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Wealth and Beauty Equals Popularity in Beverly Hills 90210
Every teenager who has attended high school can relate to the pressures that come from the desire to be popular. It’s normal for teens to feel the need to be in the “in crowd” and to fit in with the “beautiful people.” Television shows help contribute to this “need” to fit in. One such show, Beverly Hills 90210, is based on beautiful teenage characters, most of whom are wealthy and, coincidentally, popular.
In today’s society there is a shared cultural belief that in order to be popular high school students must be wealthy and beautiful. The show both challenges and reinforces this cultural belief by offering characters like Kelly Taylor, who is a beautiful, California blonde who seems to lead an ideal life. She is one of the most popular girls at West Beverly High (partly because she was able to afford a nose job). Beautiful people such as Steve Sanders--a wealthy, snobbish womanizer--constantly surround her. A character who challenges this belief is Andrea Zuckerman, an intelligent, middle-class student who is more concerned about her grades than her appearance. And there are also the twins from Minnesota, Brenda and Brandon Walsh, who are not instantly popular; rather, they use their personalities (and their good looks), not their wealth, to fit in.
On the outside Kelly, Steve, and even Brandon and Brenda seem to be happy because they are popular and because they lead fairly normal lives. But the well-seasoned viewer knows that these are just transparent beliefs. These beautiful teens do not lead perfect lives. The show has some cultural significance: seemingly superficial characters have complexities that are not obvious at a first glance.
In fact, Kelly is ashamed of how she lost her virginity and the fact that her mother is an alcoholic. She is unexpectedly conscientious; she was concerned about her SAT scores. Kelly also proved to be a good friend to Brenda after she threw her a surprise going away party when the Walsh family was planning to move back to Minnesota. Kelly seems so self-absorbed on the outside but at the same time she is constantly trying to help her friends overcome obstacles.
Steve also contributed to the going away party.
Growing up wasn’t always easy for Kelly. She was the baby of the family, with four older brothers and sisters. Sitting in Catholic school, she tried to be the cute little girl she was supposed to be but on the playground, she was a terror. At the age of 5, she joined her first soccer league, which happened to be a boys’ team. Things stayed the same way until she got to high school. She began to notice boys and began to date. No one in her family had ever talked to her about the “birds and the bees,” or even about dating. Instead, independence, self-reliance, and strength were the most important things. If they had problems, they worked it out on their own. This served her poorly when she found herself in trouble with the Air Force years later. (pg. 9)
Initially in the article, Liz Lemon’s character was really loved by the viewers. However, viewers are upset about the direction the show is going in, because they used to feel as if Lemon was the heroine, but now they feel as if she is just a dumb pathetic baby. Nausbaum does not agree with the viewers and feels Liz Lemon, is “something way more interesting: a strange, specific, workaholic, NPR-worshipping, white-guilt-infected, sardonic, curmudgeonly, hyper-nerdy New Yorker” (Nussbaum 58). Lemon is starting to become a self-pleaser rather than a people pleaser and begins to embrace her individuality. This article speaks on how women need to embrace their individuality, by being who they are inside, and allowing that to show in every aspect of their lives no matter what others
“This is the true story, of seven strangers, picked to live in a house, and have their lives taped, to find out what happens when people stop being polite, and start getting real”(MTV). This marks the beginning of MTV’s reality show, The Real World. The show takes 7 strangers, puts them in a trendy luxurious home, taping them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for about 4 months. The cameras capture petty arguments, late night hook ups, and pure laziness. How could this not be real? There are not many people that can live in an expensive home while laying around all day, and partying all night with little work involved. The Real World is a display of 18-24 year olds, typecasted to have their most extreme stereotypical qualities blown out of proportion for the world to see.
FDA research has shown that tricyclic antidepressants such as Paxil can actually increase the severity of depression and suicidal behavior in teens and young adults. In the shocking expose “Treating the Mentally Ill,” medical journalist Rob Waters warns “Antidepressants including Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft, and Effexor have provoked hostile behavior and thoughts about suicide in a number of teenagers who have been prescribed the drugs. Some of th...
According to the FDA, about 2.5% of children and around 8% of adolescents are affected by depression (Temple). A common way to treat depression is by taking antidepressants. Children and teens have also been prescribed antidepressants for various reasons other than depression such as OCD and anxiety disorders. While it is legal for teenagers and children to take antidepressants, many people are concerned with the issues that taking antidepressants have. Children and teens should be allowed to take antidepressants only when other forms of therapy don’t work. Antidepressants are serious drugs that have severe warnings when children and teens use them. There is also an increased risk of worsening depression and suicide in children and teens, especially in the when they begin to take it. Even the less severe side effects can make quite a negative impact on life.
