Not too long ago I watched MTV’s new reality TV show, “My Life as Liz.” MTV’s idea of reality isn’t quite the same as the rest of the world, as they like to take groups of kids, who do indeed know each other, and script their “every day life” into entertaining, or not so entertaining, drama filled episodes. The show claims to follow around Liz, a formerly popular high school student who traded in her teen royalty status for the company of geeks after becoming fed up with her fake and cruel clique.
The show is obviously scripted, and it’s insulting to claim otherwise. Even Liz herself didn’t flat out deny that the show is fake, just that she knows the other kids on the cast and that the back story happened. Beyond that, she would have to be one brave chick to claim that the footage and scenarios are just candid shots and conversations picked up by a camera guy. The over-the-top, one dimensional characters of the show are laughable, and so far from reality.
The popular clique is at constant odds with Liz, who’s sole mission is to bring them down. They are the school’s stereotypical blonde, beautiful royalty. All the boys love them. They don’t talk to anyone else unless they are spewing insults.
I graduated from high school a handful of years ago, and there was no group like this. I was considered one of the ‘popular’ kids in high school, but this was because I had a lot of friends. I was captain of my sports teams but no one called me a jock, I did drama but was not considered a geek and was on the school newspaper and took Advanced Placement classes but was not considered a nerdy brain. I just had an opportunity to meet a lot of different people and meshed with most of them.
In my school, and from everyone else I have asked, there was no popular group of beautiful people that everyone hated. It doesn’t make sense. You can’t be hated by everyone and loved at the same time. There was, of course, scandals and rumors and conflict but no mortal enemies, or life ruining plots.
This stereotypical portrayal of high school-is-hell isn’t unique to this one show, however. Most TV shows and movies for kids give an unrealistic, black and white picture of high school that just isn’t real.
In the movie “Mean Girls,” Lindsay Lohan plays the new girl in town who is befriended by some geeks only to be snatched up by the popular clique who is feared and idolized. She secretly plots with the geeks to hang out with the popular girls and sabotage their teen royalty through a series of misguided missions. No matter how stupid the popular kids look, the school loves them nonetheless. Pretty diabolical for a bunch of teenagers. In the end, there are no more cliques. How nice.
And why does no one ever have any homework?
I am not so naive to think that cliquishness does not happen. I know it does. People are friends with people that are similar to them, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t friends with anyone else, or inherently evil or good. I am also aware that many of these media created high school snap shots are more to show what high school can feel like to certain demographics, as opposed to what it actually is like. More often than not, the result is insulting to the viewer, and for those who have not yet entered high school, misleading.
I spent the summer before freshman year scared I would be stuffed into my locker. Turns out, I couldn’t even fit my backpack in there. The main thing kids need to know about high school is that it doesn’t matter. It may seem like four endless years of trying to go to the coolest parties and hang out with the coolest kids, but the second you graduate it doesn’t matter. You won’t remember those people. Those who were popular in high school may not be successful. Those who were picked on, or strung out, or skipped class might turn out to be your boss. Nothing that happened in high school matters. Get good grades so you can get into a good college, surround yourself with good people with like interests, and relax.
