The TV Legacy Of Beverly Hills 90210 And Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Reality shows that are based on teen pregnancy like 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom sheds light about the troubles on becoming a teen parent, finishing high school and struggling to buy the baby’s need and wants. Lately, these shows are stirring a debate if they are trying to support or avoid teen pregnancy. And this topic is important to the public, because it relates to the young community’s future. Young girls and boys can watch these shows and have different outlooks about having a child. Sometimes, glamorizing teen pregnancy on television might confuse the young community, because they can be fickle at times. They might think it is acceptable to be pregnant so young and others will consider waiting until marriage. Reality shows can either encourage or discourage teen pregnancy based on the individual’s mentality.

In an essay published in the New Yorker in May 1999, entitled “High-School Confidential: Notes on Teen Movies,” writer David Denby analyzes movies targeted towards teenagers and the stereotypes associated with them. He begins his essay by describing the archetypal characters in high school genre films: the vapid popular girl and her athletic male counterpart, and the intellectual outsider and her awkward male counterpart. He then describes the reality of teen life, and compares it to the experience depicted in these films. Next, he analyzes the common theme that the geeky characters are the protagonists, and suggests there are such because of their writer's personal experience and a history of geeks being ostracized. Finally, Denby analyzes the tropes in

When you picture a teenager you picture fighting, drinking, or answering back, am I right? However, this is simply not the case. Sure there is the minority of trouble makers. However this minority is exaggerated due to the news showing only this behaviour. This stereotyping has found its audience and crept into television shows and series. This has led to the creation of a mockumentary called “Summer Heights High” which has unfairly represented teen

Saved by the Bell was a fictional show about high school students. “The writers of Saved by the Bell always seemed to suggest that most adolescents are exactly the same and exist solely as props for the popular kids, which was probably true at most American high schools.” (140) What happens when one looks at culture that is ultimately not real as being representative of

* The main focus of many teen dramas is sex, with each episode containing countless verbal and visual references to sexual activity. These highly sexualized portrayals of relationships bear little resemblance to the real lives of teens—and are generally not balanced by clear messages about safe and healthy attitudes towards sex.

In sociology, the term deviance refers to behaviors or attitudes which go against certain cultural norms. It is evident that deviance is a fascinating topic not only for sociologist, but for television industry and its viewers, as well. In recent years, increasing number of shows begun to feature individuals violating every kind of social norm from folkways to taboos. The Secret Life of the American Teenager, an American television series on the ABC Family television network, is one of the many contemporary shows that portray deviant behaviors on national television. It’s intended for the target audience of teens and their families who are trying to cope in a culture where teen girls and boys are sexually active.

“Mean girls, jocks, band nerds, geeks, and freaks” are all terms used to stereotype and group teens in the 2004 movie hit, Mean Girls. This film created controversies in the content that it delivered. The credibility of adolescents is questioned greatly in this film. Mean Girls taught us that popularity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, in fact, they taught us that it’s actually meaningless. Through extreme character development, this movie shows the viewer that at the end of the day, all of the teens are the same. They all struggle to fit in, and that’s really the moral of this hilarious, but raunchy story. Mean Girls captures the struggle that every teen seems to have at some point of where they belong and how they relate to everyone around them. The film takes those stereotypes and melds them into what all high schools should aspire to be: a community.

MTV, formally known as Music Television, is one of the most viewed networks on television today. Roughly thirty-three years old, it has changed the American culture drastically in more than just one way. Specifically targeting teens and young adults, the MTV network provides all of the most up to date gossip on celebrities, highlights the latest fashion trends, promotes versified lifestyles, and defines the music industry of our generation. However, this so-called “idolized network” has not always been this way. The American culture has been affected by MTV through the creation of the network, the transformation from simply just music television to inappropriate reality shows, and the promotion of inappropriate content.

The American television miniseries Roots was originally aired January 23, 1977 to January 30, 1977 on ABC-TV. The miniseries is based on the Alex Haley's 1976 novel, Roots: The Saga of an American Family received thirty-five total award nominations and won seventeen of the thirty-five. Roots had been acknowledged for its accuracies with awards and praise from Emmy nominations and even winning one Golden Globe and a Peabody award (IMDb). To this day, Roots received unprecedented Nielsen ratings.

