TEGAN AND SARA UNDERSCORE JENNA AND MATTY'S INTIMACIES
For Awkward's third season, MTV ordered twenty episodes and split the season into two parts, resulting in a 6 percent ratings spike that captured 1.8 million weekly viewers. This decision resembled Fox's release strategy for the teen musical Glee (2009– 2015), which split its first few seasons to mirror the school year and seasonal adolescent rites of passage. For Iungerich, Awkward also had different thematic priorities. Whereas season 2 centered on Jenna's love triangle, season 3 mined drama from multiple characters' journeys of self- discovery and reinvention.
Tegan and Sara helped promote the first installment of Awkward's third season by reinforcing its narrative motifs. By the time the pair signed on as guest supervisors, they were music industry veterans. In 1999, they signed with Neil Young's Vapor Records, and in their first decade, they developed beyond their devoted regional following by incorporating pop elements into their lo- fi punk sound. They also broadened their outreach for their fifth album, The Con (2007), through international distribution deals with Warner Bros. Records subsidiaries Sire Records and London Records. Yet they were often dismissed as "chick rock" musicians by sexist journalists and critics, stereotyping that they challenged in the press. Tegan mused in one interview, "[W]e started playing acoustic guitars not because we wanted to be like Ani DiFranco or Jewel, but because we loved the Violent Femmes and the Pixies, and they play acoustic instruments.... Do people think that because we're female and we have harmonies and we're lesbians?" But Tegan and Sara were always savvy businesswomen, as illustrated in an early ROCKRGRL profile that detailed their experiences opening for Bryan Adams and negotiating a video's rotation strategy with MTV. In a 2010 Advocate feature, Sara observed that "[f]or the first half of our career, people rarely talked about our music. Things were so focused on who we were and what we did or didn't represent that we were sort of allowed to develop as songwriters without too much input on that front." They also used licensing to circumvent small-minded programmers and publications. After the group released 2004's So Jealous, their managers informed them about a television show "'that's going to be really big for the network'" that "ended up buying seven of [their] songs." Over the next decade, they were placed on teen programs such as Pretty Little Liars; Degrassi: The Next Generation (CTV, 2001– 2009; MuchMusic, 2010– 2013; MTV Canada, 2013– 2015); One Tree Hill (The WB, 2003– 2006; The CW, 2006– 2012); 90210; Veronica Mars (UPN, 2004– 2006; The CW, 2006– 2007; Hulu, 2019); and The Vampire Diaries (The CW, 2009– 2017). They also appeared on House Band (2005– 2006), mtvU's indie- friendly web- concert series. In an interview for 2013's Heartthrob, Sara surmised that while "we're not a critic's band... I think we're good, business- minded people."
Tegan and Sara positioned Heartthrob, their first Warner Bros. release, as their pop turn. They developed a glossy synth- pop sound with producers Greg Kurstin, Rob Cavallo, and Mike Elizondo and promoted their transformation with shrewd networking. They opened for Katy Perry and performed Heartthrob's lead single, "Closer," with Taylor Swift during her Red world tour. They played Warner Bros.' South by Southwest (SXSW) showcase and licensed "Shock to Your System" for electronic company JBL's national campaign. They also partnered with Lonely Island, Mark Mothersbaugh, and composer Shawn Patterson on "Everything Is Awesome," the theme to Warner Bros.' The Lego Movie (Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, 2014), which received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song.
Heartthrob's electropop bombast was shaped by the sisters' ability to universalize their lesbianism through pop song form, which MTV capitalized on for Awkward during the album's promotional cycle. Tegan and Sara supervised "Indecent Exposure," season 3's fifth episode, which featured the single "I Was a Fool" in a love scene between Jenna and Matty. Ben Hochstein also placed three more Heartthrob tracks—"Goodbye, Goodbye," "Closer," and "Drove Me Wild"—in multiple episodes that ran during season 3's first half. The Quins attempted to use the soundtrack to voice multiple characters' perspectives on "Indecent Exposure," an episode in which Jenna struggles to live with Matty after his mother objects to their sexual relationship. However, they did not select the two songs licensed for the episode's first act, "Fever" by Night Panther and "Saudade" by Bearcat, a solo artist represented by Working Group Artist Management, a licensing firm that specializes in placing unsigned artists. Tegan explained, "It was a difficult spot to fill. I gave four or five suggestions and then Sara tried. In the end, we failed. Every song suggestion I made [competed] with the dialogue."
While Tegan and Sara's collaboration ultimately did not inform the tone of the episode's inciting incident, their services were used to dramatize Jenna and Matty's conflict. Unlike Cosentino, they were not filmed working on the production or interacting with the members of the show's staff, perhaps due to the sisters' bicoastal living arrangement or scheduling complications, and likely worked remotely on the episode. Furthermore, Cosentino chose four of her episode's fourteen cues, whereas only three of the Quins' selections were used out of the seven songs featured on "Indecent Exposure." This comparative lack of music most likely stemmed from the show's music department stretching its budget across twenty episodes instead of twelve. This included "Redefining Jenna," season 3's midseason finale, which featured twenty- five music cues to accompany a school art show. It may also reveal a lack of coordination between Awkward and MTV to have Tegan and Sara supervise an episode with little dramatic action, whereas Cosentino co- supervised a "what if?" episode before season 2's finale. Nonetheless, the Quins hoped to turn MTV viewers on to new artists. As Tegan put it, "the part that I enjoyed the most was figuring out what artists we could pitch and I'd start to think really outside the box."
