Everything I know about teens, I learned from MTV. I don't have kids, but when I tune into Laguna Beach or Two-a-Days, some sort of maternal thing kicks in.
I'm just aching to tell the pretty young people on these shows a thing or two that will save them loads of angst. Like, don't worry, it's not that big a deal. Ten years from now it won't matter who asked whom to Winter Formal or how many yards you lost on that play in the state finals. And 20 years from now, Kyndra will have fat thighs and Tessa will be the happy one.
It's hard to believe there really are teenage girls as cold and calculating as Laguna's Kyndra, a blond villainess as icy and manipulative as a film noir femme fatale (the Barbara Stanwyck of Double Indemnity comes to mind). Watching her juggle Cameron, Ty, Kelan and the other boys on the tips of her French-tipped nails...when does she have time to do real high school stuff like algebra homework and term papers?
For a "realer" dose of reality, Two-a-Days offers balance to Laguna's glossy myth. The Hoover, Alabama, high school Buccaneers are seen sweating, grunting and winning their way to another state play-off under the tough commands of Coach Propst (one of the best reality show archetypes in years).
The boys on the team--Alex, Max, Cornelius and a goofy behemoth named Repete Smith (yes, his dad's named Pete)--play the game full-out, then go home and eat casseroles at the kitchen table with their parents. They do homework. They go to church on Sundays and then show up for another of Coach Propst's killer football practices. These handsome young athletes escort their girlfriends to prom without having to rent stretch Hummers or fancy hotel rooms and they deliver their dates home at a decent hour, just like the Southern gents they are.
I'll take the boys and girls from the Deep South over their airheaded, looks-obsessed, shopaholic counterparts of Southern Cal any day. I may not know much about raising teens, but I know that the folks in Hoover are doing something right.
