No, Not All Teen Girls Get Pregnant: Why I Hate The Secret Life of the American Teenager

I came on Facebook a few days ago to see a number of people going crazy over the return of The Secret Life of the American Teenager. I’ve never watched this show. I have no desire to watch this show. From the little I know, the lead teen girl gets pregnant. Because obviously every teenager knows someone who got knocked up if she didn’t herself. I envisioned other contemporary-teen problems, of mean girls and MySpace and blah blah blah. But no, the show is way worse.

With the news that teen birth rates have skyrocketed and that virginity pledges don’t work (which we already knew already), I question the wisdom of having a show—and a terrible one at that—that focuses on teen pregnancy. Oh, you say, but it can serve as a warning! And now that all these girls are getting knocked up, they can relate! Please.

One or two of the articles I read discussing these two studies mentioned the rash of high-profile teen pregnancies, and how that could be seen as “glamorizing” teen pregnancy. I think the spike is a combination of a lot of factors, and I don’t want to discount or endorse that idea. But I absolutely do not think having a show like Secret Life is helping.

Secret Life was created by Brenda Hampton, of 7^th Heaven fame. This should make most normal, rational people quake in their bones. 7^th Heaven moralized, but it did it in the worst way—showcasing certain value sets by letting its characters run amok, behaving badly, generally being abhorrent, amoral people, but it was all ok in the end as long as you waited til you had sex to get married and believed in church and god. It fostered “traditional family values” in the worst way. The Secret Life of the American Teenager, from what I’ve read, does the same thing.

The show was actually passed by FOX. Maybe they thought that the moralizing wasn’t for them, but on the surface, this is a show MADE for them. The show has one hell of a titillating title. Of course it’s going to arrest a certain type of teen and their parents.

But it’s precisely those teens and parents who should stay far, far away. For one thing, I don’t think the title is representative of anything. I think a teenager’s secret life would be far more interesting and far less soapy that what this show’s got going one, what with the pregnant teen marrying a boy that’s not the daddy, cause he’s awesome and the daddy’s not. What teenage boy in his right mind would do such a thing?!?!?

The show is supposed to show all aspects and all consequences of what happens when a teenager becomes pregnant. There are major characters who are religious and vow to wait until marriage. Despite this, the show is filled with stereotypes. The lead, Amy, is a “good” girl who slipped up and had sex with some rowdy playa—except she was too dumb to realize that she actually had sex.

I always feel, watching teen shows, that it’s a must that someone gets pregnant. There’s always a pregnancy scare and some point, and then it happens. But why? I no longer find these plots amusing—on any show. They’re rarely dealt with sensitively or realistically, and it just makes it seem like everyone is too busy having sloppy sex to do anything else with their lives. Yeah, girls get pregnant, and teenagers are stupid. But teenagers are more than that, and it’s insulting to always see it boiled down to the same things. I went to a small high school, and my sophomore a junior girl I didn’t know got pregnant. This was big news, whispered about constantly. But really, that was it. Everyone I was surrounded by was far more worried about colleges and grades and teachers and other mini-dramas that were a world away from pregnancy. And I honestly don’t believe that in this we were that different from millions of other teenagers in the United States. I had quite a secret life in high school, but it certainly didn’t involve me getting knocked up. The fact that the central character gets married is another thing that shown as positive—gotta love those family values!—with no mention of how insane that really is. And at the wedding, there are no adults, and fake IDs are provided for all the high school students...even though several said they wouldn’t drink. Right. But it’s ok, guys—she’s keeping the baby and she’s getting married, to hell with breaking the law and just having a huge-ass bash! Hooray!

A poster on Television Without Pity explains how awful the show is below, saying the show “reads like really bad fanfic written by middle schoolers”:

While I was less than shocked that SLOAT was riddled with stereotypes (my old roommate watched 7th Heaven reruns far into her twenties) I was actually surprised that the show manages to denigrate all stereotypes. According to this show, all Christians are overly preachy and naive, as well as hypocritical and judgmental, everyone in therapy must be considered crazy by not only teenagers but Deputy District Attorneys as well, mentally retarded people hire hookers over the internet to be their friends, teenage girls are universally morons, non-religious people go around jumping into bed with any person they can get their hands on, single mothers are oversexed and don't care about who they sleep with, married man or not, etc, etc. And also? Ben? Is a stalker. For real. He needs serious therapy. Not cool. Not cool at all. This is actually what parents want their daughters to see as an ideal of romanticism? What?