Their desire to think outside the box required them to filter their personal experiences as queer teenage girls through the show's "universal" depiction of heterosexual romance. The pair demonstrated this by using "90210," a fast, bass- driven song by their cousin Jen Twynn Payne's group, the Courtneys, as Matty and Jenna plan for an intimate evening alone at home. But their anticipated wild night of adult eroticism devolves into a disagreement over what kind of pornography to watch. Tegan and Sara chose to accompany this scene with "Perpetual Surrender," a slinky electronic instrumental by Canadian indie dance trio DIANA. The song serves as ironic mood music for the couple's divergent sexual expectations. Matty reveals an attraction to Asian girls that makes Jenna uncomfortable, while Jenna selects a Harry Potter– themed porn parody to hide her discomfort with hardcore that Matty mistakes as her way of avoiding intimacy. Sara claimed this scene was "not just about porn. I mean, there's sort of like a wonderful... awkward intimacy that's happening. Actually, I was amazed because I kept thinking, 'Could I have this conversation with someone I was dating in high school?'" While the pair's ability to empathize with the scene was a job requirement, it also required them to universalize heterosexuality at queer specificity's expense.
The final scene showcased Heartthrob's power ballad, "I Was a Fool," which was released as the album's second single two weeks before the episode aired. Similar to Cosentino's admission that she did not choose one of her songs for the episode she supervised, Tegan surmised, "I think it fits... [but] I almost wanted to bump our song out of it. I like that one our songs was in there [but] we need to make room for other artists." Her comment speaks to syncability's limits. As performers who used licensing to build their profile, the Quins wanted to promote lesser- known artists. But their recording catalogue was controlled by Warner Bros. and beholden to Awkward and MTV's publicity strategies. Thus, both Cosentino and the Quins' gendered bifurcation as licensees and licensors restricted their agency as they filtered their music through commercial practices that undervalue their labor for the promise of exposure. This conflict informed creator Iungerich's departure from Awkward after season 3. Although Iungerich framed her exit as a personal decision, it also telegraphed MTV's deprioritization of female- driven narrative programming in the second half of the 2010s. The channel's de- emphasis on teen girl storytelling impacted the licensing opportunities available to female indie artists who built an audience and made a living from syncing their music to commercial depictions of female adolescence.
SONIC GIRLHOOD'S COMMERCIAL AND CULTURAL IMPLICATIONS
Awkward's third season ended with Jenna taking herself to the prom and using the page to escape a boy's expectations. Her final essay, "Who I Want to Be," was a phrase the show's writing staff used to break the season's story. Through writing, Jenna observes her friends' and family's positive attributes and recommits to being a more active participant in her own life. Iungerich saw this resolution as "an awesome statement... for girls who tuned into this show for the love triangle, as Jenna saying 'I love myself.' It's not narcissism, but rather self- preservation." The montage was cut to Passion Pit's "Moth's Wings," which played over the climax of Awkward's pilot, when Jenna relaunches her blog to dispel rumors about her mental health. Iungerich said that "when we got it into post, it was my husband [music coordinator Jamie Dooner] who said we should use [it], and it says it all: she's coming full circle."
In June 2013, Iungerich announced she was leaving the show and would be replaced by Chris Alberghini and Mike Chessler. Though Iungerich never explained her departure, she aligned herself with Jenna by describing it as "a decision of self- preservation." Iungerich's exit followed a wave of personnel changes during her five- year tenure at MTV. She outlasted many of its programming executives—including David Janollari, who greenlit Awkward. Janollari was replaced by Susanne Daniels, who shepherded Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dawson's Creek for The WB. While there may have not been a direct conflict between Daniels and Iungerich, Daniels's mandate to attract male viewership informed Awkward's fourth season, which focused on Matty's search for his biological father. The soundtrack reflected these decisions by assigning male- driven rock acts to Matty's perspective. Alberghini and Chessler oversaw Awkward's fifth season. MTV declined to renew the series mid- way through season 5's broadcast run, and the show quietly concluded in May 2016.
By August 2015, Daniels had left MTV for YouTube. Billboard's Robert Levine connected this maneuver to MTV's prime- time ratings' five- year 40 percent drop among twelve- to thirty- four- year- olds, who primarily streamed media content. MTV Networks Music and Logo Group president Van Toffler did not renew his contract, and over two hundred MTV employees were fired. The verdict was simple, according to a former unnamed executive: "The audience is going digital, reality TV is running dry, [and] there's more competition for scripted programs." Compilation soundtracks' ubiquity in scripted content was a hallmark of MTV's influence and a liability.
Tegan and Sara extended Heartthrob's commercial reach with placements on Netflix's BoJack Horseman (2014– 2020) and HBO's Girls, and five songs from Best Coast's The Only Place were licensed for television. By the time Awkward wrapped, both acts followed up these albums. Best Coast released California Nights on Harvest Records in May 2015, and Tegan and Sara deepened their synth- pop sound with Love You to Death in June 2016, a month after Awkward's series finale. Neither album's songs were licensed for the show. Although Awkward's music department did not entirely abandon female indie artists, their diminished presence on the soundtrack revealed MTV's fickleness toward female indie musicians' syncability. But all musical artists' reliance on licensing has only become more commonplace since the Quins' and Cosentino's stints with Awkward, which intensify female artists' external pressure to be syncable. For example, the 2020 Grammys celebrated the arrival of Lizzo and Billie Eilish as streaming- era pop stars. Both are highly syncable.