JESS
Jess’s virginity narrative begins on prom night (classic). She
is sitting in a hotel room with her date who politely asks her if he can,
“take her hand” if they can, “sit on the bed” if he can and if he “kiss her now.”
Jess begins to get annoyed and antsy stating she wants to “get it on.” Here the
Urgency Script takes place because
it is clear that it is not the guy who she wants to sleep with, but instead the
act of sleeping with him she wants completed. He then attempts to take off her
dress but can’t because she is sewn into it. She tells him that he can “rip it
off her” but he doesn’t know how. Flustered, Jess goes into the hallway looking
for a seam ripper where she meets a cute boy. Her then date comes rushing out with two stake knives tied together as a
makeshift seam ripper. He proceeds to accidentally cut himself, and cue a trip
to the hospital and an unsuccessful attempt at loosing her virginity for Jess.
Flash-forward to a few years later, Jess and her friend CC
talk about how Jess is still a virgin at a bar. They discuss how she is getting “too
old” and that she needs to “get it done.” This codes the Urgency Script as it is clear that Jess is aware of the
stigma surrounding her age as a virgin and that she is worried that she
is not “perceived by others as desirable” (Kelly, 2009). All of a sudden, the cute boy from hotel appears out of nowhere. They immediately leave to go “do
it” in a park. However, once at the park the guy can’t get hard, and the two end up getting stuck
together inside of a children’s playhouse until the next day when the firemen
come to save the two (another unsuccessful attempt). By this point Jess is outwardly frustrated with the guy’s
lack of manliness and his failure to help her achieve her goal as he cries
(actual tears) about being stuck. In the end, the fireman saves Jess ends up taking
her virginity (finally success!).
The entirety of Jess’s story is centered on the act of
losing her virginity, but none of the negative consequences about having sex or losing her virginity are discussed. Most
of the conversations surrounding her story have a large emphasis on the “positive consequences and increased status for successful virginity loss and
negative consequences for unsuccessful virginity-loss attempts in the form of
failed performances of masculinity” (Kelly, 2009). The humor from the show not
only comes with the unsuccessful virginity loss attempts, but also with the
fact that it is Jess, a woman, who is enacting this script where usually we see a man. While this is a wonderful counterexample that depicts the notion females have
desires too, the fact that humor is derived from it is concerning.
NICK
Nick’s story is the almost complete
opposite of Jess’s. In his story he is extremely young and is staying in New
York with his friend Winston. His father ends up ordering the two boys prostitutes for the night. Winston end’s up loosing his virginity to the women without feeling any kind of remorse. On the contrast Nick is unable to “pluck up the
courage” because he is too afraid of the possilbe consequences (STD's, the FBI etc). This codes
the Abstinence Script, more specifically that
of the Dangers of Sex. This scene depicts the the opposite of, “[a] male who agree [s] to
wait because their female partners [are] not ready for sex" (Kelly,
2009).” Again, because the script is flipped humor is created.
Citation:
Kelly, M. (2009). Virginity
loss narratives in "teen drama" television programs. Journal of Sex
Research, 47(5), 479-489.
Before reading article about the virginity loss narratives I had never really recognized the emphasis they have within the media. I think that your example from New Girl is very relevant. I found it interesting that in the episode that you discussed they gave Nick, the guy, an abstinence script and Jess an urgency script because though Kelly's results state that "...the experience of being embarrassed about being a virgin occurred to both male and female characters", I would have envision the scripts to be reversed (Kelly, 2009, p. 486). I think the fact the scripts were not embodied by the gender I would have initially imagined may signify a shift in how the media and public are thinking about gender roles regarding sexuality. Maybe the reason the scripts feel reversed to me is because the past media I have consumed has portrayed the scripts with a distinct gendered bias that excludes males and females from certain feeling or situations. I think an interesting study in the future would be one that looks at the frequency in which both men and women engage in each type of script to see if they have been changing over time.
ReplyDeleteAgain, great job on your post! I really enjoyed it!
Reference:
Kelly, M. (2009). Virginity loss narratives in "teen drama" television programs. Journal of Sex Research, 47(5), 479-489.