The Code of Harry: Performing normativity in Dexter

Abstract

This article explores technologies of person production used by human actors to manage interactive exchanges in ways that are understood to be accountable to and morally compatible with the social order. I specifically explore how the eponymous character of the US television series Dexter integrates conventional face-work and stigma management with 'reverse marking’ in order to present an unmarked person. Reverse marking, following Brekhus’s (1996) usage, involves perceptually attending to those aspects of identity typically regarded as mundane. I argue the role reverse marking plays in Dexter’s performance of identity draws attention to the mundane as the result of 'doing,’ grounding a critical reevaluation of the privileged cultural location of unmarkedness or normativity.