Adolescence depicted in 'Skins' on MTV

http://www.mtv.com/videos/skins-ep-2-tea/1656577/playlist.jhtml#series=2211&seriesId=31822&channelId=1

“Skins”, a new show on MTV this season, is a great example of a form of media about and for adolescents. This show seems to push boundaries when it comes to sex, drugs, alcohol, and really isn’t your typical after school special. In this specific episode, Tea, a closeted lesbian, is having issues with coming out and potentially getting involved with another girl. All the while Tea and the other characters are dealing with a botched drug deal and worrying about coming up with the money for that. The whole show attempts to be very dramatic with the openness of alcohol and pills and weed. Constantly in the show you see the characters explicitly smoking cigarettes in the bathroom and taking pills to just “get away.”  Everyone seems to revolve around the leader of the pack, Tony. Tony is the typical, promiscuous, sex craving male. He knows he can get any girl that he wants, and even despite Tea’s queerness, he sees her as a challenge to get her in to bed, which he seems to have succeeded in, resulting in Tony cheating on one of Tea’s best friends, Michelle. Tony doesn’t seem very guilty at all, which is typical male behavior at that age, but you can see how it is pulling Tea apart, but just for a minute or so, but they will soon see the consequences in some episodes later.

There really aren’t any racial issues on this particular episode, which surprised me. All of the main characters are white except for one, but she is not treated any differently because of her race, but because she is a girl.

                All of the girls that are the main characters in the show are all seen as “bad girls,” and the whole show seems to revolve around their sexuality. Bad girls, especially these girls are seen as slutty (Brown, Intro to Youth.) Also, these characters at times are not depicted as full sexual subjects and are coerced into sex as well as drugs and alcohol (Brown, Degrassi.) In the beginning of the show, Tony is attempting to get one of the girls to say that she slept with one of his friends to win a bet, the girl agrees with no hesitation at all, which is extremely degrading of her but it does not seem to faze her one bit. These girls would also be considered “At-Risk” girls, like Harris explains in her piece we read for class. Although they seem to come from good families, they are engaging in sex and not thinking about the consequences, which in a later episode you find that Tony has Chlamydia and has given it to his girlfriend, Michelle. These girls are also taking pills to get away from whatever they are internally battling, as well as smoking weed, and drinking. All of these characteristics definitely are considered “at-risk.”

                In the episode, Tea is battling between actually coming out and having a real girlfriend to her parents and friends, but she’s also dealing with being true to herself. She’s extremely attractive, is non- threatening and comes from a very tight Italian family. These are all characteristics of queer characters according to Driver in the piece we read in class.  During the course of Tea having sex with Betty for the first time, there is very little dialogue at all that lets the audience know of any connection between the two (Brown, Degrassi.) Not just this instance, but throughout the whole episode I find it hard to pull emotions out from any of the characters, until Tea has a discussion with her grandmother who seems to have some sort of dementia. During this conversation, Tea learns that her grandmother also had a lesbian lover when she was young, which in turn may give Tea the courage that she needs to come out to her family and openly to the school. Tea is made fun of lightly just because she is a lesbian by her friends, but she jokes right back and seems very comfortable with herself. All of her friends accept her and that’s all that really matters to her. This is very interesting because at that age, girls seem to only worry about what others thing about them.

                So as you can see, this show is not your typical after school special. “Skins” is a great example of “at-risk” girls which is not a good example if any young girls a

re watching at home (Harris.) All of these adolescents are dealing with issues that they should certainly not be dealing with at their young age. A lot of the dialogue takes place in school, but often you see the characters skipping class or just talking during it, there is no learning going on, which gives the illusion that they are older than they actually are. There aren’t many adults in this episode, just mainly Tea’s parents, and Tea is leading them to believe that she is straight, so obviously her parents cannot take her very seriously, but also they are very distracted by Tea’s other siblings. But since all of these characters are dealing with very intense issues like finding money for a drug deals, driving cars into rivers (episode 1), dealing with STDS, and parents leaving, they are choosing to act like adults so they must suffer the consequences as well. 

Citations:

Brown, Adriane. Degrassi powerpoint. March 2011.

Brown, Adriane. Intro to Youth in Popular Culture powerpoint. February 2011.

Driver, Susan. "1." Queer Girls and Popular Culture: Reading, Resisting, and Creating Media. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. 1-17. Print.

Harris, Anita. "1: The "can Do" Girl versus the "at Risk" Girl." Future Girl: Young Women in the Twenty-first Century. New York: Routledge, 2004. 13-35. Print.

