Media Violation

Sexualized representations of teens in media negatively impacts high school students

story by kareem dadkhah

“Pretty Little Liars” “Euphoria” “Gossip Girl”

“Elité” “Riverdale” “Skins”

Apart from being some of the most popular shows amongst teens for the past decade, they all portray teenage characters with adult actors in adult situations.

A 2011 study conducted by the “Parents Television Council” researchers analyzed the most watched television shows in 2009-2010 amongst 12-17 year olds. The study found that “underage female characters were shown participating in a higher percentage of sexual depictions compared to adults (47% to 29% respectively).”

Ten years later, media has continued to depict minors in questionable ways.

However, the entertainment industry hasn’t always portrayed teen sex. Why did we go from shows like “The Brady Bunch” to “Euphoria”? Why did Tiktok go from dance videos to “thirst traps”? Social media usage skyrocketed during the Covid-19 lockdowns.Tiktok grabbed the attention of bored teens across the US, leading to the rise of streaming services on social media platforms.

“Companies are trying to make a profit and ‘sex sells’. Social media is right in our face,” Feminist Club co-president senior Gracie Peterman said. “These shows and things like that, they’re going to take advantage of that [how sex sells] too, because the more viewers they get, the more money they make.”

The idolized characters in teen-catered television are often portrayed by actors well into their twenties.

Hit TV show “Outer Banks” stars 22-year old Madelyn Cline playing 16 year old Sarah Cameron, an ideal bodied, blonde haired “pretty girl”. Characters like Cameron are seen as society’s beauty standard. Teenagers can’t live up to

actors like Chase Stokes who played John B, “Outer Banks” sixteen year old “heartthrob” at the age of 27.

“I think a lot of high schoolers, especially young men who haven’t grown into their bodies yet, will expect themselves to look like those actors,” senior Vivian Ivory said. “It’ll mentally mess with them and they might gain Body Dysmorphia. They’ll expect women to not be interested in them because they don’t look like these 20 year olds who are supposed to be 16.”

There are a multitude of reasons why teenages don’t play these roles: regulations on film time for actors under age, factoring time out of the day for school and they can’t film the explicit scenes that adults can: explicit drug use, nudity and party culture(see Skins, Euphoria, Elité).

This standard the media has created sends mixed signals to today’s youth. Some question themselves and their worth because they “don’t look like” or “live like” the characters portraying their age group on screen and online.

“They will see these beautiful actors acting their age, but having everything that they don’t have yet. and it’s okay to not have a body type that someone has on a show. It doesn’t mean you’re any less worthy, but it does make you feel some type of way,” Ivory said.

On the contrary, the teens who are embraced by the overly mature standard, are pushed even further in the opposite direction.

“But then there’s also

Photo by Julia Schnittker

people who live for it. And will purposefully make certain content for that because they know that they’ll get attention from it and if they’re not used to getting attention. They’ll feed into it and it can really get them hurt,” Ivory said.

The same “The Parents Television Council” study found that “73% of the underage sexualized incidents were presented in a humorous manner or as a punch line to a joke.”

This harmful portrayal of teenagers is packaged as en-

tertainment, to be laughed at.

“I think that it’s gotten a lot worse because I’ve seen girls that are in sixth grade that went to my elementary school wearing full on makeup and everything like that,” senior Hadley Carson said. “There are some girls just wearing bras to school. And they’re trying so hard to look a certain way. Just because that’s what they think, either men, or the people they want, crave.”

Kids and teenagers are fed repetitive messages and imagery on what the “ideal” of everything is. A lot of this imagery is about appearance and body and how it “should” look.

“ …with having an eating disorder, they crave validation from anyone and everyone about their bodies and the way that they look and I feel like a lot of girls feel that if they’re not dressing a certain way and if someone doesn’t compliment their outfit or how their body looks, they feel like they’re not seen or anything,” Carson said.

This isn’t just a women’s issue too. It affects all youth regardless of gender.

“When you see social media, it’s really a glorified version of someone’s life,” senior Dominic Dawson said. “You don’t see the struggles that they go through…I feel like most of us want to feel like people are jealous of us, right? So if everybody is jealous of everybody and everybody is insecure, then people find their own way to cope with that. And, you know, sometimes it’s just not the most healthy mechanism.”

DISCUSSED dress code

students, faculty share thoughts, feelings on dress code.

reporting by kareem dadkhah

comments on an incident last school year —

Iwas sitting down in my seat and before I even sat down, I checked to make sure that nobody could see anything — just in case, like I always do. As my teacher comes into the classroom, [they] stop dead in front of everyone and the whole class goes silent. [They] look me up and down and says, “nobody needs to see all that. Go to the office.”

Vivian Ivory senior

Iwant to be clear, I want people to do what they want to do. And I don’t think that we need a rigid dress code. I think like people should be able to do what they want to do. But like, that only goes to an extent.” Jonathan Swanberg

senior

Ithink that the imposition of dress code with rules about like spaghetti straps or shoulders; that creates an issue that’s not there. I have never met a single person who has a problem with either of those things, or been disturbed by them whatsoever outside of religious standings or other morals.” Joseph Goodman junior The purpose of the dress code is to make sure that students are dressed appropriately for the school day.”

It’s defined by our handbook which is sent out by the district. They define the appropriate dress code as well.”

What do you mean by appropriately?

Becky Thiessen

associate principal

SMSD Dress Code 2022-2023 handbook

If a student’s appearance attracts undue attention to the extent that it may become a disruptive factor in the education process, a buliding administrator will ask the student to make the necessary changes. In the event that the change does not take place in the time allowed, the administrator will prescribe the consequences. Clothing with vulgar, profane, ethnically derogatory messages, pictures, symbols, or depictions of gangs, illegal substances, or alcoholic beverages may not be worn. For further information about the school dress code, refer to Board Policy JCDB or your school guidelines. No wearing distinctive type of clothing or exhibiting distinctive appearance that connotes gang affiliation. Tradtional tribal regalia or objects of cultural significance shall not be prohibited at a public event.