By Vida Jones
When you think of teenage shows today, what do you think of? Euphoria? Gossip Girl? Whatever show you think of, most of the time the actors are extremely attractive, usually in their mid to late 20s, creating an illusion for how teenagers today think they should look like. Of course, many teens today have an understanding that this is just how Hollywood works, casting older actors to play teenagers. Still, with this media surrounding us, how do we know if this image of adolescence will be internally grained in our minds?
Obviously, Hollywood has good reasons to cast older actors to play roles of minors. Actual teenagers wouldn’t be able to work as much in a day as an adult actor. And with the presence of legal adults, they can do a lot more than if they were under the restrictions of laws to protect minors. But is this a good thing? With the presence of adults on set, there is a lot more room for sex and nudity. This could lead to a depiction of sexual experimentation and the awkwardness around sex as a teenager. Instead, the sex scenes given are flawless performances without any ineptitude. This sets up an extreme desire for the act, pushing teenagers to try it, and, most of the time, results with disappointment for a false reality.
Because of the rise in popularity for the “teen dream” and the growing portrayal of teenagers as basically just college students, there’s been a silent death to the tween genre. Where middle schoolers had a wider range of appropriate shows, like Victorious or Lizzie McGuire, that focused on the lives of teenagers while taking a step back from the more adult aspects of adolescence, tweens are jumping straight to shows like Pretty Little Liars or Sabrina the Teenage Witch. This closes a gap between childhood and adulthood, allowing kids to be aware about more mature topics, often causing them to want to grow up faster or look older. Some people may argue that middle school is a fine time to learn about these things, and it is good to have exposure to such topics, but it shouldn’t be fed to them constantly on a silver platter. These kids aren’t teenagers just yet and they deserve the media to pace themselves into adulthood. Obviously, kids will learn about adult topics at a younger age than in the past because of social media and the internet, but tweens shouldnt be subjected to shows that deal with too heavy of topics for them to understand yet.
The most obvious effect that the portrayal of teenagers has on us is our body image. Casting gorgeous 20 something year olds to play 16 year olds is extremely unrealistic. With their perfect skin and flat stomachs, teenagers can’t help but compare themselves. Because these actors have already gone through the whole puberty bit, they dont look like teenagers at all. With Hollywood only casting the most beautiful of actors, it creates an impossible standard, and with the sexualization of teenage girls, it promotes teenage girls to sexualise themselves. According to the The Celluloid Ceiling Report, women made up only 12% of directors working on the 100 top-grossing films in 2021, and of the 1,666 series directors working on Netflix shows, 27.7% were women. The male gaze dominating media challenges young girls by portraying them as objects of desire instead of people. With beautiful adults portraying the average teenage girl, teenagers feel the need to look like them to have worth.
Because of all these pitfalls of teenagers in the media there should be a genre of shows for teens, by teens, one that can actually connect to teenage life. There should be more shows like Sex Education, that shows teenage sex as an experimental, awkward thing teenagers go through in order to know who they are and what they like. It would be amazing if the media could portray teenagers accurately, flaws and all. Still, the question comes up, should shows hire teenage actors and risk their safety, or should they continue hiring adults to create a glamorous, fake illusion?