Leave them kids alone
NS November 18th, 2009
I know that I risk offending some of you lovely people when I say this (would it help if I said ‘sorry’ beforehand?) but I am really really sick of being beaten over the head with the large, ugly stick that is Teen Genre Entertainment. This includes but is not limited to: High School Musical, Hannah Montana, the Jonas Brothers, Harry Potter, Twilight and whatever the hell else the kids are crazy about these days. I don’t use MySpace or LiveJournal so I can’t be sure, but I’m certain there are others I don’t know about. Now, I’m not dissing these people or films or books per se, I’m sure they’re fantastic for young adults, but that’s just it — they’re for young adults.
‘Cause see, I’m 30. I was last a teenager more than a decade ago and when I realise that I was drawing red ink hearts on my ankle and popping gum at the mall before these kids were even a tequila-sodden glimmer in their parents’ eyes, it can seem more like a lightyear. But if there’s one thing I remember about being a teen, it is this: adults trying to muscle in on teen trends is not cool. If my mother had started reading all the Sweet Valley High or Babysitters’ Club books, or peppering her walls with posters of Patrick Swayze in his Dirty Dancing days, I would’ve been downright mortified. Mortified and also disgruntled because when you’re a kid it feels like the whole world is geared towards adults and for adults and that the ideas and entertainment that are truly aimed towards kids without being patronising or cheesy are few and far between. So for respectable, grown-up newspapers up and down the nation to be putting ‘Edward’ and ‘Bella’ (yes, I know their damn names just from glancing at the newsstands) on their front pages and explaining to us, in detail, why we should be lapping this shit up sends shivers down my spine and puke dribbling down my chin.
I suppose if you have a teenager and they ask you to read one of the books or see one of the films with you then fair game, go along to whatever extent you and they are comfortable with. But when I see legions of adult women with no acne-ridden children in sight fawning all over this pubescent bloodsucker and his oh-so-tragic, heartsick girlfriend and commanding others to ‘Just read it, you’ll love it! Don’t be such a snob, it’s FUN! Oh my god, I have wet dreams about Edward every night. (giggle),’ I have to wonder if they haven’t noticed the daggers coming out of the 15-year-old goth girls’ eyes. There is nothing more tragic (not even two vampire-people tortured and torn apart by true love, or whatever Twilight is about) to them than all of these self-styled Hip Mums trying to muscle in on their media and relive through lighthearted, whimsical nostalgia what they are actually living through (painfully, awkwardly, clumsily) at this moment.
The melodrama may be entertainment to us adults but for kids going through the process of growing up, becoming independent, falling in love, forming friendships, finding their feet and their voices, surviving at school and with the hormone-o-meter in the red zone, it’s not a trip down memory lane but crazy, tortuous, angst-filled reality; a reality that they need to keep private and separate from their parents’ and their parents’ peers. It’s a real shame we’re taking that away from them.
