Warning: This post may contain Spoilers for the ABC Family Show, the Secret Life of the American Teenager. Do not read on if you do not wish to have information about the show revealed to you.
For most of you it may come as a shock that a male graduate student who spends most of his time blogging about such issues as current affairs, historical importance of events, and philosophy would be interested in the ABC Family show The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Then again, for those who have read my past blogs they can tell I already have written extensively about one other ABC Family hit show, Greek. While ABC Family is notorious for making campy shows that are obviously attempting to teach some sort of lesson their show The Secret Life of the American Teenager is actually quite smart for a show directed towards a younger audience…or so it would appear at first glance. The show is in it’s third season, and like many shows on air today they network has opted for shortened 12 episode seasons rather than a full 24 episode season. The creator of Seventh Heaven, the former hit on the CW/WB/UPN, Brenda Hampton and employs the use of some incredibly talented unknown and most often teenage actors and actresses. At the same time, the show uses familiar faces such as Molly Ringwald, Mark Derwin and for a while John Schneider.
What strikes me most about the show has been the tackling of major issues not typically found on teen shows, especially considering this show doesn’t attempt to make grown up teenagers. The main premise of the show has been centered around the main character, Amy, as she deals first with being pregnant at 15 and into teenage parenthood. As a result of focusing on such an issue, the show does discuss the topic at times a little too much; then again its written almost entirely from the prospective of teenagers and what else do most teenagers, especially males, think about? In an extension of the main focus of the show, the issues of Amy’s baby’s father, a 16 year old bad boy named Ricky are laid bare and discussed openly throughout the show. The show uses main stereotypes for the characters and families who are focused on. There are two nuclear families at the start of the series, Amy’s and Grace’s. Amy’s family is the true nuclear family, two parents with both children being their own. They have their issues like any other family in America, though the husband (George) cheats on his wife (Anne) and of course their daughter Amy is pregnant and only 15. Grace’s family on the other hand is on the surface a very religious (Christian) family who uphold very traditional Christian values such as abstinence.
However, Grace’s family does hold dark sides as does any family. Her mother is the ex wife of George, whom she cheated on before meeting her current husband. Her brother Tom is mentally retarded (Downs Syndrome) and was adopted by Grace and her parents. While Grace initially is fervent in her devotion to the principles of the Christian faith she swears by, her resolve begins to slowly break under the pressures of being in high school, attractive, and a cheerleader. Her on again and off again Jack is the step son of the local minister who originally gets Jack to ask Grace out as a means of keeping her family, and her family’s money (her dad is a doctor) at his church. He too wants to adhere to the principles of his faith, but is distracted like most teenage males by the lures of sex and attractive girls. In their first off again stage, Jack hooks up with the school skank who also happens to be the top of her class, Adrian. Her mother intentionally got pregnant to have someone who would unconditionally love her and then works slavishly as a flight attendant to make sure Adrian has everything she could need or want in life.
This brings us back full circle to Amy, our little 15 year old freshman who had one night at band camp with Ricky who it turns out actually just wanted a little loving from Amy not a relationship like he pretended. The closest Ricky gets to a relationship is with Adrian, who shares his love for no strings sex. Instead, upon finding out she is pregnant Amy attempts to hide it from everyone, sans her two best friends who couldn’t keep a secret if they were deaf, mute and illiterate. So while she is pregnant and her friends are telling the whole school and possibly the whole town, she begins a relationship with fellow freshman Ben who asks her out after his friend Alice says he should. They, or at least he, quickly falls in love with Amy though its unclear from the start if Ben actually loves Amy or if he is simply trying to keep her from leaving him and attempting to gain Ricky. The three of them, Amy, Ricky and Ben will be forever connected by Amy’s pregnancy.
