Adolescence – the period of “change, alteration, rupture” has long been dominated by the adult driven world of commercial capitalism. The very creation of one’s own subjectivity is directly influenced by the omnipresent commodity-driven machines. The media is machine that undoubtedly has a profound effect on the “crystallization of personality” (Guitarri, p 66). In particular, it is interesting to address the semiotic language of teen films and tv series.
The fragile process of teen becoming
The process of teen ‘becoming’ is a complex web of energies, changes and the unknowns supplemented by the difficult ‘affects’ of such alterations.
Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park captures the becoming of a skateboardning enthusiast – Alex, who becomes involved in an unfortunate event. As a result, Alex’s becoming produced the affects of self-exploration, uncertainty, fear but at the same time liberation (breaking up with his girlfriend Jennifer) and self-trust.
Teen films and TV series attempt to unveil and record the modifications of the adolescent revolution and highlight the transformations of “not only what happens in people’s heads, on reflexive and conceptual levels, but also on the perceptive level” (Guitarri, 1979, p 64).
As Guittari notes in his work (”Adolescent Revolution”, 1979), “adolescents are not aware their becoming…they use “signifying systems”: music, clothing, the body, behaviours as signs of mutual recognition, as well as machinic systems of all kinds”.
Teen films and TV series utilise these ‘signifying systems’ in order to communicate with their target audience and influence their production of subjectivity. Hence we can see that teen semiologies are made into iconographic products and put into certain boxes of particular genres for instance music, behaviour, fashion etc
[Interesting to note that the word ‘teenager’ was invented by marketers]
The ‘Popularity Machine’
The idolization of ‘popular’ teens and the creation of specific subjects of desire (for the less popular teens) creates and spins the ‘popularity machine’, which in turn is a convenient marketable lifestyle.
Skins’ character Sid is a perfect example of a teenager being manipulated by the ‘popularity machine’. He is in a process of becoming, forming his own subjectivity by replicating his ‘popular’ friends - Tony & Chris. Sid’s “machinic addiction” to being more like the other two boys is the reason why he does drugs, goes to parties, drinks and continually searches for a way to lose his virginity.
This way Skins romanticises the portrayal of a ‘teenager’ by selling the ideology of ‘being out of control’. The character of Sid is created according to the adult perception/ideal of a teenager and serves the older audience rather than teens.
[Note that it is R18+]
Interestingly, other platforms such as the internet provides adolescents with an opportunity to articulate & explore their own becoming (either through true or false conceptions). Social Networking sites are debated at large as well as internet chat rooms. (Cocaine(!) discussions and use is nothing more than a ‘form of doping’ (Guittari) resulting in a crisis).
Following this thought that ‘popular teens’ are simply a product of ‘popularity machine’, teen films & TV series are the means that control the becoming of ‘popular’ adolescents, providing them with specific guidelines through semiotic language.
Adolescent Binge Drinking & Entry into ‘Normal Adulthood’
The of opinion and discussion articles, following the government’s recent decision to spend $53 million to fight binge drinking amogst adolescents, is an interesting talking point for most parents and marketers alike. Many opinions alienate Generation Y by emphasising that “binge drinking has become so entrenched with young people that it defines their generation. It is something which can be inherited by teenagers as a family tradition resembling a rite of passage on the way to adulthood” (The Age, “Confronting the demon of under-age alcohol abuse”). Yet this particular ‘rite of passage” has been manifested by the adult world, for adolescents it is an “entry into semiotic life..having a job, entering production, the production of models, the production of subjectivity” (Guittari, p 67). It is what the teen films & TV series portray as “normal adulthood” (ibid).
Being Beautiful
Closely tied to the notion of the ‘popularity machine’ is the much debated concept of ‘beauty’. This is an iconographic product in itself – a ‘box’ - ‘mainstream beauty’. Again here, teen texts (TV series & films) tend not to explore this notion as much as signify it. This machinic subjectification is more or less connected with the way things are framed. Teen texts provide adolescents with a deceptive version of reality – that ‘beauty’ = popularity = success in life. It is this illusionary belief that revolutionizes the becoming of adolescents by instilling a false perception of ‘life values’.
‘Michelle’ (Skins)
“Most Popular Girl”
From the series Teen Witch
Kids > Teenagers
Taking a step back to how teens become who they are…
Guittari notes that “paradoxically, entry into the work place occurs later and later, while the entry into the adult semiotics occurs earlier and earlier…” (Guittari, p 67). The trivial thing is that children (child machines in the process of becoming) are being fed the same notions as the adolescents of the ‘normal adult life’. The interesting aspect of this is that children more or less take this at face value and do not try to challenge or rebel. They do not resist becoming commodified through the adult capitalist world by not conforming to preexisting ideals that adults have of children.
Channel Nine’s new program: Hosted by Cameron Daddo, My Kid’s A Star follows 10 children and their parents through a six-week bootcamp in the quest for fame and fortune.
The Commodification of Childhood: The Children’s Clothing Industry and the Rise of the Child Consumer
“Childhood generates bodies as well as meanings which grow, interact, and transform to the point of creating new childhoods, new meanings, and quite often new markets…”
The ability of children to selectively accept, reject, and appropriate consumer goods is controlled by the media and most commonly tv. Again, the overarching world of consumerism produces subjects of desire which are then accepted, followed and idolized by children.
Child Pageants…and the creation of Barbie
A model for adults to exert their ‘way of life’ onto children…
Barbie is linked to the above discussed notion of ‘mainstream beauty’ and popularity.
Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer (The Culture Industry: Enlightment as mass deception) cogitate that “the whole world is made to pass through the filter of the culture industry” and draw the example of the movie goer.
“Real life is becoming indistinguishable from the movies…hence the film forces its victims to equate it directly with reality” (p34). In this discussion their focus is on movies, but this phenomenon can be expanded to the case of Barbie dolls and children. Barbie – a weapon of mass deception - is made to be the perfect woman and children can no longer distinguish the disproportionate doll from reality. The constant battle to look as thin and as pretty as Barbie has had an impact on young girls all over the globe.
It is a representation of a paradigm of adult female beauty to which young girls learn to aspire, as discussed in this blog.
I do not wish to divert away from the topic of adolescence but I wish to explore this period in light of teens’ experiences as children as these play a significant role in the ‘becoming’ of that person during adolescence. All previous energies, changes, events and feelings have to be made sense of during the teen years. As a result, the affects of pain, low self esteem and even depression are often evident during adolescence due to some momentous happenings in their childhood.
“It is of considerable importance for the formation of the consciousness which experiences happen to make those all-important ‘first impressions’, childhood experiences – and which follow to form the second and third and other ‘strata’…early impressions tend to coalesce into a natural view of the world; all later experiences then tend to receive their meaning from its original set..”
(Karl Mannheim, 1952, p. 29
Today, youth audience is being primarily defined through their attitude to the world – an audience who shares tastes and ambitions, rather than by age. Indeed, their tastes and ambitions are more often than not reflective of their experiences in the past.
Here, it is important to recognise the role that television played in a person’s childhood, as this would influence and determine the relationship between television and that person during their adolescent years. As Karne Lury discusses in her book “British Youth Television” – “TV attempts to direct viewers through a series of identifiable generic and aesthetic strategies” and hence the effects of semiotic language on adolescents presented in teen films / TV series can be affected by a persons’ viewing experiences as a child.
Lury also notes that a youth viewer’s “experiential knowledge…will ultimately be defined by the individual’s habits, prejudices and simply how much television they have watched”. With this in mind, I propose that lthe exploration of the semiotic language of teen films and their effects on youth should be done in light of the semiotic language presented to that generation in their childhood years.
