The new MTV show, Skins, has been on my mind a lot this past week (and a topic of conversation in our household). Because Scott and I both teach freshmen in college, and because the blatant and problematic over-sexualization of college-aged teens (and younger) is important to us, we both try to discuss these issues with our students (although Scott gets to talk to them more about how this contradicts with virtues as Christians).
We were both intrigued by this article on the Huffington Post, written by Cathleen Falsani, called "MTV's Skins: Suffer the Children." She details the controversy of the show's premise and content which, in addition to the abuse of drugs and alcohol, includes "child pornographic" scenes with "no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire." We watched the pilot episode together to get a better understanding of the show and gained a clear understanding of the problems from the opening scene: there's a young girl (probably 14-16 years old) who looks literally like a street-walker - torn clothes, running mascara, glazed look and all. She's barefoot and alone, walking down a suburban middle-class street in the early hours of the morning, motioning to her brother to create a diversion so she can sneak into her house. Her brother sees her out of the corner of his eye though his attention is lost to the fully naked middle-aged woman across the street, standing in her window - they share mischievous grins before he blasts his stereo so his sister can sneak in unnoticed. The entirety of the episode deals with the group of friends trying to help one teen lose his virginity on the verge of his 17th birthday. His best friend even considers letting him have his own girlfriend for the night so he won't be such a weirdo anymore.
I could go into more detail about why all this is problematic for the self-image of teens, but if you can't tell from my description from this opening scene then I suggest watching the show for yourself, if only to fully understand what today's youth is seeing as "normal behavior." Defenders of the show argue that the same themes reside in such shows as ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager and That 70s Show*, but Skins just portrays it "as is" - more raw and realistic. I hope the "realism" part isn't true, but I have a feeling it is.
While, from my own students, I've heard harsh judgements of the present generation and their over-sexed identity and culture as seen through the shows I've already mentioned, as well as Teen Mom, I also hear things like, "I know I shouldn't watch it, but I do anyway..."or "It's stupid, but I think it's funny..." And when told they need to choose a TV show to evaluate and half choose Jersey Shore, I'm not sure exactly what this says about them. Are they able to discern and make educated decisions about what is acceptable and what is unhealthy for them? Are they able to see that though these situations are glamorized on TV, they're not the way to live? Can they see the unintentional message presented, at least as far as Skins goes, that these kids have some serious issues? I guess I'll have to wait and see what they say in their papers.
So what does this all mean? What does it mean for those of us who are teachers and parents or future-parents? Are these shows similar to those we used to watch as teens or has it gotten worse? All I know is, I'm having a hard time thinking about the culture I'm going to bring a child into one day, and, like Falsani, I'm deeply concerned for the teens in today's society. Though I don't want to sound like those people who say, "well when I was a kid..." I don't want to turn a blind eye to these issues either.
Any thoughts?
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*I've never actually had a problem with That 70s Show, but Falsani's article made me consider it a little more. Scott's class discussed this at length and came up some pretty good arguments as to why it could be problematic as well. Either way, I still believe it's not as harmful as some more recent shows.
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