This is no holds barred the worst show on television. Absolutely the worst. No question. I knew it in the first ten minutes of the show... and the whole therapy thing, which was totally weird random and unrealistic, as well as the fact that everyone felt the need to whisper the word "abortion" when they said it at all AND the fact that the show moralizes constantly without being able to figure out what it's moralizing about (condoms are good, but premarital sex is bad; abortion is wrong, but it is every persons personal choice; christianity is good but christians are crazy) has done nothing to prove me (and everyone else on this board wrong).

But this is the part I totally cannot figure out -- I watched all of this monumentally stupid shows monumentally stupid episodes in the last two days. And while I'd really like to plead overwork and exhaustion, I find that argument insufficient to explain my inability to simply turn off the damn television. I know others have faced a similar plight and yet I cannot stop wondering what is the freaking deal? Why can it not be turned off? What weird hold does Brenda Hampton have over the population of the world and is there any way it can be harnessed for good rather than evil?

It’s shows like this that not only give teenagers a terrible rap, but also warp their viewers’ minds. A young kid, a middle schooler—and as this is on ABC Family, there are many watching—will form really weird and potentially damaging ideas about love, sex, and high school. And then when that time comes, they might realize that something isn’t quite right. But while the premise behind The Secret Life of the American Teenager could be interesting if done well, it’s clearly shallow and silly, wrapped in a guise of morals and real family drama that everyone can relate to. At best it’s a silly soap that enthralls a bunch of people for some time, at worst it distorts a real and complex issue, reflecting the mixed-up notions of a nation that just doesn’t know what to do with its teenagers.

Sex Is Bad

While I have no interest in watching the new "90210", I read the Times interview with many members of the old cast, and this jumped out at me:

[Executive Producer Charles] ROSIN We did our prom episode, which was written and directed by Darren, and Brenda loses her virginity to Dylan McKay in a hotel room and comes down and tells Kelly that indeed this has happened.

[Creator Darren] STAR The affiliates were scandalized — not because they had sex, but because Brenda was happy about it, and it didn’t have any dire consequences. I was strongly advised to write a show that would address the consequences of that sexual experience. So the first episode of the second season Brenda broke up with Dylan because their relationship had gotten too mature. (Bold mine)

There has been a long history in television of showing negative consequences for teenagers having sex. Pregnancy scares are usually the first plotline, hyped up to get the kids a-watching. For girls especially sex is usually aligned with punishment--something Amy Sherman Palladino tried to mock in "Gilmore Girls" by having Paris have a public meltdown when she discovers she was rejected by Harvard, thinking it's a direct connection to losing her virginity. Of course it's preposterous, but that wasn't the message that came across. If you have sex and enjoyed it, you will pay.

So now we have "Beverly Hills, 90210" to thank. I haven't watched this show in a long, long time--since maybe I was 14--and even then I didn't like it. I found it then to be too slow and painfully boring; I found it hard to believe that this show was so controversial and scandalous. And the episodes I saw were the early seasons. To a viewer with another eight years of teen shows behind her, the old 90210 would only look even more old-fashioned and quaint (those were the words I used then) compared to Gossip Girl, Dawson's Creek and The OC.

But notice: The Dylan/Brenda breakup--which I'm sure was a pivotal, dramatic moment in the history of the show--was necessitated by suits too uncomfortable to show a regular teen girl (albeit in stylish Cali '90s wear) living a regular life. They can't show that! This is a show about teens for teens! What will happen to the youth?!?!? Brenda fell for the bad guy, a guy who was going to lead her down the Wrong Path, and for that they needed to show that she should have waited.

I bet that many, many shows followed in this wake, whether it was because the execs pressured them to, the showrunners felt other pressure to showcase a certain value set, or just because they couldn't fathom doing something different. Teen sex isn't always the best course of action, we know. But to demonstratively prove, time and again, that the woman who is having the sex must be "punished" in some way is sexist and ridiculous. Far too many girls (and even boys) take away messages from the television they watch, both conscious and unconsciously, and for them to fear or worry that sex will always negatively affect them is wrong and irresponsible. I understand where the execs were coming from, especially considering a new network that needs to desperately please advertisers, but too many times the need to moralize is just a knee-jerk reaction. Did Dylan go through any doubts or fears? I doubt it. From the little I can recall, he was an Elvis-type figure, aloof and cool to the extreme. This was before the era of sensitive guys, and it wouldn't have occurred to anyone that he would have any of the hangups that Seth Cohen did.

