By Maria Cortes
Staff Writer
Back in January, MTV aired its own adaptation of the UK show “Skins”. The show is based on nine adolescents who immerse their lives in music, drugs, sex, and alcohol. While the UK version of the show was widely successful, the American version didn’t do so hot.
As soon as the first episode aired on MTV, the Parents Television Council labeled it as “child pornography” and started attacking the show’s sponsors. They said that the show was promoting teen sex, as the characters are no older than 16, and live a lifestyle of excessive drinking and drug use. As the attacks went on, the show’s sponsors slowly started backing out until MTV announced that “Skins” would not be coming back for a second season.
This not only shocks me, but it makes me question the intelligence of the members of the Parents Television Council. There are far more shows out there that are either exactly the same as “Skins” or worse. Take, for example, “The Hard Times of R.J. Berger”, another scripted series on MTV that focus on a high school boy with an incredibly large male appendage.
Other shows like “The Jersey Shore,” “Gossip Girl,” “The Vampire Dairies,” and a show that has replaced “Skins” called “I Just Want My Pants Back,” show the exact amount of alcohol use, drug use, homosexuality, sex, and violence. The only difference is that instead of teenagers on the show, they’re “adults.” Why not crack down on those shows? Don’t they show exactly the same amount of harsh material that you want to keep your children away from?
“The Secret Life of an American Teenager” is a series on ABC Family. The show revolves around a 14 year old girl who got pregnant the summer before she started high school by a boy who was three years older than her. The show features teen pregnancy, still-born fetuses, sex, sex between a minor and an adult, and a slew of other problems that are supposedly set to represent the “secret life” of your average American adolescent.
This show is painfully out of touch with reality with its content. The only difference between the two shows is that one is set in middle America, with a predominantly white cast, while the other has an interracial cast of characters with troubled home-lives. I don’t doubt that you can figure out which one is which.
The cancellation of “Skins” was a very unintelligent decision. There are dozens of shows out there that feature far more harmful content. The show was censored and it aired at 11 p.m. as a way to filter under-aged viewers. You even had to confirm your age on the MTV website if you wanted to watch the episodes online.
So I have a word of advise for the Parents Television Council, if you are going to cancel “Skins,” you should probably cancel every other show on the air.