Minoritizing and Universal Discourses in NBC's The Office: Blog 3

The Office premiered in 2005 on NBC, and seemed to take over the nation throughout the years with its unusual humor. The show takes place mainly inside a paper product selling office branch and documents the everyday lives of all of the employees. The show seems to revolve around the manager of the branch, Michael Scott, who many watching at home cannot take seriously because of his relatively unprofessionalism and many seem to wonder what he does all day. In the second episode of the first season, the team must undergo a ‘diversity day’ which promotes diversity in the workplace and trying to eliminate racism. While watching the episode, you learn that the real reason why the diversity day is taking place is because of Michael’s actions. This episode really spoke to me when it came to minoritizing and universal discourses.

            Minoritizng discourses seem to centralize the norm and have everything else surrounding it. In the show, majority of the employees are white, which is the norm in the workplace. There are a select few that are of different race; Stanley is African American, Oscar is Hispanic and Kelly is Indian. Michael is an upper/middle class white, middle aged man which would certainly fit into what Lull identifies as a hegemonic norm. Everyone seems to revolve around him, or at least take orders from him because he is the leader of the office itself. This is minoritizing because Michael is at the center because he is the manager and because of the hegemonic norm, and all of the other employees are surrounding him (Brown, Transgeneration).  This particular episode also identifies those who are non-normative and in the periphery. To get attention from the diversity day leader, Michael seems to be treating Stanley, Oscar, and Kelly all a little differently than the other white or normative employees. This is a good example of singling out the non-normative identities (Brown, Transgeneration). After what was led to believe as a failed attempt at the diversity day by Michael, he chooses to coordinate another session on his own. Michael had already embarrassed everyone by his behaviors, which seemed to be a universal discourse because of his behavior because no one seems to have a problem with any of the diverse employees in the office. Michael coordinates an exercise that makes everyone take an index card with a nationality on it, and without looking at it, put it on their forehead. The employees must then treat others or give “clues” as to what nationality they are. This is minoritizing because the employees were singling out the identities and treating them as a joke it seemed. At one point, Michael starts talking to Kelly in an Indian accent and asks her to visit his convenient store, which is extremely stereotypical and Kelly is very offended and slaps Michael. This is considered very blatant, overt, explicit racism, which Stuart Hall discusses in his article.

 Obviously whiteness is unchanging, and none of the employees could change their nationality, so the exercise was not taken very seriously. This exercise used extreme stereotypes and identifying the non-normative identities to make minoritizing discourses (Brown, Transgeneration).

            Although this specific episode has several minoritizing discourses within it, there are also universal discourses being demonstrated as well.  None of the other employees seem to treat Oscar, Stanley, or Kelly differently because of their color, which relates to not giving whiteness the privilege over anyone with a different color or nationality (Brown, Transgeneration and Brown, Privilege). Also, during ‘Diversity Day Take 2’, everyone was included, even Stanley, Oscar, and Kelly. Universal discourses also include seeing all of the characters in a continuum (Brown, Transgeneration). This is evident when Mr. Brown, the group leader addresses all of the employees about the diversity that needs to not be turned into racism in any way. Michael tries to help run the session, but Mr. Brown indicates that he needs to be addressed as well, which puts them all on the same level, instead of Michael being the leader as a hegemonic ideology (Lull). Also, as much as the index card exercise seemed quite degrading in a way, it put a different label on all of the employees so they were not used to the usual white label they always will have. In this exercise, none of the employees have a certain privilege over the other (Brown, Privilege).

            At the end of the episode, Michael seems to just give up on the whole “Diversity Day Take 2” and at 5pm he tells everyone to go home. Everyone seems to be very passive towards Michael because they’re used to how he acts, but in this particular episode, Michael pushed several boundaries that were sure to cause controversy with those watching at home. His behaviors seemed to not offend any of his employees completely, and everyone went home with no major feelings hurt.

Citations:

Brown, Adriane. Trangeneration powerpoint. February 2011.

Brown, Adriane. Privilege powerpoint. January 2011.

Hall, Stuart. "The Whites of Their Eyes." Silver Linings: Some Strategies for the Eighties. G. Bridges and R. Brunt. London: Lawrence and Wishart Ltd. 1981. 89-93

Lull, James. “Hegemony.” In Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Text-Reader. Eds. Gail Dines and Jean M. Humez. Sage Publications. 2003. 61-66.