouted to play for the NBA. He marries his high school sweetheart now know as Haley Scott. Haley gets pregnant in high school with Nathan’s baby. Once the child is born and is old enough to have a nanny trouble begins to brew. The nanny is a physically beautiful woman by the name of Carrie who becomes completely infatuated with Nathan. She would use her understanding of sexual power (Barker, pg. 284) in order to wield in her prey. She was a live-in nanny and takes advantage of the fact that the pool is right outside of Nathan’s window. Late at night she would swim without her clothes on so that he would see her as sexually devourable. Nathan would watch sometimes and she knew it. However, Nathan loves his wife Haley a lot but does not feel the love that he is so desperately wanting. In one scene Carrie get the wrong idea and while Nathan is showering and kisses him. He didn’t see her at first and thought it was his wife. When he opened his eyes he was shocked and left the room immediately. I brought up this situation because it contradicts what is said in Barker’s book. Barker says that due to greater levels of testosterone and lower levels of serotonin men appear to be greater risk takers, have a higher propensity to find multiple partners, and are less likely to verbalize emotions (p.287). However, Nathan seems to be the opposite and Carrie fit these qualities, but she is the woman. Carrie does not care that Haley is in the house while she kisses Nathan proving that she is a risk taker, and she most certainly does not mind the fact that is married with a family. Carrie does not verbalize emotions toward Nathan she only shows them sexually.
In class readings Simone Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949) quoted what Aristotle once said, “The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities…we should regard the female nature as afflicted with a natural defectiveness.” I thought Aristotle was regarded a smart man, but after I heard this I questioned his abilities. Many of the female characters in this television show produce qualities that are considered to attain high standards in society without needing a relationship with a man to accomplish them. For example, I had mentioned Brooke Davis earlier before. She is a high powered career woman and she didn’t need the benefit of a man to tell her how to run her own multi-million dollar company. Sex has nothing to do with who you are as a person. Sure, men and women have distinct characteristics as Barker has mentioned, but it doesn’t mean humans, relationships, and lives don’t evolve. What is a woman? What is a man? Will we ever really know? As people, we can always deconstruct our ideas as to what “we” are. We can even deconstruct television shows to find the meanings. However, I believe the answer to each question is inside an individual’s self. One cannot tell you how you feel because you are the only one who can feel it. Therefore, through our emotions and actions we express what makes us who we are even if we indeed may live in a soap opera like fictional characters seen on television.
Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies Theory and Practice. SAGE Publications,2008
De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. (in class readings),1949
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