Their so-called portrayal of my life

Where are the television shows about normal teens?

Nu Magazine - April 16, 2009

I’ve been a teenager for a good four or five years now, and have always been suspect of the media’s portrayal of my peers. I don’t mean Juno, with its “stuff happens” attitude, or a movie like Mean Girls, which satirizes the cliquish nature of high schoolers.

It’s the melodrama of shows like The Secret Life of the American Teenager that has always bothered me.

Yes, it’s true that the occasional teenager gets pregnant, but shows like Secret Life just take it to a higher, less respectable level.

Even the title makes you believe that this is the covert double life that all teenagers across America are living. It’s not the secret life of an American teenager; it’s the secret life of the American teenager.

Shows like this take the rare moments in the lives of a small group of all teens, and blow them out of proportion. Sure, teen pregnancies, alcohol abuse, and drug overdoses all happen, but these shows would have you believe that they are all that happen.

Other shows attempt to create melodrama not out of the lives of “typical” teens, but of those growing up with extreme wealth or privilege.

Teen soaps like The OC, or “reality” shows like Laguna Beach and The Hills, purport to represent the lives of a tiny slice of the American population. These shows often focus on complicated teen relationships, where frequent lying, cheating, and convoluted love triangles are the norm.

These sorts of relationships definitely occur in reality, but rarely end up in fistfights, gunfights, and murder, as they have in dramas like The OC.

The so-called reality shows like Laguna Beach display bratty girls and guys who cry and pick fights when they don’t get their way and often lie and betray their friends.

I understand that these things are part of life and that people like these characters exist. I just think the whole troubled, misguided, and abusive teen TV show been abused itself.

I’m ready to see the other side of the spectrum. There could be plenty of shows about girls without babies or couples who don’t cheat boyfriends who don’t beat their girlfriends.

Aaron Levi attends James Caldwell High School and is a member of Nu’s teen board.

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