American High on PBS

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

OK, so I’ve always been a sucker for reality TV. Sue me. But after 6 or so weeks, I’m still trying to sort out how I feel about this show.

First of all, boyohboy has life changed since I was in high school.

First of all, the gay kid, Brad. When I was in high school an openly gay kid would have had his ass kicked on a daily basis. DISCLAIMER: I’m not saying that this is a good thing; I’m just pointing out that that’s how it was back in The Day.

A lot of these kids seem to have HUGE chips on their shoulders. I’m referring specificaly to Brad, Robbie, Allie, and Pablo. Especially Allie; take the rage and stuff it, girlie. You’ve taken on this “My parents are getting divorced so I’m going to skip school, smoke, and be an asshole” attitude. You’re turning yourself into a victim and it’s not going to do you any good. Two words: therapy.

And Pablo, the poetry-loving reprobate :rolleyes:. Hey Pablo, your jones for poetry is going to go over real big in the County Lock-up, which is where you’re clearly headed.

I kinda like Morgan and Kaytee. Morgan obviously has some issues, but he’s got a sense of humor about it. At least he doesn’t mope around the way Brad & Co. do. Kaytee is cute and she has an addicting voice. She’s trying to give off this guitar-playing/feminist hippie/coffeehouse vibe, but at the same time she’s got a severe case of Boy Crazy.

The other characters are slowly being introduced as the show progresses, so maybe at some point they’ll show some normal kids that I can relate to. But as it stands now, I’ve got to say: WTF???

So what do the rest of you think? And to the SDMB Teenagers: how does life on American High compare to your experience?

singing
“We walk the halls of life,
see the things that we wanna see…”

#2

Okay i’m bumping this thread up because I was bored last night and saw it was on PBS. I know it used to be on FOX but for some reason it seems more of a PBS show. I guess since it’s a documentary, but instead of lions and gazelles, there are high school students.

Most of them strike me as overly angsty- and the poetry thing is kind of annoying. I find it really strange that people would expose such personal facets of their lives to viewers. I.e…getting drunk, getting chewed out by the 'rents, that kind of thing. I just know I would absolutely hate it, but maybe other people are different. Or maybe they just got paid a lot. :slight_smile:

Morgan kind of strikes me as a bit arrogant, kind of an asshole. His parents seem really sweet though; there was one scene where his dad was telling him that he bought the car just so that his son wouldn’t be able to “pick up women” in it. Hehe.

In general it’s an all right show. I am a high school student but personally I don’t think I can relate to the show that much. Those people can be really trying at times. Eh. What do you guys think?

#3

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that a majority of high school students will not go through half of what these kids go through. Things just aren’t like this (Well, apparently they are for the American High kids but generally not). Obviously it has to be edited for content and content because this is what is most interesting. We end up seeing a skewed view of a whole year of life bunched into a few short half hour segments. If they showed the lives of the average high school student, it would be pretty boring.