Chicago Tribune Article on Teen Film Comedies & Sexual Assault Cites Honor Scholar Thesis of Claire Halffield '17

October 3, 2018

"Sexual violence is everywhere in film and TV," begins a Chicago Tribune article. Nina Metz looks at the 1980s, "a decade when the teen sex comedy emerged as a genre all its own," and the role they played in "normalizing -- de-horrifying, really -- sexual assault to such a degree that we are lulled into not seeing what’s actually there. Only now, a year into the revelations of #MeToo, are we collectively stopping to re-examine some of these movies."

Metz writes, "These portrayals aren’t just relegated to movies from the ’80s. The thing about tropes is that they persist -- notably in movies that center on a particular demographic: middle- to upper-class suburban white kids."

The piece cites Claire Halffield, "whose 2017 honors thesis as an undergraduate at DePauw University analyzed a number teen comedies." Metz notes of the work by Halffield, a 2017 DePauw graduate, "She includes older films such as Fast Times at Ridgemont High from 1982 and Revenge of the Nerds from 1984. But also, tellingly, more recent entries including Superbad, from 2007 starring Jonah Hill and Michael Cera."

Halffield says, "The comedic lens can often overshadow the fact that sexual assault was committed."

The young men in Superbad "toy with the idea that alcohol and sex should not mix," Halffield wrote in her Honor Scholar thesis, but "at the end of the day, it does not stop them from attempting to use alcohol for this purpose."

Access the complete piece -- "How teen comedies like 'Superbad' normalize sexual assault" -- at the Tribune's website.

Claire Halffield was a communication major and student body president at DePauw. She is now development associate at the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

Source: Chicago Tribune

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