Representation of Teenagers on the Show "The Secret Life of the American Teenager"

When I was little I remember that my mother used to watch this soap opera called "Days of our Lives”. The show consisted of idiotic and unrealistic scenarios involving evil estranged twin brothers, the mafia, cheating, stealing babies and affairs. The show “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” is like the baby of “Days of our Lives”. A friend of mine loves the show and mentioned it to me the other day, so I decided to watch a few episodes today and base my media log on the representation of teenagers on this show.

When I watched this show I couldn’t help but laugh throughout several parts, not because it’s witty or funny, but because it is probably the most dramatic thing I’ve seen since that soap opera my mother watched, but this show is targeted for teens. The main story of the show is that this one teenager named Amy had sex in band camp with this guy Ricky and she is now pregnant. Now Ricky is in a “friends with benefits” relationship with this girl Adrian, and Adrian’s mom is having an affair with Amy’s dad. Amy’s dad’s ex wife is the mother of Grace who is a very religious girl who’s dating Jack, who wasn’t getting any sex with Grace since she’s very Christian, he decides to sleep with Adrian, and when she kisses him in front of the whole school, Grace finds out. Meanwhile Amy’s big mouth friends tell the entire school that Amy is pregnant, and her boyfriend (not the father of the baby) offers to marry her (at the age of 15) and help her raise the baby. So that’s just some of it, and I hope you can understand why I laughed at the five episodes (yes, all that happened in five episodes) Supposedly, this is all supposed to be the secret life of the American teenager, well being Canadian can’t be all that different and my life is FAR from this. The only “secrets” I know in any teenager’s life is liking somebody and not knowing what to do, and that’s probably one of the most exciting parts.

Obviously if the show was just like real life nobody would care enough to watch it, because why watch it if it’s just what you see all day, right? But this show is absolutely ridiculous everybody is inter-dating and are all linked together, of course there’s a helpful guidance counsellor that’s always giving advice, and there’s a lesson in every episode, but this just might be one of the worst portrayals of teenage life I have ever seen. Every single character is either in a relationship, having sex, or wanting a relationship or sex, teenagers are defiantly a little sex-crazed because of all the crazy teenage hormones, but there a tons of teenagers out there who don’t want relationships, or are happy to be single. The writers of this show clearly tried very hard to portray teens accurately because they took every stereotypical character and put them on this show. There’s the band geek, the adoptive son, the cheating father, the slut, the Christian, the quarter back, the rebel, the insecure boy and the womanizer. Teenagers do not just fall into these categories, these are overly used stereotypical characters, it is true that some people are like this, but very few. I also watched a few promo ads for the show, and in each one they mention that there will be “a shocking twist”, teenagers don’t have shocking twists. We go to school, eat, sleep, and hang out, we do not go around and get the religious girl to lose her virginity, or get pregnant at band camp. It’s also ridiculous that most of the show takes place in the high school, but I’m almost certain in all the episodes I’ve seen, I have never seen the teenagers in a class or doing any work, which is what the average teenager’s life usually consists of.

So in conclusion this show has a terrible interpretation of teenagers and their lives, I am aware that teenage pregnancy is on the rise, but this just might be the most overly dramatic teenage show ever to exist.

Here's a link to one of the promos. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCiLaphrJ0c