Posted in: TBS, TV | Tagged: Busy Philipps, Dawson's Creek

Dawson's Creek Star Busy Philipps Calls Out Early Pacey Storyline

Dawson's Creek's Busy Philipps played the show's most controversial role at a recent charity reading and discussed the storyline afterward.

Dawson's Creek alums recently got together for a stage reading of the pilot episode's script to benefit F Cancer, a cause near and dear to the production's hearts after James Van Der Beek's Stage 3 colorectal cancer diagnosis. Though Van De Beek had to drop out of the reading due to illness, the rest of whom you would want on stage if you were a fan were there, including Joshua Jackson, Michelle Williams, Katie Holmes, Mary Beth Peil, John Wesley Shipp, Mary-Margaret Humes, Nina Repeta, Kerr Smith, Meredith Monroe, and Busy Philipps. Philipps, who joined the cast in season five and played Pacey's girlfriend Audrey, had the honor of playing a role in the reading that has not aged well these days and spoke out about it afterwards.

Dawson's Creek Was Ahead Of Its Time – Sometimes

Philipps played Tamara Jacobs, a high school teacher who takes Pacey's virginity in the pilot. In the series, she was played by Leann Hunley. To say that particular Dawson's Creek plotline has aged poorly is an understatement, and Philipps knows it, as she told People Magazine about playing a different part than Audrey: "They're not even together [in the pilot]," Philipps told People. "He's going to have a really, insanely inappropriate relationship with a teacher, which by the way, is so wild. And just goes to show you culturally how much we have changed for the better, right? Kevin Williamson didn't write the part of Audrey; he wasn't a part of that," Philipps noted. "He was already long gone from the show when they went to college, and my character was added. After the [charity reading], I said, 'Well, Kevin, I guess you did write a part for me on Dawson's Creek. You just didn't know that it would take 20 years for me to be the right age to play it.'"

Damn, that last line hits hard. As someone who grew up watching the show as it aired and spent many a morning after graduating lying in bed, watching it every day over and over again on TBS, it never ceased to shock me when that first season would air again. It felt like it shouldn't be airing on TV, yet it is one example of the boundary-pushing storylines the show produced during its six-year run. It has not aged well, that is true, but it was also never portrayed as appropriate. Nuanced, but for sure not made to look okay. I am still glad they did it, but one wonders what would happen if they tried something like that today.

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