ABC Family versus the CW
I've said it a million times, and I'll say it again: I loves me the teenage dramas. Secret Life of the American Teenager (or, as I call it, SLAT) is no exception. I really enjoy the shows that I can sit down and watch with my family, as a family. I also enjoy that we can discuss issues that come up in the show as a family. It really helps to open up a dialogue. In the end, I feel as if I've tackled some difficult, real issues facing today's young people.After last night's episode which, once again, dealt with teenage pregnancy (and I use the term "dealt with" loosely), I got to thinking about the other big dramatic hit this year: Gossip Girl. These two (dare I say competing?) series deal with many similar issues, but seem to follow in a long line of family style vs the edgier, CW (or once upon a time the WB), shows. But, what's the REAL difference between the family drama and its edgier counterpart? Let's take a look at Secret Life and Gossip Girl in my favorite format--the compare/contrast model. Hopefully, by examining the shows in this way, we can discover which things are really accurate when it comes to the life of your average American teen.
Let's start with the steamy stuff!
Gossip Girl: Sexy. Sex, sex, sex. That's what the teenagers have! And it looks like good sex, too. Sometimes, though, secret videos get made...and sometimes people die. That's what life is like for teenagers these days. Luckily, the designer dresses and dining at all the NY hot spots make up for the occasional "murder." And everyone looks good, all the time. Not awkward high school good, but this month's issue of Vogue good.
SLAT: Sexy? I guess the kids are having sex...and sometimes people get pregnant. But it doesn't seem like very good sex. And no one looks that good (no one). Either you aren't having sex and you're a virgin loser (or Christian, of course), you're a total slut with low self esteem/deep rooted problems stemming from your abusive childhood which have turned you into a predator, or you are basically a good kid who was tricked into having sex one time and are now pregnant. And there are no designer clothes. Or hip hang outs. Or parties. I definitely feel the lack in parties when it comes to this series.
Conclusion: While not all teenagers go to glamorous parties, they are probably all having sex, and that's not such a big deal. In fact, the guidance counselor can probably give them some pointers.
Cliques in Schools
SLAT: There are many kinds of teenagers these days. It does not seem as if these cliques are in any way in conflict with one another, and the teens can exist in the schools in virtual harmony. The main groups I remember from high school are there: the inexperienced freshman nerds who aren't really nerdy, the sluts (they typically have dark hair), the Christians, and the two A
sians who are, of course, dating each other. One is goofy and one is smart.Gossip Girl: This also covers the different kinds of teenagers out there. You have the rich, glamorous kids who love to party, and...two less rich kids who live in Brooklyn. Oh, and, that one smart Asian girl.
Conclusion: Every school has at least one smart Asian kid. If there happen to be two, they are probably dating each other.
Time Actually Spent in School:
Gossip Girl: Not many scenes take place in school...unless it's an episode about the SATs or something. We do see them in their uniforms often, and gathered on the steps out front. But really, school seems to take a back burner to the wild parties and the home/hotel scenes.
SLAT: It looks like most of the action will be happening inside the walls of Ulysses S. Grant High. Most of the action takes place in the hallway, or the cool guidance counselor's office.
Conclusion: School's important, but parties are more important. Unless you don't live in New York, in which case parties mean a lame school dance or a local carnival.
News Travels Fast...
SLAT: It's now been three episodes in which a freshman is preggers, and yet no one at this school (aside from her best friends) seem to know about it, including the guy she's dating. Yet, they want us to believe that the friends of the pregnant girl are
huge gossips, and constantly frame scenes to make it look as if the secret is going to be out. But it's not!! I'm constantly on the edge of my seat, and yet each episode only one or two new characters find out about the secret life of this American teenager.Gossip Girl: Everyone knows everything. All the tiny secrets of these high schoolers are constantly made public on a blog, and everyone can constantly check the blog with all their hightech hand held gizmos. There are no secrets on this show!
Conclusion: No one does gossip like Gossip Girl! Get with the program, SLAT! High schoolers can't really hold on to juicy secrets for that long.
Overall, as I watch these two new series unfold, I think that they really do complement each other--I can turn to GG for my sexy glamour, and I can still enjoy SLAT when I want something a little more comforting. And really, I can learn quite a bit from both.
This entry was posted by Brigitte, on
Wednesday, July 16, 2008.
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Which one is more realistic? SLAT, minus the slowly unraveling secret part. Which one is more enjoyable? GG, though it often gives me a headache.
I actually think The WB used to be more like ABC Family until Gossip Girl started - 7th Heaven, Smallville, even Gilmore Girls was much more family friendly than most shows aimed at teenagers on other channels. Was One Tree Hill what got them to become the more edgy CW? If so, that's sad.
Yeah, One Tree Hill, and, to a point, Gilmore girls. Not just edgy, but...better writing, better acting, more for adults and less for children to watch with their parents. And really, when it comes to realism, I don't think that SLAT is realistic either--not in the way students interact with each other at school, or in the way people talk to each other, at least. Though, it's possibly more realistic than Gossip Girl. Fewer murders.
