Media Matters

When I was younger, my family watched a lot of sitcoms about (SCWAAMPy) families. A lot of these shows, like Reba and 8 Simple Rules featured families with two teenage daughters. Every single time, one daughter was pretty and the other was smart. Along with a LOT of other media, this set up a mutually exclusive complete dichotomy for me; I had to be smart or pretty, and definitely couldn't be both.  Since people told me I was smart, and I didn't look like the type of pretty that was represented, I accepted my fate as "smart (inherently un-pretty) teen girl." It's a thing on shows now, too.

Smart Sister or Pretty Sister, both have that "teen attitude."

Bonus points for the smart teen also being
angsty and the pretty teen also being pregnant.

As a fifteen and sixteen year old, I watched a lot of Skins. This show, made in the UK, had teens on the production team, and was meant to be "realistic." Of course, it was over-the top and showed a lifestyle of constant partying that I could not relate to at all, but it also had a young lesbian couple that was given as much attention and respect by the show as its straight pairings. Even though it was at times problematic, it was still relatable and featured representation of serious issues faced by people, including teens, like metal illness, homelessness, sex, and family and relationship issues.

These two were/are so important to me.

Parents!! Shield your kids!!!

As I moved through my teens, I was constantly looking for things I could relate to, or that were "different" (challenging the dominant ideology).My Mad Fat Diary wasn't perfect, but watching it was a step in changing how I thought about teens and beauty in general.

A teen who doesn't meet traditional beauty standards, has a love interest who definitely does, goes to therapy in every episode (!!!!!! And it is good for her! Pretty sure I have never seen another show that shows this), and is a sexual person, which isn't made into a joke or mocked because of her gender or size. Also, turns out the guy she's talking about here is gay, and they later help each other with their respective love interests and love each other platonically and it isn't weird that she was super into him before.