ABSTRACT
This chapter explores representations of Shakespeare in television marketed towards teen girls to show how studying Shakespeare’s works is crucially associated with girls’ intellectual inferiority and/or the threat of physical violence or sexual assault. This chapter examines the relationship between Shakespeare and the teen heroines of My So-Called Life, Buffy the Vampire Slayer , Gilmore Girls, Gossip Girl, and Switched atBirth and shows that the study of Shakespeare in teen girl TV reveals persistent, troubling patterns of girls’ intellectual, physical, and sexual subordination. Shakespeare is construed as a pedagogical tool that articulates how, why, and which girls matter.
