"That's Classified": Class Politics and Adolescence in Twin Peaks

  • Elizabeth Parsons Deakin University

Abstract

Twin Peaks arguably paved the way for the television programmes currently popular with adolescent audiences, like The OC and Veronica Mars and, in it, many of the issues and representational strategies in those later programmes have their earlier manifestation. Specifically, the Twin Peaks plotline evinces a set of cultural anxieties about class-difference. Twin Peaks creates a cultural microcosm of American society that is paradoxically writ large by the limited parameters of an isolated community. Within a constricted space, characters are depicted as both individuals and as archetypes of a class location.

Author Biography

Elizabeth Parsons, Deakin University
Elizabeth Parsons lectures in Children's Literature and Literary Studies at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. Her current research examining class dynamics in texts for children and young adults is part of a collaborative project with Clare Bradford, led by Elizabeth Bullen. Her research focus also includes the politics of risk society in children's texts and childhood resilience.
Published
2007-12-20
Section
Alice's Academy