Coming across this post on Jezebel reminded me of one of my favourite moments of teen television that I have discovered relatively recently. The summer of 2010 provided another one of those morsels of television that fans (like me) practically live for: an incredibly beautiful, emotional, realistic, short-lived teen drama.
Huge, a 10-episode series about a group of overweight teenagers at summer camp, offered something so rich and sweet and wonderful and new, that attempting to describe how happy discovering this show made me would be next to impossible. Instead I will leave it to one scene to hopefully begin to explain how amazingly different this show really was.
The scene is outdoors, at night. Movie night. A treat for the campers. Poppy, the overly-cheerful counsellor for the girl’s cabin sits alone at the back of the crowd of teenagers. Contemplating his complicated feelings for one of the (underage) campers, George, another counsellor, joins her on her bench… Now at this point, I have to admit that the moment George sat down, I began to wonder: will the show pair up the two attractive, similarly-aged, available characters? Is that where this is going? Will George give up his unethical involvement with a camper and make a move? Convention led my expectations but convention was about to be subverted… mere moments later, their conversation goes like this:
George: There is so much angst going on here.
Poppy: You mean in the movie or… here?
George: Both. I guess.
Poppy: (referencing the screen) I can’t imagine feeling like that. So intensely passionate about another person.
George: You mean like, being in love?
Poppy: I mean like, anything. I basically identify as asexual.
George: Wait, what!
Poppy: (nodding) It’s just how I am. I kept waiting to feel the feelings that everyone else talked about, but I just never got there.
George: Oh.
Poppy: In a way I’m grateful I don’t have to deal with all that.
And the moment was over. No big deal, no story line, no controversy, just a meaningful conversation between two people who work together and are becoming friends. I have to say that this moment of intimate sharing shocked and surprised me — of course in the best possible way. In fact, in all my years of greedily consuming teen television, this is the first time I can remember witnessing any kind of alternative to the hormone-fuelled adventures of teenaged sexuality. It was wonderful!
This inclusion made me realize at the time (and my realization has since been affirmed by the societal assumptions mentioned in the post linked to above), how very little diversity there is in the portrayals of sexuality on teen dramas. Thinking back, has television ever before really questioned the assumed fact that teenagers discover sex and sexual identity, or that teenagers are fuelled by uncontrollable hormones? Aside from immature 14-year-olds who haven’t yet discovered the joys of making out, has there ever been a teenager on television who didn’t want a boyfriend/girlfriend?
