The Secret Life of the American Teenager

While my daughter sits on the floor next to an electrical outlet, playing with her favorite toys, scissors and a plastic bag, I wonder, has anyone seen ABC Family’s new show The Secret Life of the American Teenager?

Now, I started watching this show, because, ain’t gonna lie, I was really touched by it at first. It’s about a fifteen year-old girl, Amy, who finds out she’s pregnant on her first day of high school. She confides in her best friends and does exactly what I did: goes on with life as if nothing is wrong (apparently this is quite normal in pregnant teenagers, many find it easiest to just put it on the back burner and ignore it). She meets a boy, not her unborn babies father, and they fall in love despite the fact that she is pregnant by another guy—also something that hit pretty close to home, as I started dating my current boyfriend three months into my pregnancy. I kept watching the show, simply because Amy’s experiences mirrored my own.

However, as the show went on it took a drastic dive. 

Aside, from it's lame and boring sideplots; a love triangle, a possible divorce, a long lost father showing up, etc... It started to become preachy and reminded me of those cheesy info-movies they make you watch in health class. You know, where everything’s so forced, so THIS IS YOUR TYPICAL AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL-ish. The dialog was tripe, Amy’s friends said things like: “If you’re thinking about getting an abortion, you have to confide in your parents, they know best. Actually, you should tell them right now anyway. “The show was filled to the brim with cheesy, pro-life facts such as those, and Amy only entertained the idea of abortion for a hot second, but then changes her mind, because her boyfriend then offers to marry her and says they could live with his dad and raise the baby there, something the dad fully supports, as any average American father would of course be so willing to do.

Another thing I detested about the show was the supporting cast. Every single character was a total teenage stereotype. Amy and her boyfriend are two painfully normal and bland characters; white middleclassers, who play in the school band, get good grades and hang out with their friends eating pizza in their spare time. Then you have the upper classmen involved: There’s Ricky (LOVE the fifties-badboy name, by the way) Amy’s baby-daddy. Ricky is a sixteen year-old player, who has his way with most of his female peers, and Adrian. The (as she is so kindly described by her peers) “school slut” (nice.), despite the fact that she is a straight A-student.

These are the, gasp! SEXUALLY ACTIVE characters on the show. But we soon learn the Ricky suffers a severe depression from being in fostercare and is a victim of sexual abuse himself, while Adrian, who is beautiful, smart and fiercely in charge of her own sexuality has some serious daddy-issues having grown up without a father-figure. Oh, yeah. And she's Latina

I think what ABC is trying to tell us is that only teenagers with issues have sex. Right… 

Because the Christian characters on the show are amazing! Grace (again…The illustrative names!) is the hot Christian girl, she’s sexy and all the male characters like her, but she knows how to say no, making her an admirable character on the show. She’s totally stereotypic as well, painfully naïve and an annoying do-gooder, but regardless, she still knows how to avoid sex, thus she is a symbol of strength. 

I gave “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” a chance hoping to find a sorta mainstream “Juno”. Alas, I was severly disappointed, but what can you expect when the shows creator, Brenda Hampton, is the genious behind such quality gems as…”7th Heaven”.

The one thing that cracks me up about it though... Guess who plays Amy's mom:

Yup. Molly Ringwald.

Watch the first episode here:

http://www.surfthechannel.com/info/television/The_Secret_Life_of_the_American_Teenager/87045/S1E1.html?aid=218867