The teen drama series One Tree Hill (Schwahn, 2003) will be used to discuss the semiologies of teen film. This essay will discuss the Deleuze and Guattari’s understanding of the teen machine as both separating and connecting the flow between childhood and adulthood. It will also analyse the teen machine as a form of subjectivity production. Here, the teen seeks to distinguish and individualise him or herself from the rest by following his or her own ‘economy of desire’. Becoming-adolescent as a micro-revolutionary force against patriarchal normativity is also discussed. However, the teenager is exposed to oppressive controlling forces originating from their peers as well as adults. This essay will also discuss the commodification of teen values such as rebellion and delinquency. Hence, teen values are incorporated into the ‘normal’ system and lose its power.
It will also examine the commodification of teen love machines as binary machines creating the desire to find a partner. The freedom of teen love in film and real life is overshadowed by peer pressure and the idea of status. This essay will discuss how an ongoing romantic relationship with someone of a ‘higher’ status can increase one’s status within a group but dating someone of a ‘lower’ status can lead to ridicule. Furthermore, it will analyse queer teen love in films and how it can be a way to rise up against the heterosexual norm. But it can also be commodified and portrayed as a ‘calculated mutation’ to be accepted into ‘normal’ society. Finally, this essay will discuss ‘drugs’ and ‘doping’ in the teen film. Such activities provide the sensation of forgetting oneself to escape from the stagnancy of ‘normal’ life.
Teen machines encapsulate Deleuze and Guattari’s machine definition as ‘a system of interruption or breaks’ (1983, 36). The teen is balanced precariously between sheltered decision-made childhood and (relatively) autonomous decision-making adulthood. Teen machines both separate and link these two phases of life, producing an interruption in flow as well as connecting to the machine that supposedly produces this flow (Deleuze & Guattari 1983, 36).
This idea of flow between childhood and adulthood is difficult to imagine as the two phases of life have very little in common aside from the fact that they are experienced by the same person. But in this tenuous connection lies the revolution of teen machines which rupture the very structure of the controlled-controlling human being binary. In doing so, the teen machine creates becomings and affects (Deleuze & Guattari 1983, 415).
Machinic becomings are a form of subjectivity production. This is especially relevant during the adolescent stage when personalities and preferences are constantly in a state of flux. Guattari notes that becoming-adolescent involves activities that personally incarnate oneself ‘while the ground of the existential image is blurred’ (1996, 102). Furthermore, the economy of desire (Guattari 1996, 64) plays a major role in identity-formation at the adolescent stage. The desire to be successful, to be popular, to be strong, to be in love fuels adolescent actions and responses. The choices that a teenager makes can be seen as a way to individualise him or her.
Anna: I think somebody forgot to give me the secret password.
Peyton: Yeah, people in this town tend to stick with their own crowd (One Tree Hill, season2, episode7)
Adolescence as a lived experience is made up of different forms of ‘becomings’ (becoming-child, becoming-woman, becoming-sexual) that are not definable by age group (Guattari 1996, 63). In becoming-adolescent, teenagers work to find their way by exploring the situations they find themselves in and the choices they make in those situations. The teenager is more autonomous than the child but less autonomous than the adult. Becoming-adolescent can be seen as a form of rebellion against the patriarchal heterosexual nature of the adult world. Through (supposedly) liberating practices such as skateboarding, fashion and eating, adolescence constitutes a ‘real micro-revolution’ which threatens the world of adults (Guattari 1996, 64).
According to Guattari, puberty ‘breaks up and disorganises the previous physiological, biological and behavioural status quo’ (1996, 64). This is an important acknowledgement in becoming-adolescent as a micro-revolution because it disrupts the normalised understanding of adults. Teen marriage and pregnancy are just one of such disruptive and revolutionary tactics used by teens to upset the norm. Hence, youth cultures are often portrayed as dangerous, deviant or associated with a moral panic (Biltereyst 2007, 11).
But being less autonomous than adults situates adolescence in a period that is subject to domination. Teenagers are (almost) always imposed upon by exterior normative systems such as parental machines, education machines and economy machines. These machines work outside the teenager’s forces of control and seek to ‘normalise’ the teenager (Guattari 1996, 65). In order to successfully enter into society, a teenager must go through ‘structures of initiation’ (Guattari 1996, 65) drawn up by surrounding adults. The chaotic machine of becoming-adolescent is exposed to controlling forces seeking to mold and direct them into ‘appropriate’ beings. Not only do normalising forces originate from adult repressive attitudes, a teenager’s peers also internalise such systems of punishment and control (Guattari 1996, 66).