The complex nature of the show doesn’t actually begin to show through until later into the series. At first it would appear to the common observer that the show is nothing more than a flighty teen romantic comedy that lacks any and all depth. By the third season, which is currently airing, the relationship between Ben and Amy is strained by the new responsibilities of motherhood, and Ricky’s apparent desire to be a father to his son. Ben seems to be under the illusion from the start that he somehow should have a say in the life of the unborn child his girlfriend carries. Ricky is initially reluctant to take any interest in his child, namely because of his fear he will end up like his father…a child molester. His fears seem to go away as he pretends to be interested in the pregnancy in order to get with Grace. By entering into the picture, Ricky has trivialized Ben’s opinion about anything involving the baby even more than it started out. Despite being a teenager and only dating Amy for a school year, Ben fits into the motif of the step father. He harbors resentment towards Ricky because of Ricky’s womanizing ways, his popularity, and because he had sex with and impregnated the woman Ben claims to love. Their relationship worsens as Ben becomes jealous of Ricky and begins to pressure Amy into A. having sex with him and B. pushing Ricky out of the picture entirely.
The relationship between Ben and Amy, Amy and Ricky, and Ricky and Ben actually does a great job in presenting an intelligent message to a young audience. Jealousy is common in high school, especially for guys when it comes to competition over a girl. Ben is the unfortunate victim of the worst kind of jealousy because of the past encounters between Ricky and Amy. From the gate Ricky and Ben will never be able to truly be friends, after all in Ben’s mind he and Amy are married (they married illegally at the beginning of season two) and he is the step father of Amy’s son John. All three are forced to deal with jealously in a way that is more common among adults. Its bad enough for a teenage male to be jealous about his contemporary over their past sexual relations with a girl said teenage male likes. But adding into the picture a baby, which Amy ultimately keeps, causes the circumstances of Ben’s jealously to be that of an adult male. Ben is understandably unable to handle the circumstances he unknowingly entered into when he asked Amy out on their first date. Yet, because he is a teenager Ben acts more like the ex husband of a woman who has remarried and has sole custody over their children.
Amy and Ricky are initially distant from each other to the point of open resentment on Amy’s part. Yet as they are thrust together because of their son, by season three Amy and Ricky are spending more time together and noticeable changes are seen in the way Ricky behaves. Ricky is quickly becoming for her what Ben is unable to be, a mature adult partner. Amy’s relationship with Ben is focused on Ben’s love and interest in Amy and her love and interest in Ben; the fact she has a child is insignificant in Ben’s eyes. Amy and Ricky’s relationship is all about their son John. Ben’s jealously and inadequacy as a care provider for Amy and her son drive Amy away from him and closer to Ricky who has made significant steps to help provide for his son. While Ben comes from a wealthy family, the existence of John is of little consequence to him. He is unable to realize that Amy and John are eternally connected to each other as mother and child; an unbreakable bond. His inability to cope with Ricky’s participation in John’s life, and therefore Amy’s, makes it impossible for him to be the correct partner for Amy. Amy has reluctantly taken on the role of motherhood and as a result like any other mother, her needs are the same as her son’s. When Ben is unable to provide for the needs of John, he is unable to provide for Amy’s needs and vice versa.
Meanwhile with the cast of characters, Grace’s struggle between what she believes to be right and what the world of high school believes to be right is intense. Her on again and off again relationship with Jack centers around the issue of her willingness to have sex, which is a slow transition as she becomes friends with Ricky and Adrian and eventually as her mother gives her birth control pills. Eventually, Grace comes to the conclusions that in order to keep Jack as her boyfriend she must sleep with him (this is because he has cheated on her in the past because of her unwillingness to have sex) and also that her love for Jack, and commitment to be with him is mature enough that sexual relationships are acceptable because they are no different than as if they were married.
Adrian on the other hand, has always been a sexually active girl. The absence of any true parental authority in her life, and any true source of love has resulted in her willingness to sleep with any guy. The reintroduction of her birth father into her life as undesired results on her life, as does her friendship with Grace. Since she has a parental authority, which she yearns for until she gets it, and a source of unconditional love her sexual activities become more meaningless than before. She has admitted to herself that she loves Ricky, which is why she is so willing to let him walk all over her it would appear. Surprisingly, as she comes to unconsciously understand how meaningless her sex life is, she encourages Grace to uphold her own vow of abstinence until marriage. Yet despite her realization that sex isn’t a necessary part of her life, she continues to seek it out either because she is an addict or thinks that she has been a slut for so long that despite knowing it to be wrong, she cannot stop.
Stumble It!
