Rev. 27-Feb-1998
Chaz Boston Baden, hazelweb@boston-baden.com
Warning! Contains spoilers! If you haven't seen every episode aired,
this page will give away big chunks of character development. You Have
Been Warned.
From Here to Maturity
Some folks might say that this show could be subtitled "Attack of the
Raging Hormones." Sure, all four kids have hit puberty, and puberty is
hitting back. That's easy. They're all at different stages in their
sexual development. That's obvious too. But how are they shaping up in
general maturity? Here's my stab at lining them up.
Dawson
Dawson is clearly the Peter Pan of the bunch. He's way at the bottom of
the maturity ladder. He sees everything through rose-colored glasses.
Granted, in
Carnal Knowledge he was figuratively smacked upside
the head with reality, or some of it anyway, with revelations about Mom
(kissing Bob at work), Jen (her shady past), Pacey (when he kissed the
teacher), and Joey (didn't tell Dawson about Mom). But the following week
in Blown Away he sits out a storm with the whole
bunch (how convenient that Gramps was in the hospital for just the right
week), and eventually apologizes to at least two of the three ladies he's
gotten all righteous towards. But those apology speeches were awfully
eloquent. Either Dawson is just naturally lyrical, and the show's
writers did it for that reason; or, perhaps, Dawson is reciting a magic
incantation he adapted from one of his favorite movies. Oh, he said
the right words, certainly, and mended the rifts with Jen and Joey; but
does he really get it, or is he just forgiving Joey and Jen for
disappointing him and trying to "move on" to back where they were before?
My money's on Dawson having more growing up ahead of him - lots more.
Footnote, as long as we're talking about Dawson: I understand Kevin
Williamson, creator
of the show had a childhood similar to Dawson, amateur film-maker and all.
Makes you wonder how much of the storyline is drawn from his high school
days, eh?
Pacey
Up until
Dirty Dancing Dawson and Pacey were both virgins, so
it seems obvious to group 'em together.
(See also "Conquering Virgins" for another thought
on that parallel.)
Not just from a sexual viewpoint,
but from experience with romantic relationships with or without the sex.
They both have immature attitudes about the opposite sex. (Not too
surprising at 15, of course.) Pacey thinks that getting it on will solve
his problems, or at least he's not willing to look at the problems it
creates. (Pacey also has deeper troubles; see "The Dark Side".)
Anyhow, I have to put Pacey ever so slightly ahead of Dawson on the
maturity scale, but it's neck-and-neck; this could easily change from one
episode to the next.
Joey
I expect Joey to be everyone's favorite character. Certainly she's my
favorite, and my stepdaughter's. Solid, dependable, spunky,
knowledgeable, a healthy dose of the cynic in her - while still
staying a romantic. In
Carnal Knowledge her comment about "don't
ask me, I'd probably be willing to wait forever" serves to throw out a
clue to everyone who didn't figure out in
Emotions in Motion
(the pilot episode) or
Dirty Dancing that Joey was carrying a torch for her ol'
childhood chum.
But she's certainly had enough opportunities to show off her immaturity.
Her deceit in
A Prelude to a Kiss when trying to pretend to Anderson
(the rich boy from the city) that she's his kind of gal made it clear, as
did her jealous outburst in
Emotions in Motion. In both cases she's
letting her emotions rule her destiny, and fate takes her in an
embarassing direction.
Maria's convinced that Joey's the most mature one of the bunch, and
doesn't take kindly to my voting for Joey's sister Bessie. (grin) I guess
it's just as well I didn't bring up the remarkably fair treatment of
Dawson at the hands of Cliff, the quarterback. (And the abysmal
dog-in-the-manger behavior of Nellie, the producer of the class project
movie speaks for itself. Will we be seeing more of them, and will she
mature over time as well?)
At first I thought the show was really about Joey watching her friends
grow up, and that Joey would take a back seat to the antics
front-and-center of the rest of them. But that didn't last for more than
the first episode; she's in with the rest of them, for better or for
worse.
Jennifer
(It is Jennifer, right? Everyone calls her Jen. What's her full name?)
Jennifer, world-wise and world-weary, has come to Capeside to make a
fresh start. She lied about her grandfather - possibly we can lump this
in the "Little White Lie" category, because it concealed her past. (Yikes,
a father who sends her away? Here's a girl who needs some good
role models in her life.) And I'm not convinced we've heard the whole
story. Getting caught in your folks' bedroom partying is pretty bad,
sure, the booze and the sex really make a distressing picture, but is
that enough to warrant uprooting her out of school? Maybe it is, maybe
it isn't, but Grandma's comment about "children raising children" in
Blown Away makes me think that not all the
pregnancy scares in Jen's past were false alarms.
I don't really have a conclusion here
I'm not even done writing down everything I want to say, but I want to
move on. Most of what I'd like to say about each character's development
is in their relationships with the other characters, so let's start
talking about the parallel arcs in the story. (For those of you new to tv
writing, "story arc" is the term used to talk about a piece of a story,
usually "arcing" over two or more episodes. I'm using it here to talk
about any kind of plotlet, even things that come and go in the same
episode.)
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