By Taylor Maloch
Teen television shows have changed a lot over the years; we finally got rid of the laugh track in comedy shows, made drama shows even more dramatic and made reality shows about every single thing you can think of.
One of my favorite shows is Pretty Little Liars. Even though I love that show to death, sometimes I sit there and think, seriously? Did she really just make out with her teacher? Other shows like Secret Life of the American Teenager, Glee, Raising Hope and about a million others have at least one girl who had a baby. Come on, people, not every teenage girl gets pregnant.
I guess female characters in general have changed, but now it seems like they’re always desperate for a boyfriend. That’s not fair, some girls realize they don’t need a boyfriend to be happy. TV shows should have a good balance of a variety of girls with different interests, instead of making them look like trash.
One thing I think has really changed on TV is the story lines of the shows they air now. They’re so different from shows 10 years ago, which means we’re making progress. Teen shows cover topics that nobody really thought about writing, like a show about a Glee club (Glee), or a gymnastics team (Make it or Break it). But we also have totally random, yet entertaining, shows like Jersey Shore. The show has gotten so popular because all they do is party and fight, which can sometimes be really funny.
Drama is pretty much the main theme of every show, I know there’s a lot of drama in high school, but we don’t literally kill each other. Over half the drama shows out there are about the popular girl being mean. Then, all of a sudden, she gets murdered or “disappears.” Then later she has some crazy explanation like “it was my twin sister” ….are we that stupid? Do you really expect us to believe that? Hollywood writers, make it a little more realistic.
I have to admit, I love watching Pretty Little Liars because the suspense of “A” knowing everything about the girls. If it were just a typical “dealing-with-highschool” show, it would be so boring. Ratings would go down and the show would be dead, so writers have to put in these crazy storylines. But they should have a limit, or at least some common sense, about how far to push the story.
What I’m saying is make teen TV dramas a little more realistic, but not too boring. Have a balance of things we can relate to instead of some impossible story that would never happen in real life.
