In Year 11 history class, under the tutelage of Ms Osborne, I learned about the screaming bobby-soxers of the 1940s. They were the ones who paved the way for the invention of a 50s phenomenon called “The Teenager”: a new generation of youngsters who were neither children nor proper adults. Prior to the advent of teenagers, I read, people of that age group were considered to be “mini adults” – they dressed like their parents, went where they parents went and watched what their parents watched, passing the years much as their parents before them had while awaiting the sweet embrace of death. Thank God then, my textbook communicated, for the 1950s!
In the 90s, a good forty years after I had been invented, I myself was a finally a teenager. I caught the tail end of Britpop, and the resurgence of black music as “popular” music. I wore Kickers shoes and turned the band of my regulation uniform skirt over to make it as short as possible. With friends, I rode on the top decks of London buses for hours after school, being obnoxiously and unnecessarily loud. I also watched a ridiculous amount of telly, not least one of the most influential TV teenage icons of my – and indeed any – generation, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. “High school as a horror movie” is apparently how its creator Joss Whedon pitched the show to the network – and a TV legend was born.
I was thinking about Buffy this week, after catching some more of BBC Three’s new comedy, Some Girls, in which four – the magic group number for TV – teens stumble their way through life on their inner city council estate: playing football at school, dealing with possessive boyfriends and even feminism: “What is it?” “It’s from the olden days, something to do with Ginger Spice” (by my reckoning the Spice Girls formed two years before these girls were even born). At about a decade and a half older than the protagonists, I am well aware I am not the target demographic here. But it’s oddly enjoyable, if only to compare and contrast teenage life as it is rendered nowadays with what it was for me. These girls are just as silly as me and my mates were, our problems just as amplified in our minds, our issues just as real.
A quick trawl of my @-replies column on Twitter revealed my followers’ ages as surely as looking at their birth certificates. Many of their teenage telly icons were very much of a certain period and not often homegrown: the usual suspects (Buffy’s Scooby gang) came up, but there were also some other forgotten classics. The wounded Drazic (and his deeply attractive eyebrow piercing) from Heartbreak High loomed large, as did city wildchild Jen and broken-but-beautiful Pacey from Dawson’s Creek (incidentally, I can find no one who will admit to fancying Dawson these days, but surely some of us did?). Feminist, smart and daddy issues-laden Rory Gilmore (Gilmore Girls) came up a fair bit, as did Veronica Mars and the cast of Judd Apatow’s much loved and missed Freaks and Geeks. A couple of people invoked the power of ‘”he way he leans”; Angela Chase and Jordan Catalano of My So-Called Life. A younger fringe of followers emerged, offering shows and teen stars I was aware of, but often only fleetingly invested in: Suburgatory (repeats on E4 and Channel 4), The Vampire Diaries (ITV2, currently less strong than its opening two seasons), