I've blogged occasionally about how I can't stand the sexualized t-shirts, clothes and general attitudes of today's youth (read grade 6-12).
You know what I can't stand even more? Youth oriented evening dramas.
They are all guilty of it, you know the ones I'm talking about. Pretty much every show on the WB and tonight The O.C. stood out.
In "The episode you have been waiting for for 2 years" Marissa and Ryan have sex. Right of the bat, the idea that there are millions of viewers just waiting to see two teenage characters have sex is kinda icky.
Then there is the editing of the actual sex scene. The perfect cabana on the beach, the tiki torches, and of course the questioning of Marissa to be sure she "really wants to do this". Then the sex scene is split with scenes of Marissa's father being brutally beaten, also on the beach. As the sexual nature of the scene becomes more explicit, so does the beating, with her father ending up floating in the ocean. Face down.
The next morning Marissa and Ryan wake up with the sun on their face to a cell phone. Marissa goes and sees her beaten father as he runs away to Hawaii from his creditors.
Marissa thought her family would be moving to Hawaii to live together, but just as she accepts a boy in her life, she loses it all.
Do I think all viewers will look at it the same way I do? Obviously not. But there seems to be this relentless need for television networks to qualify sex with something awful happening the girl involved.
This isn't a new thing, horror movies anyone? The virgin being the only one that lives?
Girls are shown through pop stars and magazine that sexually provocative style is appropriate, but then are told that on top of the risk of pregnancy and STD there is the chance they will love everything, including their family.
You know what I can't stand even more? Youth oriented evening dramas.
They are all guilty of it, you know the ones I'm talking about. Pretty much every show on the WB and tonight The O.C. stood out.
In "The episode you have been waiting for for 2 years" Marissa and Ryan have sex. Right of the bat, the idea that there are millions of viewers just waiting to see two teenage characters have sex is kinda icky.
Then there is the editing of the actual sex scene. The perfect cabana on the beach, the tiki torches, and of course the questioning of Marissa to be sure she "really wants to do this". Then the sex scene is split with scenes of Marissa's father being brutally beaten, also on the beach. As the sexual nature of the scene becomes more explicit, so does the beating, with her father ending up floating in the ocean. Face down.
The next morning Marissa and Ryan wake up with the sun on their face to a cell phone. Marissa goes and sees her beaten father as he runs away to Hawaii from his creditors.
Marissa thought her family would be moving to Hawaii to live together, but just as she accepts a boy in her life, she loses it all.
Do I think all viewers will look at it the same way I do? Obviously not. But there seems to be this relentless need for television networks to qualify sex with something awful happening the girl involved.
This isn't a new thing, horror movies anyone? The virgin being the only one that lives?
Girls are shown through pop stars and magazine that sexually provocative style is appropriate, but then are told that on top of the risk of pregnancy and STD there is the chance they will love everything, including their family.
5 Comments:
Sex is totally unnatural in this country.
First, everything is sexualized, then, you are flogged and punished for even thinking about it.
It's some fucked up S&M shit, in my opinion.
And to me, the assembly-line appearance of porn stars is especially de-humanizing.
Note to young men: Women have pubic hair! Their breasts are not comically-huge and round! They are not all bi-sexual and looking to service you at every corner!
Note to young women: The typical man's penis is less than 10 inches long! His muscles are not huge! And more, but I'm busy right now. Because many times, when you have sex, you get KIDS!
the whole thing is weird. perhaps it's just a product of growing up and getting older myself, but shee-it. i don't remember sex being so *everywhere* when i was a teenager.
maybe i just didn't notice, and then again, perhaps it is more heavily marketed now.
they want to make sex ed in kansas an "opt in" thing, where in order to have your children recieve sex ed, you have to write a letter requesting it. otherwise, nada. so let's see, the kids whose parents won't tell them what they need to know are going to be those most interested in writing a letter in order for someone else to teach it? what?
I watched it the other night too, and I was really disappointed in the way the whole thing was handled. The show is usually well-written and quite funny (believe it or not) but I felt it go in a whole "90210" direction. The beating was over the top - and the sex scene - creepy. Ick.
Thats the thing Brooke, usually I'm laughing my ass of at that show, but I was really pissed by that one.
You mean YOUR first time wasn't in Hawaii and lit romantically by tiki torches?
I still remember my first time, romantically lit by the lights of the strip mall, in the back of a Mercury Capri Hatchback...
Then I found my dad in the dumpster.
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