Anna: Don’t be too fat or too thin, or too dark or too light. Don’t be too sexual or too chaste, or too smart or too dumb. Be yourself. But make sure you fit in (One Tree Hill, season2, episode8).
This brings the discussion to another area of adolescent control, namely teen commodification. Commodificaiton is spurred by desiring machines. The most basic of such desiring machines is materialistic consumptive practices such as shopping and playing computer games. Although desiring machines in adolescent becomings can be seen as revolutionary (because teenagers are doing what they want), these machines can also be a way to manage and organise teenagers. Adorno and Horkheimer claim that ‘the whole world is made to pass through the filter of the culture industry’ (1993, 33). This is especially true in the context of teen commodification. The teen in teen film is constructed as representing qualities of rebellion and resistance (Biltereyst 2007, 9). Juvenile delinquency is a common platform in which relationships between teenagers, their peers and the adults around them are explored. However, the adolescent’s chaotic nature is transformed into commodity to promote such values.
A teenager’s lifestyle and energy is commodified and sold back to them. He or she is convinced by the commofidication of teen cultural texts to conform to these practices in order to fit in. The idea of the individual becomes an illusion because of ‘the standardisation of the means of production’ (Adorno & Horkheimer 1993, 41). Even ‘liberating’ activities (such as skateboarding and punk music) which were originally meant to free the teenager from adult rules are used as commodities to market the teenager’s rebellion. The ‘accidental detail’ that defines and separates these groups from everyone else around them is made into a lifestyle that can easily be bought off the shelf. Hence, the idea of ‘consumerist hedonism’ in which the consumer carves out a space for him or herself using the products and resources of commercial youth culture (Osgerby 2004, 82), is made invalid.
The commodification of teen love is also another factor which constraints and shapes teen machines. Heterosexual couplings are framed as an important norm in teen film. They are placed at the heart of desiring-machines, creating an unfounded compulsion to find a partner. This is because ‘desiring-machines are binary machines’ meaning that one machine is always coupled with another (Deleuze & Guattari 1983, 5). Love in teen film often reflects the optimism of love in real life. The longing to immerse oneself in someone else and for that person to feel the same way. The search for that particular person is at the crux of love in teen film. The image of the perfect heterosexual couple is made into a selling-point as practically everyone can relate to or want to be them.
Brooke: Wanting to be loved. Finding someone that makes your heart ache in a good way. Feel understood. So if you’re robots or aliens or something and you’re watching this right now and that feeling no longer exists, you missed it. And I feel sorry for you. ‘Cause as far as I can tell that’s what it’s all about. And that’s what it always should be about (One Tree Hill, season2, episode15).
In spite of its claim of free-spiritedness and freedom, love, like everything else, is still subject to oppressive external forces. Peer opinions and views are taken very seriously in a teenager’s world. The status of a teenager in the eyes of their friends could very well be determined by their love interest. Milner argues that being involved in an ongoing romantic relationship could increase one’s status within a group (2004, 65). This was shown in One Tree Hill as Haley (formerly a studious ‘nerdy’ tutor girl) started dating Nathan (the high school basketball hero) and ultimately was crowned queen of the prom. Her status was elevated due to her involvement with him and she began mixing with the ‘cool’ kids, i.e. the jocks and cheerleaders who previously would never have thought to talk to her. However, did this relationship do the same for Nathan? Unfortunately not. Milner covers this as well by adding that trying to date someone of a different group or status may lead to rejection and ridicule (2004, 66). Again, the series showed this at the beginning of Haley and Nathan’s relationship when his basketball team mocked him for dating her. Peer pressure almost made him end his relationship with Haley.
This oppression extends to ideas of queer love. Despite the normalised image of a heterosexual couple, the binary desiring-machines could also be associated with same-sex relationships. The emergence of the queer character in teen film works to challenge normative ideals of heterosexual adolescent sexuality (Driver 2007, 241). The character of the queer teenager is often made to represent not just him or herself but queer teenagers as a collective group. As such, they are portrayed as a force of rebellion against the image of the standardised couple.