Dawson's Creek and Felicity were sort of edgy...Weren't those WB shows? When did this split between WB-esque programming and "family" programming begin?
Yeah, I think the WB was, in its own lame way, always the "edgy" option. When Dawson's Creek came out, remember hearing how teens shouldn't watch it because of how racy it was and how explicitly they talked about sex? Well, I'd say SLAT's talk about sex is equivalent in terms of explicitness, but at the end of the day, the "morals" are there. As a family, then we can discuss the choices each character makes, and there is sort of enough "gray" to show everybody's good choices and bad choices.
I think, actually, that 7th Heaven was really the only truly "family" show on the WB.
Even 7th Heaven had some racier content, but it definitely always came back to "do the right thing" at the end. Also, I never thought I'd say this about the CW/WB but it's not as explicit in pointing out its moral message as ABC Family, which is written/produced like an after school special.
What racy content did 7th Heaven have? That was the definition of Christian programming, I thought. I would even say SLAT is racier than 7th Heaven, if only because they "sex" every 5 seconds, where as in 7th Heaven, the dad just raised his eyebrows, bobbed his head around, and said "you know..." whenever he referred to the S-word.
I do remember the controversy Dawson's stirred up...so odd that that show was on the same network as the Christian family show.
If you're talking about better writing, Gilmore Girls was the only show period in the history of WB/CW that had any quality writing. Gossip Girl has hilarious twists and is entertaining, but the dialogue and characters aren't nearly as witty or three-dimensional.
Au contraire, Mr. Chris! I think you are discounting the quality of "quality writing" on the WB/CW -- Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the first breakout hit on the station and is obviously influential to today's sci-fi fun-ish shows (EW ranked it the 10th best show of the past 25 years!) And Felicity, which as lame as it is today, was pretty well-written. According to my research sources (Wikipedia), other programs include Roswell, Angel, Smallville, Everwood, etc. Naturally, most of these shows don't measure up to shows like "The Wire" but I'd much rather watch any of those than most of the original programming on NBC/ABC/CBS/Fox, like any of the CSI shows, or Two And A Half Men, etc. And I wouldn't call Dawson's Creek being on the same station as 7th Heaven as odd at all -- actually, when you look at the list of other shows that came on it, 7th Heaven obviously stands out as the oddity.
Meanwhile, SLAT and 7th Heaven, I think, have the same implied message. While SLAT is less in-your-face about it, the implied message is "The Christian girl is making the right choices, all of these teens face hard choices and circumstances in the environment that we are in, but at the end of the day, your family is there for you."
I didn't know you were a Buffy fan, Qualler. I actually just recently watched some on Hulu, and while I liked the pilot, I couldn't watch more than two more episodes - I don't care about the mythology and influence, it's so hokey and repetitive. After Firefly not flying with me either, I'm done giving Joss Whedon chances. Terribly overrated.
How can Felicity be lame AND well-written? Boggles my mind (never watched it).
OMG, Gossip Girl is so much better in terms of writing than 7th Heaven or SLAT. It's no Gilmore Girls (wow, both shorten to GG...coincidence?!?!) but the dialog does not sound as if it was written as a high school language arts project. 7th Heaven and SLAT both sound like they were thrown together by high schoolers assigned to write an after school special. At lease Gossip Girl has some clever/entertaining dialog.
You're overrated, Chris. Not Buffy. Sorry.
Felicity was lame, but the episodes that I did catch (I mean, I never watched that! Ha!) had at least somewhat compelling characters. Or maybe it was just Keri Russell's hotness, I don't know.
I wouldn't say I followed Buffy at all but I watched enough episodes here and there to find it entertaining and clever. I would find it hard to judge a show based on watching the first few eps, especially shows from the 90s that weren't as relient on "serialized" plots -- I think its heyday was probably as the show progressively got more popular.
Racy 7th Heaven? Lady Amy, sweetie, let's not try to talk about television -- you obviously don't know that much! Stick to what you're good at, your celebrities and baby news and, you know, woman stuff!
ALSO! 7th Heaven had a cheesy underlying "do the right thing" message, but several of the plot lines were as racy as SLAT. for example, there was a girl who couldn't get out of a gang, a girl who was a cutter, a slutty girl who was disrespecting her body, teenage pregnancies (several times, actually) Mary runs away to live with a boy, Mary's boyfriend Wilson had a Kid, and there actually were several episodes devoted to "let's talk about sex in a frank and open way."
speaking of writing, i think we also have to bring up the way the lines are delivered, which has a huge impact on how "good" or "bad" the "dialog" "is." The dialog from 7th Heaven and SLAT might not be SOO much worse than GG dialog, but the acting is soo much worse that it draws attention to the bad dialog, whereas with Gossip Girl, at least the characters are not such terrible public speakers (forget about acting, these are really just speech issues) that you sometimes forget what was happening because the delivery of lines is so terribly distracting.
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