"Teen Mom" is a reality television show on MTV that follows the lives of teenage girls who get pregnant and deal with the consequences of this. Though the show does show some positive consequences of teenage pregnancy (moms generally love their babies and often do not regret having a baby), the show is meant to be a cautionary tale for teenage pregnancy. The show illustrates the difficulties teenage pregnancy can create in a young person's life. Oftentimes, episodes rely on the drama created by problems ranging from relationship strife between the pregnant girl and boyfriend, economic stresses of preparing for a child or raising a baby, or the complications girls face in education while pregnant and after birth. The show succeeds in showing the negative consequences of teenage pregnancy, but some say this show actually inspires teenagers to get pregnant in hopes of achieving the fame of the girls on the show.
This is a link to an article criticizing shows like Teen Mom because these shows glamorize the idea of teenage pregnancy despite the show's focus on negative consequences. The article also illuminates the show's tendency to normalize the situations these girls experience while pregnant and after and this affects young viewers' expectations about pregnancy at a young age.
But why does this matter? It matters because this article and research point to an increase in teenage pregnancy and applications to be on shows like "Teen Mom" and "16 and Pregnant." The fame subjects on these shows achieve overpowers the cautionary theme of these shows for young viewers and the amount of viewers of these shows has increased since its initial airing and the fandom of these shows has increased as well. It seems as though young people idolize the stars of the show instead of learn from their situations. The Effects of Sex in Television Drama
Shows on Emerging Adults’ Sexual
Attitudes and Moral Judgments by Keren Eyal and Dale Kunkel illustrates the connection between media portrayals of negative consequences of sex and moral judgments. Their work finds that people who encounter negative consequences of sex in media tend to judge sexual actions more critically. However, the growing fan following of teenage pregnancy reality shows along with an increase in applications to be on these shows by teenage girls would be a counterexample to Eyal and Kunkel's work.
I think that Eyal and Kunkel's conclusions about exposure to consequences of sex and its effects on moral judgement are sound. However, media's tendency to glorify the stars of reality shows and the career success and popularity these reality stars achieve is more enticing to young viewers than any learning lesson.
Sources: Eyal, K., & Kunkel, D. (2008). The effects of sex in television drama shows on emerging adults' sexual attitudes and moral judgments. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 52(2), 161-181.
Ireland, K. (2015, June 2). What Are the Dangers of Teen Mom Reality Shows? Retrieved October 17, 2015.
Easy A is a really
fascinating film in terms of social norms, expectations, and behaviors
surrounding sex. To give some context, here’s the movie trailer:
Clearly, there are a lot of different norms and expectations
at play here, and there is a lot to discuss and analyze. I’ll try and keep it
brief by talking about just a few concepts that come into play in Easy A.
As you
can see in the trailer, Olive – the main character, played by Emma Stone – is a
high school student who pretends to have sex with her male peers in order to
help them attain a better social standing and experience at school. Throughout
the trailer, she is approached by several of her male classmates who want her
to pretend to have sex with them so they’ll be more accepted by their peers. This
practice exemplifies Chia
& Gunther’s (2006) findings that “male students’ perceptions of other
students’ attitudes predicted intention to engage in premarital sex … and that
their perceived friends’ attitudes predicted intention to engage in casual sex”
(314). I think the number of young men shown in the film who weren’t having sex, but felt that they should because others
were doing so, really exemplifies this point. Perhaps many of Olive’s peers
aren’t sexually active, but each young man clearly thinks his peers are more
sexually active than he is. Furthermore,
this social expectation actually changes their behavior and drives them to
approach Olive in an effort to change their social status through “having sex.”
This representation of sexual activity corresponds to two parts of what Kelly
(2009) classifies as the “urgency” approach to virginity loss: “virginity as a
stigma” and, when they seek to rectify their social standing, “desperation and
deception” (485). For the young men in the movie, virginity loss is driven by a
heavy social pressure rather than by self-motivated personal choice.
Complicating the urgency script is Olive’s friend Brandon, who
is the first one to pretend to have sex with her. He asks her for this favor not
because of the pressure to lose his virginity, but because he feels he needs to
pass as straight to be accepted. This actually refers to a different script
from the urgency script of virginity loss that the other boys follow; Brandon’s
social predicament follows the male-oriented homophobia script discussed by Kim
et al (2007), which is the depiction of male homosexuality as feared and
ridiculed, often treated as a joke (152). Easy
A treats this script differently than most of the television shows surveyed
for Kim et al’s study, because the film shows the effects of such ridicule
while the study noted mostly homophobic sitcom jokes with no negative effects.
However, it still depicts ridicule as a direct result of male homosexuality. In
the trailer, Brandon says, “I’m tormented every day at school” and then asks
for “just one good imaginary fling,” showing that his social experience suffers
because of his rumored sexual orientation. To rid himself of the stigma
associated with male homosexuality, he feels he needs to (pretend to) have sex
with a woman.
