Are Guilty TV Pleasures Glorifying Teen Pregnancy?
March 8, 2010 | VReitano
Is glamourizing teen pregnancy worth the shock value viewers?
MTV’s “16 and Pregnant” is a new guilty pleasure of mine as it’s a show that’s so unbelievable in today’s day and age that I can’t seem to tear my eyes from it. What do you think? Is it sensationalized? Are shows like “16 and Pregnant” and “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” making teen pregnancy cool? Read below for my opinion and comment with yours! MTV is a station known for controversial shows; look at the gems of “The Jersey Shore” and the tanned, roid-driven men of “Is She ReallyGoing Out With Him?” These shows contribute to the idolization of the underlying cultures of our society; cultures which should really be left in the dark. Another subculture is teen pregnancy. Recently this has been getting a lot of attention: Private Practice featured a segment on it, The Secret Life of the American Teenager is a successful show, and Lifetime even had it’s own “Pregnancy Pact” film. What does that say about us, the viewers? Are we fascinated because we (presumably) escaped this fate, or even if we didn’t, that we escaped it by pure obscurity?
I have never been pregnant, I am not a teen mother and I am by no means judging the women on these shows. If anything I applaud them and their parents for surviving these trials. I can’t imagine what I would have done had I gotten pregnant at 16, but then again when I was 16 it wasn’t the rite of passage it almost seems to be in today’s society.
I’m obsessed with MTV’s “16 and Pregnant,” and my recent acquisition of a DVR doesn’t help this addiction. Tonight’s new episode, according to the multitude of previews, seems sure to be a tear-jerker: the “father” of the baby questions the paternity and this beautiful girl is driven to tears by some little punk. Now, I know as well as you do, that it “takes two to tango,” but generally men get to walk away in this situation. Men don’t have any evidence of the shame that these girls appear to have to deal with. This subculture appears to be one of revealing in the independence of “motherhood” and yet, from what I see, it is merely a submission to men.
What do you think? Am I reading too much into it? Should I even care? I think we should it all care; this is OUR pop-culture, our legacy. Shouldn’t it be more than forgetting to teach safe sex?
I too got stuck on this show over the past weekend. In fact, the very episode you speak of made me cry. I think it’s interesting b/c the two episodes I have seen are at least built around a “couple” and that becomes the sensationalized story when more often than not in teen pregnancy, there really isn’t much of a couple going on at all.