e122. twentysomethingteen

There are a lot of television shows and movies about teenagers, both comedies and dramas.There always have been. And yet, actual teenagers on television are extremely rare. Teens are typically played by twenty-something actors (or older). This is especially the case when it comes to teenagers in shows with a heavy sexual or romantic components like Riverdale, the best show on television! Sometimes, the actors who portray these youth are quite convincing. Other times, they look as old as their parents. On this week’s episode, Wayne and Mav are joined by literary and cinema scholar Carolyn Salvi as well as twentysomething actors Jessica Michael Davis and Collin Kelly-Sordelet, both of whom have experience playing characters still in their teens to talk about the reasons that studios cast characters this way as well as the ramifications on the experience of the viewer and what happens when you contrast the typical “Hollywood” view of adolescence with a show like Stranger Things that casts actors who are actually the same age as the characters they are playing. Join us and let us know your thoughts in the comments below. Citations and Links: * This episode’s Call for Comments* Erotic Innocence: The Culture of Child Molesting by James R. Kincaid* Visual and Other Pleasures by Laura Mulvey* Adolescence – Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, and Religion by G. Stanley Hall* Men, Women and Children by Chad Kultgen* The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler * Thank you to Maximilian’s thoughtForm Music for our theme* Read Carolyn’s Essay in Lost and Othered Children in Contemporary Cinema* Follow the production of Jes and Collin’s movie on Instagram: @escapingohiofilm* Order Wayne’s novel, King of Summer* Follow Mav on Twitter: @chrismaverick* Follow Wayne on Instagram: @tetroc2017* Follow Mav’s Personal Blog: http://chrismaverick.com* Follow Wayne’s Personal Blog: http://wayne-wise.com * Follow us on Twitter: @voxpopcast* Follow us on Instagram: @voxpopcast* Follow us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/voxpopcast*