“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.
Another interesting thing about this show is the fact that the writing staff employs teenagers to read through scripts and make sure that it is realistic to them. So, the idea of bad girls being slutty is actually being backed by the female teenager writers. This depiction of youth culture is described by all of the teenage writers as a day to day description of their lives. They have a chance to produce their own cultural representations of "normal" teenagers, but it seems to me as though they take everything to the absolute extreme, especially because many of the characters are constantly involved in sex and drug use.
ReplyDeleteI think that Skins is a great representation of how teens view their lives. Although the show takes sex, drugs, and alcohol to the extremes, this is often how adolescents see these activities in terms of importance. Teenagers care more about how they are viewed by others than their school work (hence the reason why even at school they are not shown learning). Because sex, drugs, and alcohol have novelty to them, doing them makes them stand out amongst each other. In order to fit in, everyone must follow suit. I believe that because teenagers are exposed to sex, drugs, and alcohol explicitly in their every day lives, it does become consuming. The teenage writing staff reflect this in their representation of teenage life. It's no surprise that it composes the forefront of their thoughts.
ReplyDeleteSkins does a good job of depicting the issues teenagers deal with on a very personal level. I do agree that is takes issues to the extreme,but nevertheless they are issues teenagers can relate to. Teenagers are confronted with temptations on a regular basis. Whether it is drugs, sex, or alcohol, teenagers feel confronted with the decisions of taking part in whatever it is that their friends are taking part in. Social lives often become the top priority for teenagers, therefore, they continually try to do things that will makes others approve of them.For example, Tea is conflicted about being homosexual because she is afraid of what her friends and family think, but once she realizes that her friends accept her she seems fine and nothing else seems to matter.Skins demonstrates that acceptance is especially important for teenagers, and that they can sometimes go to great lengths to achieve it.
ReplyDelete(FOR PARTICIPATION) Although I have never personally seen this show, from reading this blog it sounds like “Skins” deals with issues involving teens. These issues include drugs, sex, coming out, pills and cigarettes. Unfortunately, there is a problem with some of these among teens in our society but at the same time I feel as though some media puts too much emphasis on these issues and makes them seem ok to some extent. I feel like this because in much of the media, not just “Skins” we do see a lot of characters dealing with these issues but I don’t think it should be to such an extreme that it sends the wrong message to the youth in our society.
ReplyDeleteThough many feel as though this show is portraying extreme examples of sex, drugs, and alcohol, this could very well be how it is in the lives of some teenagers. This may allow for some teens to see themselves finally represented in pop culture for the first time and possibly realize that others in the world share their experiences. Also, most shows only show pregnancy as a consequence of adolescent sex but here STDs are also represented. I think this is a reality that teens need to see and understand that their health is at stake every time they make this decision. I don’t think the show is sending out a wrong message to youth but is rather educating them that decisions come with consequences.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that this show includes teenage writers is great.This fact shows the ways in which media targeting teenagers is progressing; teenagers know what teenagers are thinking far better than adults; although all adults at one time were teenagers. While the teenagers are dealing with drugs, sex and STDs as consequences for having unprotected sex as teenagers tend to do,putting themselves in adult situations, the irresponsibility and carelessness and overall lack of wisdom reminds the audience that the characters are still teenagers. I think the show's writers do a great job of putting the issues that many teenagers are dealing with in today's society on the small screen.
ReplyDeleteI have never seen the show Skins, but all the commercials for it make it look a bit unrealistic and a little too dramatic for what actually goes on in high school. I think its great though that the writers ask teenagers to be in on the show, and give their comments and thoughts to what the episodes should entail. I feel however, there is no direction to the show, and that they try to hit on every ‘teen’ topic almost all at once. I feel that not all teens deal with sex and drugs in their everyday lives. When I was in high school I was never offered drugs or felt like I had to have sex with a guy just to get him to like me. I often get annoyed with t.v. shows for teens because they never show the ‘normal’ kids and their everyday lives. They only show the extremes, either druggies (the at risk kids), or the 4.0 student who can’t volunteer enough of their time (can do). They leave everything in between and choose to focus only on the extremes.
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