Pretty Little Liars: A Person of Interest
For this blog post, I decided to study the series Pretty Little Liars: A Person of Interest because the show focuses on four female high school students and the mysterious death of their friend. I have watched the show, since the pilot episode, but I have never considered the show as a representation of youth and adolescence. I think the show adds a unique observation of the youth and the relationships they have in their lives.
People have referred to the style of the show as similar to Desperate Housewives, but for teens. Clearly, the show is targeted for teens, or at least a younger generation of people. Calling it a Desperate Housewives for teens also suggests there is a certain level of adolescence and immaturity that does not allow the show to be presented to an audience of adults. I think the clothing of the female characters on the show is also interesting. The clothing is very upscale fashion forward and expensive looking, which might read as the director’s attempt to make the female high school students attractive. I think the clothing style also gives the female viewers an example of how they should dress or how they should want to dress.
At the beginning of the episode, the girls are seen in an interrogation room being questioned over a possible suspect for the death of their friend, Ian who is Spencer’s brother-in-law. After arriving home, Spencer sits down with her parents. They quickly proceed to tell Spencer that she needs to see a shrink for accusing Ian and her grieving process over her friend’s death. This points out her parents, sister, and other adults like the police did not take the girls’ accusations seriously. Spencer would be admitting that she needs help and that she still needs to be looked after like a child. Although she is still in high school, the suggestion of a shrink furthers the representation of Spencer as being too naïve and immature to really realize when she needs help from a professional. I think this kind of ties in with the Future Girl article. Throughout the show, Spencer is seen as the “can-do girl” who takes AP classes, plays tests, wins scholarships, and other activities and achievements. In this situation, her parents are willing to see a problem that Spencer may have and provide her with a resource to help her get better. “…young people can be tagged and closely observed in an attempt to keep them on track. However, these situations tend to become the only lens through which these youth are seen, and this then invites surveillance and intervention.” (Future Girl, 25) I think Spencer’s parents are tagging her because they fear if she steps one step away from perfection, she will become a troublemaker or an “at-risk” girl. The moment they ask her to see a shrink is their way of an intervention to stop the problem before it gets any worse. The correlation between parent approval and adolescence acting out is discussed in the Kearney article. “…since adolescence is a mode of subjectivity typically defined by its opposition to adulthood and the responsibilities adult identity usually entails…” (Kearney, 291) Spencer’s parents feel she is acting out; thereby she is not an adult by disobeying their parenting. Female viewers of the show can see be actually doing the right thing sometimes that you can be punished for speaking up, especially as female adolescences.
Later in the episode, Hanna camps out with her boyfriend Caleb after a fight with her mom about Caleb staying at their house. The conversation begins with Hanna revealing to Caleb that she went to fat camp for five summers. She kept this part of herself hidden from him, because she needed to keep her appearance up with her peers that she was a girl who cared about fashion and looking beauty. “Increasingly bombarded by countless “perfect” body images projected by TV, movies and magazines, many Americans are feeling worse and worse about the workaday bodies they actually inhabit. The people being hurt most are the ones who are the most vulnerable: adolescences.” (Bordo,457) I think adolescences are the ones being affected more because of the pressure they have from the media as well as their peers. Hanna did not want to reopen those emotions of being looked down upon for the shape of her body. I think this also draws upon the shows focus to present the female high school students as adolescences who care way too much about how they look and how to look a certain way to be popular.
For the most part, the series portrays the female high school students as adolescences lost in the world. They are confused about who they are, who they should be, and who they truly want to be. This portrayal fits into many of the common stereotypes surrounding adolescences and pressures they feel from society and the media.
Work Cited
Bordo, Susan. “Never Just Pictures.” University of California Press, 1997.
Harris, Anita. “The ‘Can-Do’ Girl Versus the ‘At-Risk’ Girl.” Future Girl. Young Women in the Twenty-First Century. London: Routledge, 2004.
Kearney, Mary. “Producing Girls.” Girls Make Media. New York: Routledge, 2006.
I really like your point about Hanna and how you brought Bordo’s discussion of body image into play. When I read Bordo’s article I thought of it more as describing women as being unhappy with how they look at the present time. But here, Hanna is not ashamed of how she currently looks but is instead ashamed of what she used to look like. It is almost as if society is telling girls and women that they must not only fit into the current standards of what is beautiful but they must also always have been and always maintains this beauty to avoid feeling shame. Pretty Little Liars and their portrayal of Hanna just reaffirms to young women that being skinny is the only way to be accepted by your peers and even by yourself.
ReplyDeleteI really think you hit the nail on the head when you discussed how Spencer was treated as too immature and naïve to handle the situation without her parents and a shrink.. It went perfectly with Harris’ Future Girl, getting the can-do girl help as soon as possible so that she can be guided back to the right path.You also made a really good point about how no one took their accusation seriously. I think this is seen a lot in adolescents, entertainment and real life. Adults think they are too young, don’t know what they’re talking about and have wild, crazy imaginations so no one takes their ideas seriously.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what is about being a teenager that adults think that they have wild imaginations. I think it's so interesting that at the time where teens should be treated a little more like adults they are treated as if they are completely imbalanced. This plays into the situation with Spencer. She has to be crazy and can't be taken seriously yet I feel that if she was an adult her accusations wouldn't have been taken as lightly. I also think your point about Hanna is so true. The media likes to gloss over girls "awkward period" and show girls only as the normative "pretty." This makes girls feel as if they are the only ones to go through that period of awkward growth but in actuality it is very common and almost everyone goes through it.
ReplyDeleteI think that you addressed some very relevant points with adolescences not being taken seriously and with them having body image issues. Another point is that I think this show seems to make adolescent females out to be consumers of culture, or at least get its viewers to fill that role. Dressing the characters in expensive looking clothing to convey the idea of popularity being based on what you wear might cause some viewers to want to go out and purchase these clothes. They are appealing to adolescences want to fit in, and by never showing the girls in anything but apparently designer clothing and perfectly applied makeup, it seems as though that is the way to do it.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I have personally never seen this show, I think you do a good job of describing it. It sounds to me like Spencer it still treated as a child. Youth are made out to be immature and unable to handle the things that happen in life. Spencer has to have her parents and a shrink with her which proves this point exactly. Also when you talked about teenagers and their issue with how they look and dress. Now a days, how you look and how you dress seems to be the most important thing, when in all reality, the accomplishments you make are in fact the most important. How you dress in high school isn't going to matter when you are thirty years old.
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