by Allison Lee
It is the 1920s. Electrification takes the United States of America by storm. Suddenly, mankind has unlocked a new way of life, a new means of leisure, a new frontier! It’s the twenties! It’s roaring! Drugs, cigarettes, alcohol! Pictures, parties, pressure! What a time to be alive, what a time to be alive!
It is the 2020s. A pandemic takes the world by storm. Suddenly, mankind is locked into a new way of life, boxed-in leisure, mental boxing matches. It’s the twenties. It’s boring. Substance, sexuality, suffering. Illness, internet, infinities. What a time to survive, what a time to survive.
Let’s not beat around the bush and instead, crash straight into the destination. The kids—our teenagers and young adults, the ones born with the internet—are not ‘alright’, despite what we make them out to be.
First, a game of word association. What comes to your mind when I name the following shows: Euphoria, Sex Education, The Society, Deadly Class, Grand Army, On My Block, 13 Reasons Why, The Politician, I Am Not Okay With This, Riverdale, Elite, Never Have I Ever, The End of the F*cking World?
Chances are that you said something equivalent to ‘a show about a bunch of high schoolers’; yet, the protagonists in these shows, in my opinion, are not an accurate representation of the youth sub-category of our modern-day population. While it is clear that these shows are visual works of an idealized fiction, one can’t help but wonder how real-life kids interpret said shows or what they take away.
As much as we claim that art imitates life, the reverse proves to be true as well. We learn by watching those around us, picking up habits intentionally and subconsciously; this includes (but is not limited to) the influence of television. So, to what extent do modern-day television shows accurately portray our real-life young adults?
Let’s begin with the laid-bare-in-broad-daylight fact that the bulk of teen characters written for TV are played by adult casts. Kayla Hoang from Baron News writes that the confusion for viewers arises due to inaccurate casting because real-life young adults don’t look put together with New York Fashion Week model figures all the time. Most of us still linger in, as Hoang puts it, “that awkward phase between pre-pubescence and adolescence”.
Take Riverdale, for example, whose choice of casting has been criticized more than other shows; it simply does not click that the characters show up to class in a different set of clothing every day, complete with designer accessories.
If TV shows do not reflect the styles of real teenagers to a certain extent, they cause damage instead. It goes without saying that self-esteem issues among teenagers have been on the rise due to the influence of social media and the internet; by seeing these unrealistic pictures on TV, teens are likely to think that is what they are expected to look like, which only adds fuel to the insecurities already lit inside of them.
This is not to say that the industry should hire actors and actresses that are of the same age as the script dictates, since certain elements of TV shows require a more mature cast to handle (i.e. scenes involving drugs, sex and substance abuse). However, the industry should strive to depict these high school kids closer to a realistic image. One show that excels in dressing its characters believably and age-appropriately is Never Have I Ever. Held in a side-by-side comparison to Riverdale, you would find it more believable that Paxton Hall-Yoshida is a high schooler compared to Jughead Jones, despite both actors being 30- and 29-years-old respectively.
Moving onto my second point. While modern TV shows targeted at young adults aim to advocate for individuality and personal uniqueness, it often does the opposite and perpetuates high school stereotypes instead. Take the iconic 1985 film The Breakfast Club as an example, whose ending monologue I find to be exceedingly agreeable yet simultaneously ironic:
“Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you’re crazy for making us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us… In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal… Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.”
Brian, the character who was appointed by the rest of the Breakfast Club to pen their detention essay, writes the extract above. The key takeaway here is the sentence “You see us as you want to see us… In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions”. I believe this to be the main reason why these shows fail to capture the essence of high schoolers, as well as college and university students: because it’s such an innate behavior to box people into categories. By delegating a stereotype to each TV character, that character’s story is ‘set’.
The five central roles in Brian’s closing monologue are the most common ones: the socially-awkward nerds who constantly have their nose in a book, the varsity jacket-wearing jocks who only attend classes for attendance, the popular kids who walk down the middle of hallways in trios and cliques, the troublemakers who bully and gaslight in name of ‘changing the status quo’, and, of course, the misfits who get shoved into lockers or simply ignored. The problem, as I’m sure most of us are aware of, is that people cannot be boxed into one simple category; in fact, most of us fall into multiple sub-groups unrepresented by the media.
