ISFD N°30 Lengua y Expresión Escrita IV Prof. Blas Bigatti
Pires, Aldana Assignment #4, Draft #1 2014
Skins TV series: controversy, adolescence sexuality, and the show’s potential to help young adults construct their sexuality. “Drunk sex, lesbian sex, casual sex, unprotected sex, sex where one character repeatedly shouts ‘grab my balls!’ - Skins has it all, and is considered ground-breaking for its explicit depiction of teenage sexuality. (…) Skins is (…) one of the few shows to depict teenagers working out their sexuality without criticism or judgment.” (Tseng, 2010)
Sexuality is just one of the many recurrent themes portrayed in Skins, a six-year-run British teen drama. The series, created by Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain for Company Pictures, has been premiered on E4, a British digital television channel, in January 2007. The show is set in Bristol, and the cast has been renewed every two seasons during its six years of life. Though the characters have changed, issues such as substance abuse, mental illnesses, adolescent sexuality, death, and homosexuality, among others, have remained constant in the three generations of characters. In January 2011, an American remake of the series has been premiered on MTV, a basic cable and satellite television channel. The TV Parental Guidelines, a television content rating system, has been announced and put into effect in 1997 to give parents more information about the content and age-appropriateness of TV programs. Skins has been rated TV-MA. This label indicates that Skins is specifically designed to be viewed by adults and that it therefore may be unsuitable for children under 17. Any program containing graphic violence, explicit sexual activity, or crude indecent language can fall into this category. The Parents Television Council (PTC) has sent an alert to parents claiming Skins to be “the most dangerous program ever” and has accused the program of urging “children to lie to and defy their parents, and engage in risky and dangerous behaviour” (2011). They have explained the series’ dangerousness commenting that “Skins is filled with graphic content involving high-school children, including depictions of teens drinking, smoking marijuana, and using massive quantities of drugs, engaging in violent acts, and having irresponsible sex with each other, with their schoolteachers, and with other adults.” The American show has been finally cancelled in June 2011. Most of the content portrayed in Skins can be considered taboo. According to the Cambridge Dictionaries Online, a taboo is an action (or word) that is avoided for religious or social reasons. Taking into account the alarm with which the PTC has addressed Skins’ sexual content, they may be considering adolescence sexuality a taboo, and watching sexual references in a TV series is something that teenagers should not do because “it fosters irresponsible behaviour” as expressed by the organization. From a critical perspective on adolescence sexuality, this paper will explore the extent up to which the sexual content in Skins could be considered constructive for young adults. Firstly, let us acknowledge what adolescence is. Sandrine Diringbi (2013) explains that this is a transitional period where physical, psychological, emotional and social adjustments occur in order to complete the subject’s construction of the personality. The young person tries to create his identity through the exploration of new territories, including the sexual domain. More importantly, the author considers teenagers as “sexual beings with rights”: 1