Have you seen the new teen drama on ABC called “The Secret Life of the American Teenager”? It’s attracting quite a throng of teenaged fans – my 16-year-old daughter, included. “Critics are raving about it!” screams the 20-second promo. My teenager makes sure she DVRs it every Monday night, just in case she has too much homework to watch it live.
I had never seen “Secret Life,” but assumed it was about all the normal teen-angst stuff: boys, school, bitchy girls, fashion trends, anxiety over college, that kind of thing. So one night after my daughters were in bed, I decided to watch one of the DVR’d shows.
OH. MY. GAWD!!!
The lead actress is this 16-year-old girl-next-door (with a WEIRD sister) who had a baby with a guy at her school, who happens to now be in love with some other girl who hates the baby momma and creates all kinds of drama.
It's like “Juno” meets “Dallas.”
Then you have all these subplots involving other teenagers who are all trying to get laid in one form or another. It’s a stupid and ridiculous storyline, if you ask me.
Which has me wondering . . . are the writers in Hollywood on strike again? Because I think they replaced REAL writers -- you know, people with an imagination and a gifted facility for words -- with unimaginative idiots who know only three words: sex, condoms and masturbation. Because that’s really all these teen stars ever talk about.
It’s an hour-long show, and when you subtract commercials, there’s probably about 45 minutes of the actual program. Just for grins, I thought I’d count the number of times the word “sex” came up.
Ready for this? I kid you not, the word “sex” was mentioned 52 times in 45 minutes! For all you math dunces, like me, it means that more than once every minute, someone on that show squeezes sex into the conversation somehow.
I mean, really! Is that even remotely realistic? I wonder, when my teenaged daughter is watching this, does she think this is NORMAL? How many times do YOU use the word "sex" in a normal conversation on any given day? Yeah, I know. "Sex sells!" But this is overkill. And believe me, it makes for a VERY BORING hour.
Let me tell you, if this is even the slightest bit representative of what is really going out there in Teen Land, I think we parents should give some serious consideration to sending our teens off to that nice little resort where Tiger Woods has been spending much of his time lately, trying to recover from his own addiction to . . . . SEX!!
There. I said it. Seven times.
I had never seen “Secret Life,” but assumed it was about all the normal teen-angst stuff: boys, school, bitchy girls, fashion trends, anxiety over college, that kind of thing. So one night after my daughters were in bed, I decided to watch one of the DVR’d shows.
OH. MY. GAWD!!!
The lead actress is this 16-year-old girl-next-door (with a WEIRD sister) who had a baby with a guy at her school, who happens to now be in love with some other girl who hates the baby momma and creates all kinds of drama.
It's like “Juno” meets “Dallas.”
Then you have all these subplots involving other teenagers who are all trying to get laid in one form or another. It’s a stupid and ridiculous storyline, if you ask me.
Which has me wondering . . . are the writers in Hollywood on strike again? Because I think they replaced REAL writers -- you know, people with an imagination and a gifted facility for words -- with unimaginative idiots who know only three words: sex, condoms and masturbation. Because that’s really all these teen stars ever talk about.
It’s an hour-long show, and when you subtract commercials, there’s probably about 45 minutes of the actual program. Just for grins, I thought I’d count the number of times the word “sex” came up.
Ready for this? I kid you not, the word “sex” was mentioned 52 times in 45 minutes! For all you math dunces, like me, it means that more than once every minute, someone on that show squeezes sex into the conversation somehow.
I mean, really! Is that even remotely realistic? I wonder, when my teenaged daughter is watching this, does she think this is NORMAL? How many times do YOU use the word "sex" in a normal conversation on any given day? Yeah, I know. "Sex sells!" But this is overkill. And believe me, it makes for a VERY BORING hour.
Let me tell you, if this is even the slightest bit representative of what is really going out there in Teen Land, I think we parents should give some serious consideration to sending our teens off to that nice little resort where Tiger Woods has been spending much of his time lately, trying to recover from his own addiction to . . . . SEX!!
There. I said it. Seven times.
