Dawson's Creek perpetuates victim-blaming

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https://www.looper.com/951358/cringe...d-at-the-time/

"Dawson's Creek" had a lot of dangerous, misogynistic attitudes toward women and sex throughout its six seasons, but no character suffered more than Jen. Not only does she get subjected to a lame death onscreen, Jen's motive across six seasons was, according to herself in Season 2, to "allow [Dawson] to figure out who [he] really loved." The writers tried their hardest to portray her as needy, promiscuous and one-dimensional — which opened her up to unnecessary stories like getting stranded in the ocean during a huge storm and needing to be rescued by Dawson and Joey.

But Jen's lowest moment on the show came in Season 2 when she was victim-shamed by her own family. In "Full Moon Rising," Vincent tries taking things too far with Jen, who objects to his advances. When her grandmother gets home before things can get worse, rather than offering affirmation or support, she chastises Jen for being with a boy and tells her she needs to act like a lady — questioning her own granddaughter about whether she has any self-respect. Generational dissonance aside, Jen getting humiliated like that by a loved one punctuates the show's hotbed of misconceptions about sex and rape culture, and perpetuates victim silence.

When "Dawson's Creek" arrived on Netflix, longtime fans began changing their opinions of Jen, finally seeing her as a character with poise and grace. It's a mindset they should have had 20 years ago. Though Jen's story has aged better than some others on the show, the victim-shaming scene in Season 2 was bad when it aired and endures all the same.