Examples Of Teen Stereotypes
How many articles, songs, movies and news stories have you seen or read that demonise teens? Now how many have you seen that praise and honour teens? The second question would be hard to answer because of how common it is for the media to ‘shame’ teenagers. After exploring several styles and examples of adolescents in the media, I have concluded that the way teenagers are represented is unfair and inaccurate.
An article published by The Independent UK states that “These statistics were extracted from an article from the popular news site in the United Kingdom, Independent UK, which recently published an article about the portrayal of teens. Many more internet articles included similar shocking statistics, such as: \ As stated early in the first quote, the author mentioned how the …show more content…
teens commit crimes which are most likely to make headlines then a teen doing good within the community.
After reading these statistics you begin to realise that this happens every single day, but we just don’t realise this because it has now become normal to name and shame teenagers about their bad behavior. This happens in a way that we don’t really give any attention to because it has become normal, expected and acceptable to most of society.
To look at a more specific media representation, I will be discussing the popular new sequel, ‘22 Jump Street’. The movie is similar to the first movie in the franchise, ‘21 Jump Street’. To sum it up into a simple explanation, the movie consists of drugs, alcohol, sex and more drugs. The two protagonists are undercover police trying to bring down a drug empire set up by college students. The movie shows the buying, dealing and using of these drugs as if it was normal.
By doing this, the film reinforces the idea that teens have no consideration for themselves, others and their futures. It also plays on the typical teen traits: no respect, indifference and rebelliousness. The characters at fault appear to learn nothing from their actions throughout the story.
Another form of media that showed teenagers in an inaccurate way was a Podcast, titled ‘Drug Abuse Among Teens’ featuring a professional and experienced child psychologist, Dr Lauren Mackler, and members of the community who are concerned about the matter of teen drug abuse and behavior caused because of it. The host of the podcast has had over 25 years of experience in the field of a psychologist. In her podcast she labelled drug-using teens as having issues and being mentally troubled. While this may apply to a small percent of teenagers, most do not fit this stereotype.
It is commonly believed that the media has too much power in terms of creating fear, stereotypes and panic on many issues including youth.
Many may debate that it is not the media creating these stereotypes, it is the teenagers themselves, the only involvement the media has is the spreading of these stereotypes among different styles of media and entertainment. This spreading across different styles of media and entertainment is the reason behind the popular stereotype definitions that everybody knows.
My personal opinion on this view of the media and teen stereotypes is that the media is at fault. The reason behind my opinion is based on the fact that because of the media abusing its role in today’s world, it has lead people to believe whatever it says is true, like its way of displaying adolescence.
The stereotypes displayed by the media only reflect on a small percentage of teenagers, but there is a much larger portion of teenagers who do not fit the ‘teenager’ stereotype that the media displays. Instead of showing the behavior of the small minority of teens who are stereotypical, why doesn’t the media display the behavior of the larger portion of the adolescent
population.
It would be ideal for the media to change its representation of teenagers, but in my opinion the medias definition of teenagers is over engraved into the minds of people who view the media. The main problem when it comes to moving on from portraying teens in the media would be the fact that the media would have no news stories to cover, the reason behind this would be the fact that majority of todays news stories revolve around teenage behavior.
An article published by The Independent UK states that “These statistics were extracted from an article from the popular news site in the United Kingdom, Independent UK, which recently published an article about the portrayal of teens. Many more internet articles included similar shocking statistics, such as: \ As stated early in the first quote, the author mentioned how the …show more content…
teens commit crimes which are most likely to make headlines then a teen doing good within the community.
After reading these statistics you begin to realise that this happens every single day, but we just don’t realise this because it has now become normal to name and shame teenagers about their bad behavior. This happens in a way that we don’t really give any attention to because it has become normal, expected and acceptable to most of society.
To look at a more specific media representation, I will be discussing the popular new sequel, ‘22 Jump Street’. The movie is similar to the first movie in the franchise, ‘21 Jump Street’. To sum it up into a simple explanation, the movie consists of drugs, alcohol, sex and more drugs. The two protagonists are undercover police trying to bring down a drug empire set up by college students. The movie shows the buying, dealing and using of these drugs as if it was normal.
By doing this, the film reinforces the idea that teens have no consideration for themselves, others and their futures. It also plays on the typical teen traits: no respect, indifference and rebelliousness. The characters at fault appear to learn nothing from their actions throughout the story.
Another form of media that showed teenagers in an inaccurate way was a Podcast, titled ‘Drug Abuse Among Teens’ featuring a professional and experienced child psychologist, Dr Lauren Mackler, and members of the community who are concerned about the matter of teen drug abuse and behavior caused because of it. The host of the podcast has had over 25 years of experience in the field of a psychologist. In her podcast she labelled drug-using teens as having issues and being mentally troubled. While this may apply to a small percent of teenagers, most do not fit this stereotype.
It is commonly believed that the media has too much power in terms of creating fear, stereotypes and panic on many issues including youth.
Many may debate that it is not the media creating these stereotypes, it is the teenagers themselves, the only involvement the media has is the spreading of these stereotypes among different styles of media and entertainment. This spreading across different styles of media and entertainment is the reason behind the popular stereotype definitions that everybody knows.
My personal opinion on this view of the media and teen stereotypes is that the media is at fault. The reason behind my opinion is based on the fact that because of the media abusing its role in today’s world, it has lead people to believe whatever it says is true, like its way of displaying adolescence.
The stereotypes displayed by the media only reflect on a small percentage of teenagers, but there is a much larger portion of teenagers who do not fit the ‘teenager’ stereotype that the media displays. Instead of showing the behavior of the small minority of teens who are stereotypical, why doesn’t the media display the behavior of the larger portion of the adolescent
population.
It would be ideal for the media to change its representation of teenagers, but in my opinion the medias definition of teenagers is over engraved into the minds of people who view the media. The main problem when it comes to moving on from portraying teens in the media would be the fact that the media would have no news stories to cover, the reason behind this would be the fact that majority of todays news stories revolve around teenage behavior.