Teen Ink: Identity, Expression, and the Written Word

There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.
-Z.N. Hurston

For my final choice assignment, I chose to review a teen oriented website. The one I selected, Teen Ink, was something I never heard of before. It is a website and printed magazine, established in 1989 by a non-profit company, that collects and publishes teen writing and art. In doing this, Teen Ink provides a virtual niche which can be used by teens to express themselves artistically while contemporaneously forging a social identity through the written word.

Very much like the videos found on Listen Up, the authors found on Teen Ink deal with the complexities of life in a very adult way. While the dominant view of teenagers portray them in a selfish and irrational manner, a skeptic would be amazed to see that may of the articles on the site deal with very mature topics. Among these articles and stories, readers will find both fictional and non-fictional accounts of topics ranging from suicide to racism, book reviews to environmental issues, travel and culture, and yes, even politics!

Some of the writings were quite profound. One that I found particularly shocking was a poem called Cancer by a teen named Amelie from Massachusetts:

Father, was there any life before your death and resurrection,
before you were chosen an insect
cut curiously
open, leading way to
your smoke bleeding - pouring from
every orifice
Where does your half life begin to be?
Father, how does it feel to know you gave
your cancer to me?
Naturalism.
What happened to ideals of flawless
resurrection?
It seems there’s been a slow exhale of
everything you know.
Father, where did the rest of you go
After lung dissection by a surgeon line chef?
Are you in some sterile room,
On walls of blistered tar flesh?

Here, Amelie grapples with the death of her father from lung cancer and strongly resents him for causing her own physical ailments. As you can see, Cancer does not look like a "teen" created it - rather it looks like a professional, adult writer did it. Despite its melancholy message, it serves to shatter the stereotypes of the typical thoughtless teenager. Another great example of this is a nonfictional piece by Dalia from Texas who lamented her racially charged experiences at a Six Flags trip:

Since the 9/11 attacks, my life has completely changed. People at school started looking at me differently and spitting rude comments at me. Terrorism changed the lives of not only me but everyone in America. It made people sad, mad, and in my case, shocked. Most Muslims would never have even thought of doing something like the 9/11 attacks, but Osama bin Laden introduced it to the world. I am completely against terrorism and war, but many people don’t see that side of me and the Muslims around me.

Dalia, like many Muslims in the United States, struggles to shake the terrorist stigma attached to them in wake of Spetember 11th. Her plight is different from other teenagers. Unlike the typical teen, Dalia is experiencing a compounded version of stereotyping: the one that slanders Islam as an extremist religion, and the other is Hine's "teenage mystique" that we have discussed so thoroughly this semester. Dalia will not only have to continue to combat racism, but also the fact that she will not be taken seriously until she emerges into adulthood.

Structurally, the Teen Ink is plain and easy to use, but in the same token, I'm not sure if it's appealing to teenagers. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't bring this up in an analysis, but given our discussions on web architecture of Listen Up, I think it may be important to discuss briefly. While I think it is functional and simple, would a teen see it as bland and unappealing? I think by making a blanket statement such as that, saying all teens require flashy websites in order to use them, just means that we are giving into the social constructions that we have been working so hard to tear down. Let's not go there, OK?

Anyway, the site is divided into two sections: the media and the administrative. The media portion, seen as the yellow bar across the top of the home page, has various links to the writing/art submissions: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Reviews, Art/Photos, Opinions, and Sports respectively. The administrative portions, in purple, has links to colleges, magazine subscription information, and even links for educators.

I tried really hard to find evidence on Teen Ink that adults (or big companies) were trying to misrepresent teenagers like Hollywood does. Let's face it, teens gone wild sells! This faux teenage culture that movies and televisions perpetuate, only serves only the dominant discourse. Thomas Hine argues that this culture is "wholly impervious to adult influence, is one of the most contentious aspects of the teenage mystique." He argues that teenagers are wrongly lumped into some artificially constructed group that is incapable of making rational decisions on its own. Hine maintains that teens are actually able people, but because this label is placed on them it becomes "an impediment that has kept them from becoming the people they were ready to be."

The fact that adults call teenagers uncontrollable and inhuman, is not because they are, it's because we adults want them to be. As a result, adults construct this media albatross that keeps teenagers in a cultural rut. Luckily, sites like Teen Ink and Listen Up exist to smash that mystique, and create a virtual safety area to express themselves and their identity.

Superbad Redux: Representation and Identity

Just a little snippit linking my previous blog to the texts:

When I saw Superbad, I immediately thought of Greenfield's Fast Forward and her themes of representation and growing up far too fast. At every stage of the movie, the main characters were trying to do something that was beyond their years – especially with the alcohol. The work glorified underage drinking, even when it really didn't pay off in the end. It leaves you with the “And they did this for what?” question, much like the girl/guy who had the plastic surgery in Greenfield’s piece.

All of this also flows nicely into Hine's concept of the "teenage mystique," insofar that Superbad perpetuates the "teenager as a problem” stereotype. The movie basically defines Hine’s argument that this mystique serves as an excuse for parents to “neglect the coming generation and, ultimately, to see their worst fears realized.” These “worst fears” are manifested when the police officers, yes police officers, takes the side of the teens and behaves like them. This movie doesn’t help the teenager’s case! It's almost like... the officers themselves succumbed to Hine's "mystique!"

Where is the McLovin? Superbad and the American Teenager

Never in all of my years have I heard so many references to sex, alcohol, and the male sexual organ in the first five minutes of a movie! Superbad is indeed as bad as the name implies, but it wasn't just the bawdy and mischievous behavior of the protagonists that made it so. I mean, I wasn't expecting this to be up for an Academy Award, but I certainly wasn't expecting this level of adult content in a teen oriented production! What is so terrible about this movie are the messages that the audience are exposed to by viewing this.