To start off reality shows has become a popular show amongst the younger crowd inducing dangerous stereotypical behavior in America. Reality shows have evolved to a new level of outrages crazy behavior, creating new versions of over exaggerated fake personal lives. For instance, a reality show on television Love & Hip Hop a show that depicts former black girlfriends of famous people and their climb to the top or strive to stay at the top violently and carelessly doing whatever they can by creating a “ghetto stereotype persona”. Targeting the young adults and teens Love & Hip Hop is a very influential show among young female viewers leading these viewers to believe that this is the way to live and make it to the top and in order to do it you have to act like a “ghetto black girl”. Another show that has a similar vibe to Love & Hip Hop but depicts the similar stereotype is Bad Girls Club. Bad Girls Club is a reality show that has a few young adult women living in the same house that party all the time
Adolescent years are a time period in a human beings life where we search for a place that we are most comfortable. It is a time where we try to find friends with similar interests and those who will easily accept us for who we are. Once we are accepted by those friends, we tend to do more things with hopes of getting approval from “the group.” Trying to fit in during adolescence is a significant factor for self-motivation because it determines the level of being accepted and popularity amongst our peers. Through our year of adolescence we experiment and try to discover oneself as a person, but we also find what our strongest traits are that are used in order to be accepted, or to feel more popular. Popularity is defined as a state of being liked or accepted by a group of people (cite). As the group of people gets larger, so does that person’s popularity. For some people, popularity may come easy due to their charisma or looks, but there are those children who feel lonely due to their lack of popularity.
Since young women are being surrounded and exposed to different types of media, it also influences the identity of young women by reinforcing negative stereotypes. In Chapter 3: “Bitches and Morons and Skanks, Oh My!” of Reality Bites Back, Pozner reveals how popular reality television shows have a strong impact on today’s society by shaping the way women view things and define themselves. She also states how dating shows, like The Bachelor and Flavor of Love, often describe women as “catty, bitchy, manipulative, not to be trusted, and cannot live without a man” (pg. 97). The problem with these dating shows is that it tells young women that they need to become the most seductive and beautiful to win the guy’s heart. This also convinces the young women, who watch the show believe that they have to be manipulative and untrustworthy in order to obtain whatever they want. Because young women have been subject to these stereotypes, they also begin to make generalization and change their perceptions about other people, especially to women. Another example is the reality TV series, Keeping ...
Izzo, Phil. “Signs of the Times: National Debt Clock Runs out of Digits.” Wall Street Journal.
Movies often don’t grasp this concept of teenagers struggling to fit in with their own group of friends. Denby states “lost in the eternal swoon of late adolescence, they’re (teenagers) thinking about their identity, their friends, and their clothes” (426). The most important thing too many teenagers in high school are fitting in. They idolize the idea of having a group of friends who are well known around school that other looks up too. The movie Never Been Kissed shows how teenagers often try to hard to gain and maintain friends. The main character who is a newspaper reporter goes back to school pretending to be a high school student. She tries to befriend a group of good looking rich kids and tries her best to impress them and she embarrasses herself in the process. The movie shows of allot of the average teenagers basic
As preteens and teens push for increasing independence from their parents, they tend to turn to their peers for guidance, acceptance, and security. For those who are low in self-esteem and confidence, their safety lies in fitting in and having a place to belong. Most people find a group in which they connect with in a healthy way while others make their way in cliques that give them security but at the price of their own values and individuality. The movie Mean Girls portrays how high school female social cliques operate and the effect they can have on girls. I will argue how if one doesn’t have a strong sense of self-identity, the opinions of others will become their identity.
This approach believes that the effects of media are much weaker than the strong and definite effects of the magic bullet theory. The first reinforced idea would be that people with money live better and more entitled lives than those without. It is not a hidden fact that money can buy a person things that they want and need, as well as allow one to live a stable life. The show represents the upper class lifestyle as desirable in many ways. The first of which is the fact that they have a website that dedicates it’s time to reporting what they are doing with their lives.
The study by Wijlaars et al (2013) found that a number of young people who were prescribed antidepressants did not show increased incidence or rates of suicide, suicidal ideation or intentional self-harm. The researchers recommended active pharmacovigilance to prevent antidepressant related suicide by monitoring the intake of antidepressants and the prescription period as the day of prescription and the fourth week after prescription w...
One consequence of untreated mental illness could be suicide, often a constant struggle for people who battle with a mental health problem. According a study, “In 2004, the FDA looked at published and unpublished data trials of antidepressants that involved nearly 4,400 children and adolescents...four percent of those thought or tried suicide (“Mental Health Medications”). In otherwards antidepressant are usually prescribed to overcome depression however, for others it can increase the thoughts of suicide greatly. Suicide is number 10 for the leading cause of
Cassidy, Sarah. "Teenagers Beguiled by False Dreams of Instant Fame on Reality TV." The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, 13 Jan. 2006. Web. 19 Jan. 2014.