what, you thought you'd get a real post?

I'm way too lazy busy working on college apps to write a real post so here's a rough draft of my latest opinion column for my school's paper. enjoy.

I’ve got a question. If you were to watch the five most popular television shows of the 1950s, how many references to teenage pregnancy do you think you’d find? I’m guessing the answer is zero. Compare this to the references to teen pregnancy in today’s movies and television- the number goes up dramatically. Personally, I think this is a good thing. Pregnancy is an issue that many students will think about, worry about, or experience and should be acknowledged if a movie or television show wants to portray a broad and accurate depiction of teenage life. Here is where my problem with teen pregnancy in entertainment lies: there are extremely few programs that describe this experience with anything resembling accuracy.
Full disclosure: I love the movie Juno. I know that lots of people do too. But let’s try to move past our love for Paulie Bleaker and the Moldy Peaches soundtrack and admit that the movie did not register high on the Reality Scale. First off, I don’t know about you guys, but if I told my dad I was pregnant, there’s no way he would simply look stern for a minute and then make a quip. Also, did anyone else find it odd that contraceptives were rarely mentioned? Juno is obviously a smart girl; why is it she didn’t think to have protected sex? There are possible explanations for this; perhaps they forgot in the heat of the moment. But then why wasn’t this explanation mentioned? To me, this omission makes no sense.
Another issue with the depictions of teen pregnancy is the lack of discussion about abortion. 22% percent of pregnancy ends in abortion and 17% of those abortions are had by teenagers, according to a 2008 study from the Guttmacher Institute. Whatever your personal stance on abortion may be, the fact is that abortion is a factor that comes into play in teenage pregnancy. So why is it that abortion rarely even discussed as a possible option, much less an option that a character eventually follows through on? Take ABC Family’s new series The Secret Life of the American Teen. I watched the first two episodes out of curiosity to see how a family show would handle the touchy subject of teen sexuality and its consequences. I was pretty disappointed to say the least. The show’s depiction of the main character’s pregnancy was dismal. First off, the main character kept claiming how she didn’t even know if she’d had sex or not- because if the show was going to portray a pregnant teen, then they’d have to show the stereotypical good girl, and good girls don’t know about sex. In this day and age, how many high school students do you know who can’t tell you what sex actually is? Also, abortion isn’t really mentioned- rather, it’s “mentioned”. Let me explain: when the main character reveals her pregnancy, one of her friends asks her if she has considered “the A word”. The other friend gasps and the main character looks as though her friend has told her to stab her womb with a pair of rusty scissors. It’s one thing if a character decides that abortion isn’t the right choice for whatever reason, it’s another if it’s shown as an act that cannot be even mentioned as a possibility.


Yeah, that's about all I've got. I started going on a bit of a rant on gender roles on The Secret Life of the American Teen but I wasn't sure that'd fly well at my school. We don't talk about gender roles all that often. This is about as academic as my brain can be right now, it's pretty fried out from writing 150 words on why X College is right for me. I'm thisclose to scrawling on a piece of paper, "I'm awesome, just LET ME IN I'M SO NICE I'LL MAKE YOU CUPCAKES!! Then I can sleep for more than five hours tonight" and sending it in. Maybe someone there will take pity on my poor soul.

Then again, maybe not.