DAILY MAIL: Uproar over TV show depicting teenagers acting like teenagers. (22.01.2011)

The TV show Skins has caused some controversy in The US after the debut of its American remake on MTV. Now, as anything to do with teenagers, popular culture, and any sort of deviation for Christian Ethics is like porn for Daily Mail reporters, they are all over the story like a pig in shit;

Furious parents today demanded a federal investigation into the controversial MTV show Skins.

The Parents Television Council has written to the House and Senate judiciary committees alleging that MTV and parent company Viacom may be violating federal law by featuring actors as young as 15 in graphic scenes of a sexual nature.

Campaigners claim the show - a U.S. remake of an equally controversial British TV series - may breach child pornography laws and is littered with references to drugs and alcohol.

I was 18 when Skins first aired, so I was roughly the target demographic, and it’s not hyperbole to say that I thought, and still think, that Skins is one of the biggest piles of shit I’ve ever witnessed. A load of spoilt middle class kids thinking they’re rebels because they go to house parties and smoke jazz cigarettes. It was lazy, hack writing with everything just thrown in like drugs, sex, drink, truancy, crime etc with the intention of pissing off parents and tabloids, and to make naïve 16 year olds think ‘OMG, this is soooo cool!’. It was about as lazy as writing can get. Appeal to people’s base instincts and watch the money roll in.

The current trouble with the show is that parents and watchdogs think that Skins, just aired in America, will have a negative impact on its younger viewers.

‘In addition to the sexual content on the show involving cast members as young as 15, PTC counted 42 depictions and references to drugs and alcohol in the premiere episode,’ they added.

The Parents Television Council, which boasts 1.3 million members, has labelled the show as, ‘The most dangerous program ever for children.’

‘The only issue is; are there kids involved who are under the age of 18? That’s it, that’s enough. That’s child pornography.’

Basically, Skins is being treated as another example in the long line of ‘it’s going corrupt our kids!’.

As a society we need to wake up and have a new way of thinking. With or without skins, teenagers will drink, smoke, have sex and do drugs. I hate the program, don’t watch it, have no desire to watch it, yet have done all those things as a teenager. It’s not like teenagers are going to watch this show and go ‘Jesus. Drink alcohol and fuck each other? I never even thought of that!’. There’s no point burying your head in the sand and pretending that teenagers are little angles. Every teenager at some point will be exposed to these vices and will 80% of the time dabble in them. This climate of scare tactics and censure will only make people search these out more. 

Most teenagers aren’t like the ones depicted in Skins. Most are a lot more intelligent and responsible. Most don’t look at Skins and think ‘shiiiiiiiiiiiit, I’ll have me some of that’. Most will probably look at skins and think ‘orgies? Drug binges? Trashing houses? Bit unrealistic.’ The Daily Mail and Conservative Parent watchdog groups think teenagers are fucking idiots. They think they are sponges they will soak up any old crap they’re told, like a group of lobotomized drones. They’re not. They’re quite smart. They’re invariably smarter than you. So don’t look at something like Skins and think ‘shit, drugs and booze. I can’t let my spaz kid see this or that’s any hope of a doctor son out the window’. Most teenagers will expose themselves to vices, get in a few scrapes, grow up and lead perfectly normal lives.

Parents. Daily Mail. Conservaties. Just relax, yeah?

 BEST READER COMMENT

• Quite disgusting isn’t it. I would ban it but I’m not the greedy sleaze balls promoting this kind of filth for young people to pick up on. Goodness knows things are bad enough with under age sex, drugs and porn without this.- William, Bridge of Don, 21/1/2011 18:58

Sleeze ball? The fuck is a sleeze ball?