Being queer is not portrayed as a biological deformity in teen film. More often than not, it is an intelligent and rational decision to choose homosexual relationships over heterosexual ones. The queer teen’s decision to ‘come out’ represents the confusion and uncertainty of revealing such sexuality. They have to face the criticisms of their peers as well as the disappointment of parents who cannot or do not want to understand. Homosexuality is a ‘politics of the secret’ which incorporates feelings of repression as well as shame (Guattari 1975, 40). Coming out is a conscious decision to be openly gay in spite of the possible overwhelming odds. It realises a desiring teen that self-actively chooses his or her sexuality (Driver 2007, 241).
Darby: For some parents, finding out your child is gay is like losing a loved one. All the dreams they might have had just vanish. No weddings, grandchildren…so I think when I told them, I shattered some of those dreams for them (One Tree Hill, season2, episode18).
While queer love can be seen as an act of rebellion against heterosexual norm, the bizarreness of queer teen love is also made into a commodity. Packaged and marketed as a ‘lifestyle choice’, queer relationships are becoming more and more integrated within ‘normal’ life. Queer love thus becomes recognised (accepted even) when it is considered avant-garde or radical. These sexual departures from the norm are regarded as ‘calculated mutations’ which only confirm the validity of the system (Adorno & Horkheimer 1993, 36).
Finally, the semiotics of drugs and ‘doping’ in teen films will be analysed. Here, the use of the word ‘drugs’ does not specifically refer to a chemical substance that is orally consumed or injected into the body. It alludes to anything that provides ‘a sensation of belonging to something . . . [or] with the sensation of forgetting oneself’ (Guattari 1975, 101). The idea of losing oneself in ‘drugs’ can be seen as a teenager’s way to escape from the standardised way of life. The stagnancy and tediousness of ‘normal’ life can be disrupted and overturned with the use of these ‘drugs’. The series shows this when Peyton confesses to a pastor in a church about taking a line of cocaine.
Peyton: You know, my life is pretty good. It is. But I was just searching for something to make it great. Just something to make it matter (One Tree Hill, season2, episode5).
‘Drugs’ can be a form of self-intoxication through practices such as sports, music as well as real drugs. Guattari defines ‘doping’ as ‘any other exclusive passion that induces bursts of endorphines’ (1996, 102). This can be seen in the series when Nathan tries to explain the feeling of euphoria he feels when he plays basketball. He compares that ‘buzz’ to what he thinks Haley will feel when she sings on stage. These forms of ‘engaging’ activities (Guattari 1996, 102) work to provide the teenager with an outlet of release for their passions.
Nathan: You know what it’s like to have a game-winning shot. The whole crowd loves you, everybody treats you like you’re a star . . . I just really want her to feel the thrill of the crowd (One Tree Hill, season2, episode6).
Machinic dope is said to be ‘indispensible to the subjective stabilization of industrial societies’ (Guattari 1996, 103). This seems to imply that ‘doping’ activities can be used as a way to can be marketed and transformed into commodities to be consumed by these societies. This can be seen in the series as the music industry machine wants to consume Haley and her musical talent. In the show, Chris was able to further his musical career by going on tour with the Wreckers whereas Haley stayed home with Nathan. However, Chris later came back to offer Haley a spot on the tour.
Chris: You want to know about it, don’t you? The tour, the music. It’s all happening for me now. It could still happen for you, Haley.
Haley: It will. Someday.
Chris: Well, ‘someday’ is here. I talked to Michelle and she wants you on the tour . . . the difference between wannabes and successes is grabbing opportunity. Our tour bus leaves in a couple of hours and you know you should be on it.
In conclusion, this essay has used the teen drama series One Tree Hill to discuss the semiologies of teen film. It has discussed Deleuze and Guattari’s understanding of the teen machine as both separating and connecting the flow between childhood and adulthood, relating it to the ‘economy of desire’. It also analysed the idea of becoming-adolescent and how teenagers are exposed to oppressive controlling forces originating from their peers as well as adults. This essay has also examined the commodification of teen values such as rebellion and delinquency. It has also discussed the commodification of teen love machines as binary machines creating the desire to find a partner. It analysed queer teen love in films and how it can rise up against the heterosexual norm and yet be portrayed as a ‘calculated mutation’. Finally, this essay discussed ‘drugs’ and ‘doping’ in the teen film to provide the sensation of forgetting oneself to escape from the stagnancy of ‘normal’ life.
Teen films are a rich source of conformation and contradiction. Although sometimes seen as frivolous and unnecessary, they provide an in-depth analysis of teen culture and the adolescent experience. Further research needs to be done to fully examine the intricacies of teen film and the knowledge it has to offer.
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Bibliography
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