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Abstract
This essay is a critical feminist analysis that addresses a popular culture representation of agency, codependency, and addiction. This perspective illuminates how the television series, House M.D., uses supporting characters to construct codependency as third wave feminist contradiction that produces various levels of agency. Systematic oppression of codependent characters occurs through representations of exaggerated femininity or masculinity as weakness, unprofessional behavior in the workplace, and reliance on the behavior of the addict. The implications of the objectification of the supporting characters that have been granted contradictory agency suggests a metacontradiction for the series itself.
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank Bill Eadie, two anonymous reviewers, Valerie Renegar, and Daniel Brouwer for their support and helpful feedback on this manuscript.