'oh sure, he'll tell us when he's had sex or taken drugs but why doesn't he tell us about his poos? hmm? hmm?'
Okay. Helen made me actually sit down and watch skins series one over summer because she liked it and I thought it was a cringey piece of poo. After getting into it a bit I realised that it was quite a well written cringey piece of poo, the problem lies in the 'teenage' characters.
The characters are formed around the way the 'actual' teenagers that supposedly 'contributed' to the show see themselves and how the writers see them. This 'ideal' teenager becomes an embarrassing look into the fantasies of many teenagers and people we assume were once teenagers. :P All the main (non-comedy) characters were glaringly middle class which, in series one, had to be offset with comedy posh characters with over-the-top accents which almost almost made the main cast sound like they could actually come from 'Roundview Sixth Form College' rather than from stage school. They all go to parties and go totally wild man... like have really sexy sex and do sexy dances and snogs and there's always music playing so there's never a moment where they have to feel awkward or embarrassed like actual teenagers do. Any characters that do suffer from actual human feelings such as self-doubt or whateverrr are seen as a bit weak or odd. In series one this was treated quite sensitively at times, the only virgin character, Sid, was in many ways the main character and to be sympathised with, but the burden of his virginity keeps him from sharing the glamourous status of the other characters.
Anyway, there's a new series which I just saw the first episode of. The previously acceptableish writing has gone out the window, replaced by fart jokes and overacted caricatures of clueless non-teenagers. The main character, Effy is unburdened by things like... A SOUL and just stares vacantly with her joyless, kohl'd eyes occasionally making pseudo-wise or world-weary comments to prove how stupid everyone else is. All 'normal' the boys have ridiculous surfer-boy hairstyles and not a trace of fucking humility, an 'abnormal' boy called JJ is practically autistic (well on the spectrum!) and lacks the ability to wow girls with his obnoxiousness, instead he is portrayed as sexually repressed (to the point of... trauma?!?) because he won't or can't look at some tacky porn mag. The girls are drawn in similar ways, either sexually experienced and confident or inexperienced and therefore either ditzy or cripplingly shy. The whole show from begining to end made me cringe so much I think my face is stuck in a grimace. It's weak sensationalist writing, especially that over-glamourised sex scene, why didn't they just fucking put a soft focus on, light some candles and play some porn-groove, it was so contrived. Teenagers wish they could have sex like that, and dare I exaggerate a little: because of this show, teenagers who have rubbish awkward normal teenage sex are gonna feel like freaks. Yeah that's right freaks! But they're all gonna pretend to their friends that it was just like on Skins, happy land where the only emotions anyone has are fundamentally narcissistic and any rebellion is completely meaningless and all sex was shot from flattering angles! Let the myths just keep on coming.'"$%$%^.
Anyway, it's just a tv show, but I just wish there was a good tv drama in the uk for young people... it's this or Hollyoaks. I don't think Skins relates to young people, I think it's alienating unless you assimilate it. Either that or just recognise it as a complete fiction... like I do...
Anyway, I'm doing a kind of exploration into showing things that are supposedly to be ignored or embarrassed about, I thought about how my new art video embarrasses me because it contains things that I said just in everyday conversation, it isn't edited or censored by me. This is the antithesis of skins for me, showing just life, it doesn't matter if it's boring either because it's an art video. hahah. When people say they are revealing things about themselves they are only revealing what they want you to know anyway which is often carefully chosen. (lol, I think Sam and Hat will remember this quote from me! talking about someone we know 'oh sure, he'll tell us when he's had sex or taken drugs but why doesn't he tell us about his poos? hmm? hmm?')
The problem with my video is that I knew I was recording myself so it affected what I said. This in a way makes it funnier for me because when I know people are listening to me, stuff I want to say that is maybe intellectual, I really dumb down because I'm so scared of either sounding pretentious or saying something incorrect whilst being pretentious. lol how verrry embarassing, the thing is, if you reveal yourself to people as much as you can, they can only understand you better surely? Isn't that a good thing?
