Sabrina the Teenage Activist
Generation Z's Saudade and the Desire for Dystopian Narratives
Amber Bixby, Eastern Florida State College(This research has been accepted as a paper presentation to the 2022 PCA/ACA national conference)
Generation Z, constantly saturated with media, utilizes contemporary Sci-Fi narratives such as Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, WandaVision, Stranger Things, The Society, and I Am Not Okay with This that tempers saudade, a Portuguese word meaning a nostalgia for something that is forever lost or never existed culminating in a deep sadness. Michael Amoruso in his work on saudade explains that once people feel this form of nostalgia, they realize the severe consequences of what they have lost and what they desire. These narratives allow Gen Z to engage with muted representations of twenty-first century technology and authority, retrospective settings, and a diversity of freedom that they may never have a chance to experience. Gen Z grew up consuming mainstream dystopian narratives such as The Hunger Games, The Giver, and Divergent, and these narratives provide language and similar experiences for Gen Z to discuss and compare with their own sociopolitical issues. The sociopolitical news, feeds, memes, and posts that unabatedly saturate Gen Z’s milieu are recursive to the dystopian narratives of their youth. To negotiate this constant saturation, Gen Z then utilizes these narratives’ ideologies to ameliorate and interpret contemporary sociopolitical events. This elicits the saudade that Gen Z looks to lessen through the viewing of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, WandaVision, Stranger Things,The Society, and I Am Not Okay with This.