Yesterday was the season premiere of The Secret Life of the American Teenager. I had seen most of season 1 and a third of season 2, but luckily for me preceding the premiere was a marathon of season 2. (Minus about three episodes.)
Josie invited me over to watch it with her.
1–oh the dramz, I love it! We watched 10 hours of Secret Life. Macaroni for lunch, pizza for dinner, and ice cream inbetween. Certainly not a healthy day.
The show is so captivating because it is such a trainwreck. NO ONE has a good life on that show. If they aren’t pregnant then they are sexin’ it up and treating each other horribly. All of the parents are ridiculous, weak, and refuse to enforce any of their edicts.
The only good dad (the “Christian” dad who also plays the awesome father on Smallville) gets killed in the season premiere (also similar to Smallville….although in a different way). Now the only parents left are those who wallow in self-pity, treat their spouses poorly, make idiotic (and often unfaithful) decisions. The only two parents who are married and together, one of them dies. What is it with the writers of this show?
Ok, let’s start with the recently happy parents of Grace Bowman. The token “Christians” of the show.
The mother–on her second marriage. She is intelligent and kind, but after her husband bans his daughter from having sex she provides her daughter with birth control and then looks surprised when her daughter won’t give them up. Uh…shulow lady, giving your already struggling daughter birth control is not a good idea. It also undermines the father’s stern take on the situation, and sends mixed signals. Like…I don’t want you to have sex but if you must at least don’t get preggers.
The father–the quintessential good dad, understanding, intelligent, firm, and loving. Of course they have to kill of the only good character.
Grace–the “Crazy Christian” at school. She starts of sweet and cute and loving towards everyone (which is a nice change from how blonde cheerleaders are generally portrayed on television) and firm in her belief that she will save sex for marriage. Then her parents give her a promise ring and everything goes down hill. Not to mention she buys into the manslut Ricky’s tricks. Of course no one can remain strong and pure on tv. That would just be boring. 
Ok–Ricky. He is a complicated diabolical ass who uses the fact that he was sexually abused as an excuse to have sex with anything that moves and has a vag. Everybody buys into him even though they all know his past. Everybody thinks they can change him. He uses it. He has a breakdown at the end of season 2 and shows some regret but goes straight back to sexin’ it up with the resident school slut.
Adrian–school slut. She has a sex drive and boy does she use it. Mostly with Ricky even though he’s dating others, but also with random other characters including her step-brother. She is extremely book smart, but is an idiot when it comes to boys (mainly Ricky). She never knew her dad (until now) and her mom is always away and gives her whatever she wants. Needless to say she is really selfish and makes idiotic choices.
Amy–the pregnant girl. Gets seduced by Ricky during band camp and gets preggo on the first take. (Don’t even get me started on the “one night at band camp” jokes. This show is NOT helping. First off–there really is not that much time for sexing it up at camp, especially because usually you are so exhausted after marching all day that you fall right to sleep when you can. Not all band members are super horny as all television and film seem to portray them, and if people would just let it go then maybe all band members wouldn’t have to endure that awful reference to American Pie every time they try to practice their instruments. Oh yeah, and coming from a flute player–if I have to hear anything about a flute going anywhere again I am going to do something drastic. But I digress) Spends the rest of the seasons angsting it up blaming everybody and everything trying to escape blame, then finally deciding to keep the baby and then spends the whole time bemoaning her life and the work and how tired she is.
Ben–ugh. Did I mention that these kids areaa 15 and 16? Yeah this boy starts dating Amy, decides he loves her, tries to marry her with a fake id, and plans to stay with her for the rest of his life (while helping raise another boy’s baby and being a freshman in high school.) Yeah. We can see that lasting.
Ben’s friends–comic reliefs. And trust me, we need them on this show.
Ashley–Amy’s super sarcastic (hilarious) sister who pretty much is the glue keeping the members of the family together. Balanced, intelligent, the only person who seems to have a hold on her life. I really hope that lasts, but from the rest of the show I doubt that they will let her.
Amy’s Dad–really funny, a jerkwad, getting divorced, acts like a child. You can’t help but to like him.
Amy’s Mom–wow….Molly Ringwald did not age well. Also–I’ve always disliked her wierd slurred speech. Spends half the time fighting with everybody, yelling at her husband, and finding other guys. Spends the rest of her time as a plot device, where she speechifies so that the writers can shove in whatever good message or moral needs to be in the show in order for the parents of america to not pull their children away. A completely forgettable character who enables her daughters too much and spends the rest of the time being a buzzkill. Honestly I wouldn’t mind if she somehow was killed off on the show or something. Maybe in labor? (since as soon as one baby popped out they needed a new one on the show) And btb I am pretty sure it is the Dad’s from when they had breakup? sex in the garage. Not the ugly architects.
Jack–blegh. Forgettable football looking boy. Son of the pastor but as of yet his character is pretty lame. Has no problem with sex before marriage apparently. (as does nobody except the dead dad. You’d think after Amy people would get the picture. I mean, Amy has sex once and gets pregnant, Grace has it once and her dad dies. What more do you need?)
The Sausage King–hilarious. Ben’s dad. He gets second place for …coolest dad I guess. Not as good morals but at least he is funny, is there for his son, and makes his son get a job.
Betty—hooker?/Ben’s dad’s GF. Was internet ordered by Grace’s sassy brother who has down syndrome.
Donovan/Leon–the gay couple who almost adopted Amy’s son Jack (but adopted a family of foster kids instead)
Amy’s best friends–annoying, terrible friends, self-centered, act like they are nine, can’t keep a secret. Really no redeeming qualities. Amy’d be better off without them.
I don’t even know who else to talk about.
Basically on this show every teenager is having sex, no parents are happily married or together, and everybody is pretty selfish. This show has awful morals, is really unrealistic, and tries to make up for it by extremely “sincere” messages at the end about sex and sexual abuse and whatever issue is in the episode.
I would NOT let a child watch it. Teaches awful things, but is somehow entrancing because everyone’s lives on the show are going to heck. I really appreciate the opening credits. They feature sunflowers, birds, bees, and sing about falling in love. I appreciate them for their irony–no one on this show just “falls in love”. This is the vision that everyone has, but the show illustrates that it is not how that works.
Jos and I laughed at the awful situatioins but it’s actually pretty sad. I can just imaging shooting this out into space in a sci-fi book. We’d be executed immediately as being such a horrible species.
Well all I can say is if you are looking for a show full of drama that is unrealistic and paints an awful picture of marriage, sex, abstinence, and people, this is the show for you.
Sincerely,
Emilie
PS. and yeah…I know I still watch it. What does that say about me?