Granted, I haven't seen the scene, so if someone has, feel free to enlighten me. This also goes for the original "90210" as well, in addition to any examples of teen sex where the plot twisted in a way that made the girl regret she had sex (though if you give me time, I can find some that aren't Gilmore Girls-related).

Review: High School Confidential

High school—that rich trove of hormones and anxiety—has always had a kinship with television. It’s the microcosm of life, it seems, since everything is compared to it, and television eagerly exploits and glorifies this idea. Truthfully, however, most high-school themed shows are nothing like real life—even the ones considered more in vein with reality are dramaticized, with intense highs and crackling lows.

WE tonight aired the first episode of an eight-week documentary series that followed twelve girls for all of their high school years. Now I know when these girls were selected nobody knew the storylines, but how accurate can they reflect real concerns of teenagers when one quarter of them become pregnant? One girl even gets married. Come on. The teen pregnancy rate isn't that high! Where are the worries about grades, the cliques simultaneously forming and falling apart, the wondering why the girl who sits across from you hates you so much? What about the competition for the lead in the school play, the band politics, the vindictive teacher? SATs, college essays, the motivating coach? From what I’ve read about the show, it seems that the series is just one big pile of issues these girls face. Neither I nor anyone I know in high school dealt with an abortion, and all the sex talk seems like an executive’s idea of what the storyline should focus on.

At first I wondered if the fact that the kids lived in Kansas had anything to do with it; after all, the culture in a given place dictates attitudes and behavior. I assume that growing up in Southern California is quite different from suburban Colorado from rural Massachusetts, but hey, maybe that’s just my TV telling lies. Seriously, though, once people go to college or move to an area outside of one they grew up in, they realize that attitudes, tastes, and just life varies tremendously based upon the culture of the geographical region they are inhabiting. Obviously the differences vary to a degree, and a good portion of that is grounded in the individual’s own personality and interests.

I mentioned a few of my reservations to this show regarding its authenticity to real teen girls to some young female coworkers, and they retorted I’m too far removed from high school to know (and I'm the youngest). I took umbrage at this—apparently it’s way harder now to get into college, so I image all the bickering about grades and worries over extracurriculars to be magnified, not lessened. Social networking hadn't happened when I was in high school, so I'm not even including the MySpace and texting that is the virus that afflicts teenagers now. I’m also not discounting suicide, depression, or the usual mopey-teen afflictions, but a constant focus on these big stories misses the whole experience, and makes it less about a group of normal high schoolers than just a pastiche of teen problems.

Truthfully, American High did this story better back in 2000, and that series had boys. The PBS doc (the executive producer later went on to 30 Days) covered a cross-section of kids from different backgrounds and different grade levels in one high school for one year. It was absorbing, and showed the kids in action, but also their hopes and fears, their troubles, and how even though they were in the same school their lives were very different. I don’t remember anything particularly “dramatic” happening to those kids, only that I was very attached to many of them by the series’ end, and wished they weren’t so many years older than me.

High School Confidential is edited as a series of interviews of each girl over time, intercut with some footage of them trying out for a dance team or pictures of them at different ages. We rarely see any actual action. We are just told what’s happening, and the only other people to speak are the girls’ parents and boyfriends. No siblings or friends, which makes the narrative incomplete. The storylines feel far removed from actual teenage life, and that’s only highlighted by the editing choices made.

What feels most real is how young the girls look, especially comparing their ninth-grade selves with their slick hair and bangs three years later. The styles look the same, but some things don’t: Cappie goes on length about the distinction between the haves and the have-nots in terms of cars, but nowadays many young teenagers cannot or will not drive. I’m unfamiliar with Kansas, and I know the car conundrum is as old as high school itself, but the show did not bother to present any other argument, any sort of conflict regarding this decision, and this is huge for a teenager.

It's that same problem that runs throughout the episode: We don't see the struggles, the choices not made, the agonizing decisions that truly affect them. Things happen, they report. Their lives are not news. Maybe that's why things like pregnancy surface--because that's always news, that's always a shocker, even when it shouldn't be. These girls’ stories are allegedly true, but they do not ring true. If you want real drama, stick with the fictional kind.