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Volume 14, Issue 2
  • ISSN: 2040-6134
  • E-ISSN: 2040-6142

Abstract

The British teen sitcom has been noted for its unique spatial and historical setting: the Northern Irish city of Derry in the 1990s. These coordinates furnish a number of intersecting transition narratives in which place-based identities are negotiated against the backdrop of the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland as well as neo-liberal globalization and European integration. The role of pop music is of vital importance in narrating and structuring the teenaged protagonists’ identity formation processes. Through a recognizable mix of commercially successful pop, Eurodance and hip hop songs, the show inscribes the main characters’ experiences into a wider social fabric – one marked by post-ideological, post-nationalist and consumerist undertones. This social fabric is shown to be delineated by middle-class Whiteness, thereby reflecting the role of, in particular, Europop as the soundtrack of a (perceived) 1990s post-cold war liberal hegemony. The inclusionary and exclusionary aspects of western popular music are also shown to work in tandem with pre-Brexit nostalgia and the renegotiation of gendered power structures vis-à-vis local traditionalism. Overall, employs popular music in ways which foster accessibility for universalized adolescent transition narratives built around White cosmopolitanism.

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2024-02-19
2024-04-30
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http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1386/jepc_00058_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): cosmopolitanism; European integration; Europop; Northern Ireland; nostalgia; sitcom; teenagers; Troubles

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