Investigating Veronica Mars

During the course of its three seasons, Veronica Mars captured the attention of fans and academics alike. The 12 scholarly essays in this collection examine the show’s most compelling elements. Topics covered include vintage television, the search for the mother, fatherhood, the show’s connection to classical Greek paradigms, the anti-hero’s journey, rape narrative and meaning, and television fandom. Collectively, these essays reveal how a teen television show—equal parts noir, romance, social realism and father-daughter drama—became a worthy subject for scholarly study.

Rhonda V. Wilcox is a professor emeritus at Gordon State College in Georgia. For ten years she was the editor of Studies in Popular Culture. She is cofounder and editor of Slayage and is the author of previous books on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and other series. She lives in Decatur, Georgia.
Sue Turnbull is the chair of Communication and Media Studies at the University of Wollongong in Australia. She has published broadly in the fields of media education, audience studies and television, with particular attention to the representation of crime in popular culture.

Edited by Rhonda V. Wilcox and Sue Turnbull
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 210
Bibliographic Info: notes, appendix, bibliographies, index
Copyright Date: 2011
pISBN: 978-0-7864-4534-9
eISBN: 978-0-7864-8463-8
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments      v

Introduction. Canonical Veronica: Veronica Mars and Vintage Television
RHONDA V. WILCOX and SUE TURNBULL      1

1. Rob Thomas and Television Creativity

DAVID LAVERY      23

2. Performing Veronica Mars

SUE TURNBULL      35

3. So Cal Pietà: Veronica Mars, Logan Echolls, and the Search for the Mother

RHONDA V. WILCOX      49

4. “Who’s Your Daddy?”: Issues of Fatherhood

SARAH A. LEAVITT and LEWIS A. LEAVITT      67

5. Family Matters: Antigone, Veronica, and the Classical Greek Paradigm

STAN BEELER      82

6. Rethinking “The Getting Even Part”: Feminist Anger and Vigilante Justice in a Post-9/11 America

TAMY BURNETT and MELISSA TOWNSEND      95

7. “Get My Revenge On”: The Anti- Hero’s Journey

PAUL ZINDER      110

8. This Teen Sleuth’s Tricks Aren’t Just for Kids: Connecting with an Intergenerational Audience

LISA EMMERTON      123

9. “We Used to Be Friends”: Breaking up with America’s Sweetheart

SOPHIE MAYER      137

10. “No Longer That Girl”: Rape Narrative and Meaning in Veronica Mars

SARAH WHITNEY      152

11. Neptune (Non-)Consensual: The Risky Business of Television Fandom, Falling in Love, and Playing the Victim

TANYA R. COCHRAN      167

Episode Credits      189

Cast Credits      192

Contributors      193
Index      197

“A fine group of essays… This is a model for what TV studies should be like, both in its focus on the subject and for the case it makes for the excellence of this particular series. … valuable”—I>Pop Matters