I think it’s significant to point out that though the young
men in the movie are affected by different sexual scripts, the solution for all of them is to have sex with a woman. This, in
itself, is very telling of yet another script: sex as masculinity, which Kim et
al (2007) defines as “depictions of sexuality being a
defining component of men's masculinity (p. 150). This carries heavy implications
that, if really acted upon in the real world – and I think they do to some
extent – have the potential to harm both men and women. Men have little chance
to think for themselves about whether or not they want to engage in sex outside
of social pressure, and in these scripts women are little more than objects
used to claim masculinity and manhood through sex.
Finally, there’s the image of Olive herself. She doesn’t
feel pressure to lose her virginity, and the movie doesn’t really depict girls
feeling that their peers are more sexually active than they are. She doesn’t
stand out in any way before she “loses her virginity”; in the trailer, she
begins her story by saying, “I used to be a nothing. Anonymous.
Non-entity.” So, while the boys are
ridiculed for not having sex, there doesn’t seem to be any sort of repercussion
or even recognition for girls. Instead, Olive’s social pressure comes up when she
is shamed for being too sexually
active. This corresponds with Chia & Gunther’s (2006) findings that women’s
sexual behaviors are not significantly affected by their perceptions of their
peers’ sexual behaviors (p. 314). The film’s treatment of Olive versus her male
counterparts also clearly depicts the sexual double standard: premarital sex is
celebrated for men, who are “characterized as being in a constant state of
sexual desire,” but heavily policed and shamed for women, who need to practice
“caution and discretion” above their own sexual desires (Ward, 2002, p. 356)
Rather than showing just one script, Easy A depicts many of sexual and relational scripts interacting
with one another. It shows the different pressures constructed and perpetuated
for men and women, as well as depicting multiple pressures within gender roles.
While fulfilling its purpose of being a fun, dramatic teen movie, it clearly
and intentionally showcases the sexual double standard.
References:
Chia, S. C., & Gunther, A. C.
(2006). How media contribute to misperceptions of social norms about sex. Mass
Communication & Society, 9(3), 301-320. doi: 10.1207/s15327825mcs0903_3
Kelly, M. (2010). Virginity loss
narratives in “teen drama” television programs. Journal of Sex Research, 47(5),
479-489. doi: 10.1080/00224490903132044
Kim, J. L., Sorsoli, C. L., Collins,
K., Zylbergold, B. A., Schooler, D., & Tolman, D. L. (2007). From sex to
sexuality: Exposing the heterosexual script on primetime network television.
Journal of Sex Research, 44(2), 145-157. doi: 10.1080/00224490701263660
Ward, L. M. (2003). Understanding the
role of entertainment media in the sexual socialization of American youth: A
review of empirical research. Developmental Review, 23(3), 347-388. doi:
10.1016/s0273-2297(03)00013-3
13 going on 30
is arguably one of the all time best movies that was ever produced and a movie
that I personally never get sick of. However, what truly stands out in this
movie is its overall plot which is in regards to Jenna Rink, a thirteen year
old middle school girl who wants nothing more in the world than to be thirty years old and have an
athlete boyfriend that she has seen portrayed on her television screen before. However, when Jenna gets her wish and ends up in a 30 year old body of herself, just like any young adolescent, Jenna Rink discovers that this is not the love
that she saw on television and not the way she wants her life to be.
In this specific
clip that I’ve chosen from within this movie, Jenna Rink goes back to her
boyfriend’s house expecting him to play games with her or snuggle up on the
couch as she often times saw portrayed on her television shows that she loved.
She quickly is given a rude awakening when she realizes that this isn’t the way
this situation is going and instead, her boyfriend is putting on a strip tease
for her which disgusts her and brings out her disinterested self as Jane D. Brown,
Anne Barton White and Lia Nikopoulou mention in their article “Disinterest,
Intrigue, Resistance: Early Adolescent Girls’ Use of Sexual Media Content.” Her
disinterested self can be described as being the stage where she is interested
in sexual content that is being portrayed however, thinks that these specific
portrayals of romance and sex are gross. After watching this scene, many
individuals like myself find themselves chuckling as they remember thinking
back to media portrayals they saw when they were 13 years old and thinking that what they saw on television is how the real world is.
At thirty years
old, Jenna Rink and myself at 21 years old quickly enter the resistance stage,
which also can be classified as the “wait what” stage. This is the stage in
which individuals quickly learn that everything they saw and dreamed of through
media is far from what actual love is and that when a guy invites you over to
his house, he isn’t hoping to play battle ship or cards but instead is hoping to get into your pants. I find it fascinating how the article and movie clip clearly portray the different adolescent stages that an individual goes through after being portrayed to romance and sex on television. References
Brown, J. D., White, A. B., & Nikopoulou, L. (1993). Disinterest, intrigue, resistance:
Early
adolescent girls' use of sexual media content. In B. S. Greenberg, J. D. Brown & N.
Buerkel-
Rothfuss (Eds.), Media, sex and the adolescent (pp. 177-195). Cresskill, NJ:
Hampton Press.
