Teen Dramas
Posted by fourfourteenam on April 18, 2008
I love teen dramas. No, not just teen dramas… anything that is targeted at the teen audience. I watched them growing up before I was a teenager and continue to watch them now and I won’t stop anytime soon. Two hours worth of Charmed on TNT everyday so isn’t enough. So when one of my friends started watching a Canadian teen drama called Degrassi, I couldn’t help but watch with her.
First of all, the number of characters on the show is comparable to the number of characters in a soap opera. Although each episode does include several characters, each episode is usually dedicated to a single character and the other characters in that episode are usually there for comic relief. A closer look would reveal that this is truly a teen drama targeting teens from 12-15… not only is every episode filled with the usual dose of teenaged angst, you even have the token pretty blonde boy, the gorgeous girl with the self-image problems, and just about every single high school stereotype you could think of. You had the very obvious high school topics: the stress of doing well in classes, drugs, puberty, bullying, and the exploration of sex, but it also covers a variety of soap opera content.
From losing family members, to dealing with depression (one girl in the show cuts herself, this story line apparently led to at least 10 middle school girls in Ontario cutting themselves), to rapes, to abusive boyfriends, to abortions, the show covers all types of dark subjects. It does lighten up, however, with its love triangles, flings, and crushes. It covers just about everything a soap opera does from a teen’s point of view in an awkward and embarrassing sort of way.
So while the show is filmed in a way that is ridiculously cheesy… the set looks like the same one they used to shoot some horrible Disney show or “Power Rangers” and all the actors are less than stellar, the show does address topics that are surprisingly mature and controversial even for prime time television.
My favorite character in the show has to be Liberty with her snarky comments and make me wish I was as headstrong and intimidating as she is when I was in high school. But needless to say, she falls prey to the soap opera stereotype and finds herself pregnant after the first time she has sex. While she is smart enough to use protection, her ’slight’ partner JT isn’t bright enough to realize that rubbers really aren’t one size fits all.
The Aftermath?
JT: If theres anything I could do for you, anything at all, I’ll do it.
Liberty: You could mangle your male parts in a tragic industrial accident.
Don’t you all wish you were back in high school?
jenn said
I’m amused that you bring up Degrassi, Katharine. I actually have a friend who watches it. I was over at her house months ago, and she was glued to the TV as a new episode was airing, her boyfriend sulking in the kitchen because she had roped him into watching the show too many times.
She told me that it doesn’t air on a regular schedule – it airs at random times, sometimes not for weeks and then sometimes several times in one week. I haven’t a clue if this is still the case, or if it was just an issue of what channel she watched it on, but the idea of not knowing when a show I really liked would be on next would bug me – and probably prevent my addiction.
As to the scene you show…man, whatever happened to teens being young and innocent? *sigh*
Nick S. said
There used to be two British ‘high school’ soap operas, that would air after-school. One would air, followed by a break in the season during which the other would air, and so on. One was called “Byker Grove” and one was called “Grange Hill”. Both shows were very soapy, both on and off screen. Much like day-time US soap operas, a number of ’stars’ were launched off the back of the two programs, and a number of exec producers and writers went on to write for the prime-time soap.
All I can remember is that both were very low-budget and cheesy, with the season finale of *every* Grange Hill series featuring the school catching fire.
Another Teen Drama « MIT CMS: The American Soap Opera said
[...] television show called Heartbreak High. It was compared to Degrassi, which Katharine brought up earlier this week, and so I thought it was particularly appropriate. And as is the greatness of our culture, there [...]
samford said
Great comparison, Katharine, and great to see more and more of these posts on the blog, since this is what I had hoped to move toward by this point in the semester…looking at the U.S. soap opera vs. examples from other genres. Laura and I have talked about Friday Night Lights as well, which likewise seems to focus primarily on teen characters yet have a multigenerational cast that is large enough to be comparable to a soap opera. There’s still a central family a little bit more than you would expect in the modern U.S. soap opera, but FNL does seem to adhere to many aspects of how soaps could, or should, tell stories well…