Superbad validates the dominant discourse in the United States that teenagers are crazy and irrational beings who will break/ignore all laws in order to achieve their ultimate goals - sex, drugs, and alcohol. This is by no means an implicit goal - it is the movie's thematic intent. The protagonists, Evan and Seth, who were social outcasts in their high school, sought to increase their social capital by providing alcohol for a huge party of their peers, being thrown in celebration of graduation. In so doing, the teens would "score" with their respective love interests.

With the assistance of a mutual friend Fogell, the boys were able to procure a fake ID with the pseudo name, McLovin. Fogell goes into the liquor store and was successfully able to purchase the alcohol, but was attacked by a man robbing the store. Evan and Seth, who were outside, see the police arrive and flee - realizing they now need to find another way to supply liquor for the party, and more importantly, the women. Fogell somehow ends up on a joyride with the police officers who were supposed to take him home. It is clear that the police characters are jealous of McLovin's (Fogell's) youthful antics, and desire to live vicariously though him. They go off shooting guns, attacking people, drinking in bars, and burning police cars because... that's what teens do right? We do not learn until later in the film that the police officers were actually aware that Fogell was not over twenty one, but they were inspired to be crazy and reckless like the teenagers they once were. Two adults, who just happen to be police officers, wishing they could act like stereotypical teenagers, cannot be helpful in breaking down the dominant discourse discussed earlier.

While Seth and Evan were successful in the end in providing the party with alcohol, neither were pleased with the results. Evan was about live out his dream of sleeping with his love interest, but because she was so intoxicated, he was completely turned off and chose not to continue. Seth was shocked to find that the women he had worked so hard to get liquor for, did not even drink. When he tried to put the moves on her, he accidentally headbutted her in the face.

The two girls and the protagonists make up in the end, but the moral of the movie is basically "don't act like a teenager, and bad stuff won't happen." Is this the right moral to be teaching? Are all teenagers really like this? Absolutely not. Superbad lumps all teenagers into this stereotypical sex driven, perpetual party goer role. Additionally, the way the movie treats race and domestic violence leaves much to be desired. Seth, when apologizing to the women he accidentally headbutted, remarked "you look cute with a black eye."

On a personal note, I found this movie utterly repulsive and not funny at all. I think it glorifies the actions of the main characters, and perpetuates the dominant discourse of teenagers as irrational and mischievous beings. We all know, that only a mere fraction of teens truly act like this.

"Well, honey, doctors are sadists who like to play God and watch lesser people scream..." Teen Pregnancy, Socioeconomic Class, and Juno.

Growing up as a teenager in the United States is both a challenging and chaotic experience. Teens, on a daily basis, are exposed to a bevy of mixed messages by the media that compound this already turbulent time. These messages influence teenagers by promoting certain behaviors that provoke parental confrontation. On the other hand, other media outlets contemporaneously condemn those same teenage rituals as childish or hazardous. This barrage of contradictory material, however, does not affect all teenagers in the same way. There are several factors that guide how a teen, or anyone for that matter, interprets and reacts to any form of artistic expression. Race, age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic class are all different lenses through which teenagers view media – not all teens have the same perspectives on what they see and hear. In the motion picture Juno the protagonist, in a universal sense, is in deep trouble. She, at the age of sixteen, is pregnant. The movie is a dramatic and chronological representation of her life during that phase. Despite its lighthearted and almost comedic overtones, it is possible that the overarching thematic intent could have been processed by teenagers in the audience in far more dangerous way. Young men and women, especially those sitting on the lower rung of the socioeconomic stratum, could interpret teen pregnancy in a much more casual fashion after viewing this film.

To better understand what group this film targets, it is important to examine how the protagonist, her family, and friends interact with socioeconomic class. After some consideration, it can be deduced that Juno’s family is working class. While they own a home, the occupations that her parents hold are blue collar – her stepmother does nails, and her father is a heating repairman. Although the neighborhood they live in appears to be affluent, certain characteristics such as furniture, vehicle, and clothing all indicate a heavy lean toward the working class. Perhaps Juno’s socioeconomic class is also evident in the way that she carries herself. Brash and overly opinionated, Juno seems to clash with her child’s perspective parents. This is indeed a clash of class. Another instance of this sort of clash is in the ultrasound scene where the stepmother belittles the technician to get a real job, when it was likely that the technician is highly educated and affluent.

Why does Juno’s class matter? Who cares what class she belongs to? I argue that the class of the protagonist is the target audience of the film. This means that young adults, children of working class parents specifically, view Juno and say “Well, she got pregnant and she was able to live her life normally. So if it happens to me, no big deal.” Juno’s parents reacted to her pregnancy in an atypical fashion. Since Juno’s father was himself a single parent, he knows the difficulties that raising a child alone can bring. Additionally, the story was written in a way that Juno appeared to show very little emotion regarding her predicament – she was almost dismissive of this very serious topic. Her comfort rested in the fact that a wealthy family was going to take this burden off of her shoulders. She would be able to continue her life as though nothing had ever happened. Perhaps if she were rich, she would have kept the child. Regardless, the movie sends a message to young women and men, especially those from working class families, that someone will be there to step in and save you if you get pregnant. That is a dangerous message for the youth of our country.

The dominant discourse in this country in regards teenage pregnancy carries a very powerful stereotype toward the poor and Hispanic populations. While Juno does not perpetuate that model, it does send implicit messages that being a pregnant teenager is not a problem regardless of whom you are and where you live. Juno flies in the face of the prevailing ideology that dictates that people should wait until marriage to become pregnant. Yet, the movie was constructed in a way that makes the controversy invisible or, at least, easier to swallow.