The girls of Glee

Glee is the new "it" show for teens. It returns to much anticipation and speculation in a few weeks, and many people at Andover await with bated breath the revelations of new Glee couples and scandals. I haven't really enjoyed the episodes of Glee I've watched. They're repetitious and seem to consist of stereotyped, hackneyed characters that have appeared in every teenage based television show since the postmodern teenager appeared on television. The girls of Glee have caught my interest as they fulfill so many stereotypes of beauty, intelligence, and behavior. There's the blonde cheerleader, the exotic looking yet manipulative song bird, the soulful, earnest black girl, and the Asian hipster who does her own thing. I feel weird using this language to describe all these characters, but as crass at it is, it seems necessary. Many ethnic and female stereotypes are fulfilled in this show, yet I wonder what has made characters such as these so popular and so widespread in television. When did stereotypes such as these start in television? I decided to look back at teenage-oriented shows of the past ten or so years, picking out characters that fulfill similar roles.

Above are the girls of Glee. The two I'm focusing on specifically are the ones second from the left and to the far right. The first (Rachel) is the exotic songstress who doesn't really fit in with the rest of the group for her neurotic behavior and inability to get along well with others. The second is the blonde cheerleader (Quinn) who suffers from an overbearing religious family and has dealt with teen pregnancy and cheating boyfriends regularly. Below is the cast of One Tree Hill. Brooke on the left represents the personal-life-challenged teen. She lacks the blonde hair, but makes up for it in manipulative behavior and man-eater tendencies. She, like Quinn, has tried to settle down with a boyfriend but is constantly plagued by cheating scandals, pregnancy scares and the like.

Hayley, on the left, plays the neurotic songstress who, always mindful of her perfect GPA and value system, gets married sophomore year of high school so she can have sex without breaking any of her religious beliefs. She, like Rachel, stumbles into the path of the stereotypical athletic, popular basketball player boy slash male model. Peyton in the middle fulfills a stereotype not completely represented in Glee. She plays the scorned ex-it girl, who, after losing her mother to a car crash, pulls away from cheerleading and life as the popular girl in pursuit of a career as an artist involved in multiple passionate but troubled relationships. Peyton's character is very similar to that of Marissa in the O.C., a show very popular in the early 21st century.

Marissa, front and center, is rejected from her popular friend group after she shoots her boyfriends psychotic brother during a fight in which her boyfriend's life is threatened. Summer (on the left) plays the character of manipulative cheerleader, yet represents a spin on the character, getting her act together, settling down with a nerdy but nice boy, rocking a perfect SAT score, and getting into Brown despite having not done homework for four years of high school. While she does experience a role reversal of sorts in the O.C., her character embodies the carefree shopping, tanning, dating crazy cheerleader type.

Now that I've identified stereotypical characters that have occupied popular television shows for the past decade, I'd like to try to identify the reasons these stereotypes are fulfilled character after character. What makes the blonde pregnant teenager an attractive character to watch? Why do we want to follow the exploits of the self-belittling singer who doesn't ever feel at home in high school? Often times the same girl has a rough family life with an absent father or an eternally critical and unsatisfied mother. Many times we sympathize with these characters, but is it empathy that really drives us to connect with them? Can we feel for and understand what these characters are going through? Many popular girls out there probably feel a crippling self-consciousness as do Quinn, Brooke, and Summer, all manifesting in an extreme tendencies towards manipulation, deceit, and a cavalier attitude towards relationships and sex.

Can we really empathize with these characters or do we, in some ways, want to be like them? Despite their troubles, the messed-up cheerleaders and self-depreciating singers all tend to be stunningly beautiful and successful. Some gain success in the college process or they settle down with a strikingly handsome boy and produce adorable little children. Their troubles are glamorized in these shows. They're coated with pearls and designer clothes, sprinkled with amazing parties and social events, and rolled up into an expensive, bright colored package covered with bows. These girls' lives look wonderful from the outside. They talk about all their problems while sitting on the beach, as in the case of the o.c. or in a stunning school. The characters in One Tree Hill aren't wealthy, but they're all beautiful. Everyone is pretty. The town of tree hill where they all live is pretty. Their houses are pretty. It seems quaint, and epitomizes high school in a small town. These people seem to be living high school the way it's supposed to be lived. They party every Saturday night. They sleep around. They never do homework, yet get into great colleges and receive full rides. It's fairytale land, and it seems that while we can't really empathize with these characters, we wish we could be like them. We have similar problems, but are lives don't seem anything like theirs.

When did female characters such as these become so widespread, and almost essential parts of popular television shows for teens? In the 1950's the girls were portrayed as wholesome, sweet individuals and references to sex were taboo. Now, popular teenage-oriented shows require constant references to sex. Vampire shows, especially popular now, are incredibly focused on sex, and can be found on many networks. I wonder when references to sex and these very sexualized and very messed up teenage girls became staples of television shows. Did television change as our population's attitude towards characters such as these and sex changed or did television start the wave of attention towards these things? What came first? Where are we heading next? What types of female characters will proliferate on television in the future? Is the self-defacing yet beautiful female character timeless? Are all these "different" characters really the same girl inside, unique only in looks? As the world becomes more and more connected will stereotype fulfillment on television dwindle or become more strongly emphasized?

