A Real Teenager’s Response to The Secret Life of an American Teen

I met Lilly the other week and we got to talking about The Secret Life of an American Teenager, a show I’ve never seen, and I urged her to write a post on it. Check out her totally savvy analysis.
-Courtney

ABC Family’s new show, The Secret Life of an American Teen, demeans girls for being sexual and reinforces the good girl stereotype of quiet girls defined by their boyfriends.

The show begins when “band-geek” Amy discovers that, after a one night tryst at band camp, she is pregnant. The father is Ricky, the school’s resident player. Ricky is compelled to deflower girls and ruin their innocence just as his was taken from him; we later discover that Ricky, who is now in the foster care system, was sexually abused as a child. Instead of considering that teenagers are horny, The Secret Life decides the only reason a teenager would want to have sex is due to a profound psychological disturbance.

Luckily, Ricky is in good company. His female counterpart, and frequent conquest, is a feisty Latina (of course) named Adrian. As explained on the ABC Family website, her “seldom-home flight attendant mom” is the cause of Adrian’s sexual rebellion. To counteract her daddy issues and her mother’s neglect, Adrian sleeps with two different male characters and even flirts with the Latino school counselor.  Adrian doesn’t have any friends because as anyone of the female persuasion can tell you, girls love to hate sluts. Even Ricky seems to dislike Adrian. This is painfully clear yet we are forced to endure countless scenes of Adrian asking Ricky to spend the night of just coming over for a quickie. Alas, ABC Family seems to be rewriting a well known story. You know the one, it’s called Boys Just Want Sex . And we are all familiar with the sequel Poor Girl Thinks he Likes Her.

Only the counselor knows that Adrian is actually a good a student, because we all know admitting you are a smart girl is social suicide. If Adrian’s academic skill was revealed she would be absolutely terrifying to her community. Adrian is already more powerful than good girls are supposed to be due to her overt sexuality. A girl empowered by her body and her mind defies all sorts of unwritten rules. Girls who are outspoken in the classroom or proud of her sexuality quickly learn that she should be ashamed of her power.

Meanwhile, ABC Family for manages to scandalize abortion without even talking about it. Amy looks as if she just saw Bambi’s mother killed as she tries to wish away her pregnancy. No one talks about the options she has. In fact, the closest any of the characters came to saying abortion was, “You’re not thinking of..? Are you?” On The Secret Life “abortion” is the new Voldemort, an unspeakable force of evil that is never to be named.

Props to ABC Family for managing to criticize abortion without even talking about it!

Not only are Amy and her friends naïve about pregnancy, they know nothing about sex. Amy mentions multiple times that she doesn’t know if she and Ricky even had real sex. After all, good girls shouldn’t know about sex. They certainly shouldn’t think about it…unless they want to end up friendless and clingy like Adrian. The only solution Amy and her friends can agree on is having Amy marry her boyfriend, Ben. ABC Family tells their viewers that when a girl is in a pickle, she must trick a guy into liking her and he will take care of the rest.

            In ABC Familyland, sex is all or nothing. You are either good or your bad. Grace is Adrian’s antithesis. She comes from a stable, Christian home and is consequently a pretty, sweet, celibate cheerleader with a boyfriend, Jack. When she refuses to give Jack a blowjob, he puts Adrian on his to do list and is eventually caught kissing her. The moral of the story is guys can’t possibly be in a relationship because they like the girl and if a girl deprives her boyfriend of sex (oral or otherwise) he has no choice but to leave you.

            Even though the entire school sees Jack and Adrian kissing, Grace forgives. Because that’s what good girls do, they make everyone else comfortable at their own expense. She forgives him because perfect girls like Grace are completed by their boyfriends. This is why Grace starts tricking her parents into thinking she is dating Ricky when she is really seeing Jack. One night, Jack leaves Grace, in her cheerleading uniform, in front of a bank waiting for Ricky to pick her up and take her home. When two men get out of their car and approach her menacingly, Grace picks up a broken bottle and wields it like a knife. The next day the video from the bank’s surveillance camera is all over the news. Instead of commending Grace for her quick thinking, her parents condemn her for threatening the men and being seen with a shirtless boy. Grace expresses her disappointment in herself for picking up the bottle. She abides with her parents’ wishes and publicly apologizes to the community for her actions. Of all of the twisted messages ABC Family sends their viewers, this is by far the most damaging. Grace’s story tells girls not to defend themselves from sexual predators. Instead of fighting back they should just wait for the boy to come to the rescue. Resisting the harassment of strange men will lead to public embarrassment. Say no to rape and you can say goodbye to your good girl status.

            I began watching The Secret Life , expecting Gossip Girl ¸ sans absurd amounts of money. Instead I discovered a poorly disguised manual for girls. I was told that good girls are not sexual. Good girls rely on men to solve their problems. Good girls are absolutely and completely celibate. And good girls don’t fight back.

But here’s the real secret. Girls don’t want to play by those rules anymore. And its about time ABC Family stops trying to scare us into submission.