This month's Snarl is by Suzanne Fortin:

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TEENAGERS

Adulthood is not automatically acquired. In spite of the fact teenagers are not fully mature, society seems to neglect the fact many of them possess intellectual abilities and interests. Our society presumes that teenagers do not want to learn, are stupid, incapable and inherently immature individuals. Sure, in every group there are always the few idiots, but in my experience the majority of adolescents are open-minded and interested in the world in one way or another. Unfortunately they are often afraid to develop their minds. Society not only ignores adolescent intellectual concerns, but often suppresses the expression of this intellectuality.

Television often reflects and reinforces adolescent stereotypes. Ask yourself: how many really intelligent teenagers do you see on T.V.? Not too many. Frequently they are portrayed as nerds, like Steve Urkel, and nobody likes Steve Urkel. Sometimes the characters' intelligence is watered down in some manner to make them normal, as if intelligence *weren't* normal. Two cases come to mind: Blossom and Rebecca Connor on Roseanne. I found Blossom to be very interesting as a character, except I always had the nagging feeling that the writers never really portrayed her as intelligent as she really was. She dated a football player who wasn't particularly studious to make her appear as though she weren't so superior, so that the teenaged audience wouldn't feel alienated (as if teenagers can't relate to anyone unlike themselves).

Becky Connor also dated someone who was her intellectual inferior, (a mismatched couple if I ever saw one). Her actual abilities were never demonstrated on the show. We hear that she was an "A" student, and that she was quite intelligent, but we never hear her say anything remotely intellectual, we never see her accomplish anything substantial, and she is always portrayed as being concerned about popularity and her looks (in the re-runs). Of course the vast majority of teenagers are preoccupied with popularity and appearance at some point or another in their adolescence; but it seems that all Becky Connor is concerned about are those sorts of things.

As far as I have seen, the vast majority of teenaged T.V. characters are portrayed as much less intelligent than these two, and it's really sad. To me it says that society does not recognize that many teenagers can have sincere interests that go beyond the typical partying/music/popularity thing. Children and teenagers grow up believing that intellectuality is a one-way ticket to unpopularity rather than a means to self-fulfillment. In this way society stunts potential growth and self-realization. Adolescents become so ingrained in conformism that they are afraid of looking inside themselves and honestly ask: What am I interested in? They just go along with what everyone else likes. They never venture into the library to seek out books on history, philosophy, religion, science, etc. because they are terrified they will be ridiculed.

I cannot say what can be done about the situation. I know it is very negative and keeps teenagers down. I have an intuition that this phenomenon is more widespread than I make it out to be: that it's not just on T.V. I always felt as a teenager that my interests were not being respected by society. I saw that my classmates and friends were being dragged down into a stupid adolescent belief system which says intellectuality is bad, so I ended up as a reject because they couldn't-- and wouldn't-- connect. Yet their inability to reason and to find interests outside of sex and partying made them miserable.

People wonder why kids drink so much: kids drink because they are bored and because we don't expect anything better of them and don't give them the opportunity to help them with personal projects (eg. zines or social activism). Opening their minds will allow them to develop talents and expertise which they can put to use doing something valuable and meaningful for themselves; their lives will not be confined to looking forward to the next party.


Let Suzanne Fortin know what you think!