Prep School Recruitments

I was skimming the Washington Post's website after having subscribed to its full access pass type deal, when my eyes locked on the words "prep" and "schools." I've been hearing this word combination often as of late, what with my brother applying and choosing amongst private schools and my friends debating the merits of a prep school education to a public one in the college admissions process. I was surprised to see it in the news. I think of prep schools as being old news. They're dated institutions that often seem reluctant to change, and seeing an article about prep schools in the national news section of the Washington Post surprised me. The article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/29/AR2010032903514.html), written by Michael Alison Chandler, was titled, "U.S. prep schools push to recruit foreign students." As I read the article I tried to determine the author's reasons for writing it, as well as his opinion on prep schools and their recent actions. I looked for the bad guys and the good guys. In general, the author seemed to view many bad guys in the situation. The main gist of the article is that prep schools are actively recruiting individuals from oversees in order to supplement money lost from the economy. I got the sense that the author believed the prep schools to be desperate, and the foreign students to be weak, naive prey. He gave reasons for the apparent attraction to prep schools, saying that job security and elite college diplomas were promised by American prep schools. At first the American prep schools seemed to villains touting false promises and looking for a pay check. He wrote, "aggressive international efforts are becoming more common for other U.S. prep schools eager to recruit from among rising numbers of East Asian students capable of paying full fare." The language renders prep schools cold and manipulative. They care about money, and are not receiving the big bucks from financially floundering Americans.

For a bit of the article, the Asian students were portrayed as victims, schemed into attending schools that would do little. A third party discussed were the parents of foreign students sent to the U.S.A. He described Chinese parents as "interested in giving their children a running start toward a prized American college diploma." This sentence is not overtly condescending but it makes the parents seem a little bit kooky or aggressive even, setting their kids up to get a job so early in life. The "running start" analogy is a bit offensive as these students don't just get released into America with a few suitcases and a pocket full of 40,000 dollar checks. They are talented students, musicians, athletes. If the Asian parents and American schools are aggressors, then the students are victims in Chandler's mind. Chandler places emphasis on how they have to leave home to go to boarding school far away.

By the end of the article the tone seemed to shift to one of not envy exactly but maybe scorn or even anger. Chandler seemed to believe that foreign students were crowing American boarding schools, and infringing on the American job market. Of course, he never explicitly said this, and maybe I've inferred incorrectly, but his tone most certainly shifts. He writes, "Arriving alone and with limited English skills, foreign students add new and weighty responsibilities to schools." This might be very true. Taking care of young teenagers away from home is a huge deal, but he neglects to acknowledge how much these students give to often homogenous American prep schools. Andover is incredibly lucky to find foreign students who are amazingly smart, and offer wonderful additions to the school, but these students usually speak english. If they don't, that makes them all the more special. They aren't threats or burdens, which Chandler seems to view them as. I wonder what schools Chandler is studying. He listed no data pertaining to the whole "the students don't speak a word of english" claim. The prep schools he listed were all concentrated in the South, primarily in Virginia, Florida, and one school from Maryland. The article seemed under researched. It's goal seemed to be to provide information to the American public on the goings on in the prep school world, the results of a diminished economy on American schools and foreign students, yet I mostly just felt I was being involved in a battle of manipulations and bad parenting. While the article was "informative," a few schools were studied, it cited only a select few schools and it seemed to serve as an unnecessary warning. Why does Chandler seem to believe that foreign students are being wooed to American prep schools, unaware of what they are really like. He seemed insensitive, and often kept his analytical skills at bay while presenting some examples. While he could have analyzed and explained the context of a quote, he left some hanging, allowing him to instill meaning by not explaining further. He ended the article by writing, "Min So Kim, a 14-year-old eighth-grader from Chungbuk, South Korea, explained her parents' decision to send her to live with relatives in Haymarket this way: 'My father hopes I study English very well and become a famous person.'" This quote says a lot left at the end as such. He seems to be enforcing his claims that foreign exchange students don't know english and are out searching for something unattainable, even with a prep school diploma. In reality, the girl is probably uncovering many parents' reasons for sending their kids to prep school, they want them to do well. Many parents seem to think that their children will be happier if they have stable jobs and incomes when they're older. Her parents don't seem to be aggressors, they seem to be parents. Chandler forgets to mention where this girl is living. Is she living in a war zone? A decrepit house? Are her parents wealthy but absent? He makes her seem like just another poor innocent soul shipped off by greedy, conniving parents looking to make the big bucks off of the precocious child. There are hundreds of reasons people go to prep school, and yes one of them is in order to secure a diploma that looks good on a job resume. Is there something innately wrong with that? I would love to get a job when I get older, and if I end up having children, I'll want them to work. Working doesn't just fulfill financial needs, it gives a person purpose and is often times emotionally and socially fulfilling. Maybe Min So Kim will receive a more comprehensive education in American that in her town. Maybe she wasn't accepted to any schools near her home. She's in eighth grade and is probably 13 or 14 years old. To quote her saying why her parents sent her to boarding school in order to support an under-researched claim seems silly and misguided. Overall, this news article seemed like a big hunk of bias. I understand many of Chandler's points, and he's a clear and concise writer, but he seemed overtly and terribly biased, and many of his biases seem to affect the quality of this news article.