As America headed into the 1980s, two decades of social and political upheaval have left the nation rattled and the economy weakened. The Iran hostage crisis shook America's confidence and many looked for a new kind of leader to steer the country into the new decade. Ronald Reagan led America into a new era of prosperity leaving the soul-searching of the 60s and 70s behind. The nation was ready to enjoy itself and with plenty of new toys to play like VCRs and video games, Americans spent more time at home and soon something called cable TV would make it even harder to leave the living room. With the new innovation of the TV, one of the ideas for a channel was a marriage between music and television. This new idea for a channel devoted to something called music videos would end up revolutionizing and often scandalizing an industry that had no choice but to embrace the fact that music in the 1980s had to have a face with videos. By having these music videos, they would change the way we look at music and the way we look at the world. This cutting- edge idea was a new medium perfectly suited to a new generation and that idea was called, MTV. This leads to the question: How did MTV influence pop culture of the 1980’s? This topic is worthy of investigation because the coming of MTV has had a significant impact on the way people see pop culture. Before researching the topic, the writer had limited knowledge on MTV and only knew about the music itself. In the paper, the writer was

The story is of a teenage girl who is chosen to be the next Slayer, endowed with supernatural strength in order to aide her on her quest, because: “In every generation there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer”("Welcome to the Hellmouth"). In this series, the Slayer is known as Buffy Summers, and the series follows her as she faces one apocalypse after another, graduating school, dealing with boys and life and death and all the issues that one expects to arise from a coming of age series. What makes Buffy unique is that unlike the rest of the Slayers from the generations before her, she has a collection of friends who help her answer her calling, and together, they create an enthralling cast that keeps the viewers coming back to relive each episode. Feminists have hailed Buffy as being one of the most prominent series that deals with feminist issues and provides viewers with a strong female figurehead; others, however, look at the show with a more critical eye, wondering just what kind of feminism and feminist ideals are being portrayed in the series. This paper will touch upon most of these ideas, yet for now, the focus will be on the character of Buffy herself. .

By eliminating the glamorous lifestyles of teenage parents, we will help teens face the reality that being a parent is ultimately difficult. The teen parents should help send out the message that it is hard to live life as a teenage parent and that television shows don’t fully depict the hardships that come along with raising children. Instead of having shows that glamorize pregnancy, we should have shows that educate teens on the real facts of being pregnant. Too many shows out there demonstrate how teen moms have help from their parents, baby’s father, and their friends. By showing teens that such outcomes are rare, and the truth is most of them don’t have the cash flow that celebrities have, they’ll end up struggling and facing the fact that raising children is complicated. Many of the teen moms have parents and nannies to help care for their children and this wouldn’t be the case for most teens. Cases such as Jamie Lynn Spears show how a teenager can be put into the spotlight while making pregnancy seem fun and cool. Teens want to replicate celebrities if they see that they are living a fun lifestyle. Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol Palin, was on the cover of many magazines during her pregnancy. After the pregnancy, she participated in the show, “Dancing with the Stars.” This leads teens to believe that being a mom might

In today’s society, parents are challenged with the ability of children to grow faster than ever before. Tweens are moving closer and closer to teens, and fulfill these adult-like roles. The media plays a major part in this dilemma, along with the need to fulfill major responsibilities, and the lack of family presence.

Television doesn’t just affect children, it also affects teenagers and young adults, but more so their self-identity and self-esteem than physical development. Television sends messages to these immature self-identities and shapes them according to popular cultures beliefs and values, modifying healthy and realistic self-identities to unrealistic standards of beauty and popularity. This effect is found more with females than with men; but men are more likely to have their standards modified through music videos than television (Ward 2002).

If “seeing is believing”, then how youth is represented in popular films is all true, right? Partying hard, drugs, promiscuity and sour attitude – wrong! The problem is not the unacceptable and risky behaviour, because it only applies to a minority. The real issue is that the way teens are represented on movie screens is unrealistic and over-dramatized which benefits film makers, not the reputation of teens. Right now all we’re seeing are the fictional teens and the false realities that seem to be attached to our popular films.