Description

This book is a collection of 13 essays centering on supernatural serials such as television programs, video games, anime, and manga, featuring teen protagonists and marketed to teen audiences. These essays provide discussions of characters in teen supernatural serials who disrupt white, cisgender social narratives, and addresses possible ways that the on-screen depictions of these characters, who may be POC or LGBTQIA+, can lead to additional discussions of more accurate representations of the Other in the media. This collection explores depictions of characters of color and/or LGBTQ characters in teen supernatural serials who were/are marginalized and examines the possible issues that these depictions can raise on a social level and, possibly, a developmental level for audience members who belong to these communities. The essays included in this collection thoroughly examine these characters and their narratives while providing nuanced examinations of how the media chooses to represent teens of color and LGBTQIA+ teens.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Bonnie Bennett, Final Girl
Deanna P. Koretsky

Chapter 2: Gender and Race in Stranger Things: Fighting the Demogorgon One Stereotype at a Time
Amanda Putnam

Chapter 3: Debunking the Normative: Queerness Vis-à-vis “Magic Boys” in Fantasy Anime
Ananya Saha

Chapter 4: Ghosts of Gothic’s Past in the Present: The Haunting of Bly Manor and New Approaches to Adaptation and Representation for Young Adult Audiences
Michelle Drake

Chapter 5: To Choose or Be Chosen: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Question of Inheritance
M. Soledad Caballero

Chapter 6: Shunned Spaces and Queer Spirits: The Spectral Absence of LGBTQIA2S+ in Contemporary Ghost Lore
Barry M. Cole

Chapter 7: Siblings and the Supernatural: A Compelling Analysis of the Familial Bonds Presented in The Vampire Diaries
Ailish Kate Brassil

Chapter 8: Everyday Hero: The Hyper-Relatable Superheroes of the Life is Strange franchise
Mauro Colarieti

Chapter 9: Uncanny and Doubling Horror in Childhood: Abject Disruptions in Stranger Things
Amy Janna LeBlanc

Chapter 10: Now Memories: Restorative Nostalgia and Anachronistic Queerness in Stranger Things
Blue Profitt

Chapter 11: “Just Some Guy”: Musicals as an Expression of Queer Desire in Dead End: Paranormal Park
Xen Virtue

Chapter 12: “Just the Facts”: Erica Sinclair and the Possibility of Black Girlhood in Stranger Things
Rebecca Brown

Chapter 13: Bonnie ‘will figure it out. She always does.’: The Post-Racial, Pop Culture Mammy and The Vampire Diaries
Camille S. Alexander

Product details

Published 16 Apr 2024
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 270
ISBN 9781666926750
Imprint Lexington Books
Illustrations 7 BW Photos
Dimensions 236 x 159 mm
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

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