The shows 13 Reasons Why and Riverdale try to muddle the waters of stereotypical characters by giving them a sob backstory, but it doesn’t come across any better. Jughead consistently boxes himself into the ‘weirdo’ category and Betty is still portrayed as ‘the girl next door’, despite all their improbable town mysteries with goons and gangsters. Bryce Walker is imaged in our minds as the ultimate jock and Clay Jensen reinserts himself as the outcast in his narratives. When the shows are written in a way such that its characters are still bound by the limits of stereotypes, it makes it impossible to appeal to their backstories and see them outside of that box.
Sex Education, however, gets this right. Every single one of its characters, no matter who you pick, are multifaceted with their respective strengths and flaws. Ruby’s character gained popularity among fans with the release of Season 3 this year as she comes across as more than just the popular girl when her family situation and true feelings for Otis are revealed. Instead of exuding the all-time confidence and arrogance of a ‘Heather’, Ruby allows herself to be vulnerable around her friends and the people she trusts, and we see her worrying about trivial things like Otis not reciprocating her ‘I love you’, which gives her character more depth than ever before. She does not need a tragic backstory to scaffold or justify her stereotype because she breaks the glass ceiling through her present actions and words.
Now, let’s direct our focus to the over-romanticized and unbelievable lives of these TV teenagers. Most poorly-made shows centralized around this topic showcase teenagers sitting in classes for not more than ten seconds before the dismissal bell chimes, and everyone busts out the school corridors to either do drugs, make out, or consume alcohol at a house party. It’s this picture of the romanticized high school experience that could prove to be detrimental to kids. While it mirrors the reality that students will attend gatherings and hangouts, or even sneak out the window for a midnight rendezvous, television overdoes it.
Evidently, if television were to reflect the lives of actual teenagers, the show would be flooded with scenes of burning midnight oils and burnouts, which would make for a rather boring one. It would be unrealistic to demand TV shows stick to real-life examples by the book, but the exaggeration could use some toning down. Not every kid is entangled in high school drama or love triangles. Not every kid finds the love of their life or the heartbreak of their life at an end-of-the-summer soiree. Not every kid catches themselves in the middle of an awkward and highly sexualized game of truth or dare.
Dare I say, the examples raised above are some of the milder ones. Certain shows go so far as to allow their high schoolers to run speakeasies, bring down crime gangs, investigate a serial killer, commit arson to their own home and more (yes, Riverdale, I’m looking at you).
Even though these glorious events and happenings don’t happen in everyday life, the show’s audience might not know that. These impressionable young minds may enter high school or college expecting all the fun, glitz and glamor, and be disappointed when they don’t find it and instead realize that what awaits them is, in fact, a mountainous stack of obligatory assignments and deadlines.
Let’s drive down the tangent and talk about the more scandalous side of things. Sex is a commonplace theme in most of these shows. Despite the variation in age among countries, high school years are when teenagers begin to explore this area more… well, adventurously. This sexual experience, however, is over-glorified for entertainment purposes. Sex sells when it comes to the industry and there is no denying that; a ten-episode-long show of pure studying and hanging out in bookstores is not going to keep viewership up in contrast to this.
As Cattamanchi wrote for the Seattle Times, “It’s perfectly normal for teens to explore their sexuality, but glorifying harmful experiences is not OK. By using adult bodies, creators can deceive themselves and their audiences into forgetting that they are watching minor characters.”
Let’s also not forget the fact that mental illness, something that the industry has been trying to embed into television, takes up a huge factor in today’s teen shows as well. 13 Reasons Why tried to champion itself as a show shedding light on mental illness when it first premiered, but there is a general consensus that Hannah Baker’s story was more revenge-driven above all else. By contrast, Euphoria does a stellar job in showcasing that we don’t have to be defined by what goes on inside of us. When it comes to a topic as sensitive and prevalent as mental illness, not only should we tread lightly, but also accurately.
We need to remember that the writers behind these shows are often anyone but actual young adults. Their adolescent years consisted of different highlights compared to that of today’s kids. There are different events and traumas that shape contemporary teenagers; and versions of kids, according to Phan and Syed from The Princeton Summer Journal, “should not be viewed through a lens where recklessness and immaturity are the only notable attributes”.
This subgroup of the population is experiencing changes at the speed of light and needs to take its time to adjust to those changes. We shouldn’t be adding to their pressure by reinforcing stereotypical images or painting a glamorous life for them to chase after.
No matter what we would like to believe, no matter how much we wish to preserve their innocence, the kids are not alright. And it is our job to make sure that doesn’t stay the case forever.