For the most part, it seems most TV shows and movies can’t show a teenager getting drunk, using drugs or having sex without the most dire of consequences. Even if it’s just caffeine pills. Even if it’s just alcohol, and the character isn’t addicted, we have to see them being stupid when drunk and then puking their guts out, hungover, etc.
Are there any examples where kids do these things and not much happens? One example that sprung to mind was Meadow on “The Sopranos.” In the first season, she does meth with her friend to stay awake to study. When I first saw her asking Christopher to get her and Hunter meth, I assumed we were going to see a downward spiral culminating with Meadow tearfully confessing all to her father…but nothing all that bad happens. Meadow mentions to her father that she was on meth and he gets angry, but she says she stopped on her own because it got scary and she didn’t want to do it anymore. Which I liked because sometimes people do hard drugs and just stop and that’s it. You wouldn’t know it from the way most drugs are portrayed.
As for sex, “Beverly Hills 90210” seemed cool in the way that Brenda lost her virginity to Dylan–until there was the inevitable pregnancy scare. I do remember reading that viewers were irate that it seemed consequence free and then the pregnancy scare was written in. (But as I recall, nothing bad happened to Brandon when he lost it. Well, he breaks up with the girl, but she wasn’t a main character, more like an ex girlfriend brought on for the purpose of him becoming a man and all that.) I guess things are more enlightened these days, but there’s definitely a feel that for guys, sex is sort of necessary, but for girls, the dire consequences must be emphasized, again and agian.
In Freaks and Geeks most of the “Freaks” smoked pot without any real consequence. That 70’s Show was pretty realistic on drugs, alcohol, and sex too. Sometimes they ended up facing real trouble, other times there was no problem.
On the show “Weeds”, many protagonists are users, including teenagers, but don’t really have problems under the influence. They do run into trouble because many of them are fuckwits to begin with though :).
Same goes for alcohol and sex - there is an arc about a teenager getting his girlfriend pregnant, but
that’s because he made holes in their condoms to get her pregnant so she wouldn’t leave him.
So like I said, it’s a direct consequence of the character being an idiot, not a dire indictment of teenage sex.
Throughout the entire run of Trailer Park Boys not a one of the protaganists nor antagonists really develop (intellectually) beyond the level of ignorant, reactionary, teenager (although each character is the personification of a unique flavour of ignorant, reactionary, teenager.)
And every single one of them is involved in at least two of the Drink/Drug/Sex trifecta, and usually a whole lot more.
Superbad, an oustanding movie, shows drinking and teenager sex as just part of the high school experience. Getting the alcohol to the party was not quite normal but hardly condmned.
Fast Times At Ridgemont High would fit somewhat. One of the protagonists ends up getting an abortion, but the movie is more of a portrayal of teen life rather than a condemnation of their behavior.
That movie was a carbon copy of my teen years. Except for the sex. And the funny.
Roseanne covered the topics realistically. When she found out Becky was having sex with Mark, she took her to the ob/gyn for birth control pills. She accepted Darlene having sex with David, but blew her top when she found David was living with Darlene without her knowledge.
There was a very funny show where 15 year old Becky and a friend were home alone and got drunk. When Becky had a massive hangover, Dan put a lock on their liquor cabinet.
Most of the characters on Gossip Girl drink as a matter of course. Normally their drinking is no big thing, but it causes problems when they’re drugged (Serena) or get tanked in inappropriate places (Chuck at his father’s funeral).
The beer and pot in Dazed and Confused was depicted as not all that a big deal. Some kids got too wasted and fell over or made fools of themselves, but that was it.
Veronica Mars showed a fairly casual acceptance of alcohol and sex. I can’t recall any specific episode where it particularly endorsed or condemned it.
Practically every '80s teen sex comedy has the kids drinking, getting laid, sometimes smoking pot, and the only bad results, if any, are the reactions of narrowminded elders.
On current TV, Kyle XY and Greek both show characters drinking and having premarital sex, with no preachiness. However, some consequences, such as hangovers and a case of the crabs ARE shown, which are results.
You must have watched a different show than I did. Off the top of my head:
Veronica is raped after drinking at a party.
Veronica and Duncan have some serious psychological trauma because they have sex and later think that they are related.
Lily is killed because she has sex.
Practically every other episode features sexual infidelity or various social ills due to drinking or drugs.That’s just in the first season.
I always loved that at the end of *The Bad News Bears *(the 1976 version) Coach Buttermaker hands out beer to all the little 10 year olds to celebrate with, which they do right out on the field in front of or with their parents. In fact, in the scene where the Yankees are “apologizing” as they hold their huge trophy, all the little kids on the Bears team are standing there nursing a Bud. Classic.
Can you imagine the head lines of today? Little League Coach Furnishes Alcoholic Beverages To Preteens. He’d be in jail faster than you can say “Vic Morrow’s severed head.”
Also gotta love the over done reactions. Wasn’t it only a sip of beer that the kids had on “Saved by the Bell” that resulted in a “drunk driving” accident?
I love the one where they find a roach in the bathroom. Saved by the Bell had to have the least accurate portrayal of teenage culture, at least as far as substances were concerned… they almost never drank, smoked, or did anything, and when they did it was a fucking PSA.
I dunno, I think they’re topped in that regard by the Archie comics. “America’s Typical Teenager” indeed! It’s like fucking Pleasantville! Nobody ever gets high or laid even as a PSA! The possibility is never even mentioned! The only “bad” kids in the stories are either vandals, or dishonest cheating athletes from Central High. And even in the '60s and early '70s, the kids seemed completely oblivious to radical politics, or politics of any kind. The only deference shown to the ongoing cultural revolutions was in the mod clothes and long hair they (intermittently) wore.
