Gender Narratives and Serial Production

The Case of the Tv-Series Nudes

Abstract

Television series have emerged as a central cultural force in contemporary media, functioning as narrative form that both reflect and influence societal values and attitudes. For researchers examining youth cultures, the distinctive connection between serialized productions and younger audiences offers crucial insights into identity formation processes and how cultural meanings are negotiated within these demographics. In today’s media environment, dominated by global digital platforms and social media networks, television fiction plays a key role in forming the collective imagination of young adults, who constitute the most engaged and interactive segment of digital audiences.

Recent serialized productions attuned to social dynamics have become essential tools for depicting the complexities of adolescent and young adult life. Serial fictions like Euphoria and Skam have achieved considerable success by tackling challenging topics including sexuality education, gender politics, harassment, problematic relationships, and diversity. These narratives actively participate in shaping youth experience rather than merely reflecting it, offering linguistic frameworks, interpretive lenses, and meaningful patterns through which younger viewers process their daily lives. Within this landscape, gender emerges as a central organizing principle for youth-oriented serial fiction. While adolescent programming has traditionally reproduced conventional gender stereotypes, more recent productions offer increasingly nuanced portrayals of young people’s experiences, engaging with difficult subjects like sexual abuse and gender-based violence. This contribution examines Nudes, the Italian adaptation of a Norwegian format produced in 2021 by Rai Fiction. The series follows three young characters – Vittorio, Sofia and Ada – whose lives are affected by online harassment and non-consensual intimate images (NCII), also known as revenge porn. The production explores this phenomenon from various generational and gendered perspectives, shedding light on the stark inequalities inherent in digital harm.

The analysis reveals how unauthorized circulation of intimate visual content produces vastly different consequences depending on victims’ gender. The series exposes a continuing gendered double standard governing young women’s bodies and sexual expression, compelling them toward constant self-monitoring and pre-emptive restraint. Actions that might be dismissed as mistakes or adventures for young men become permanent stains on young women’s reputations. Drawing on media analysis frameworks, this study highlights how current serial narratives occupy a critical position between depicting and constructing youth realities, serving as vehicles for critical examination and cultural evolution, particularly regarding gender inequities and power imbalances that continue to define younger generations’ lives in digital society.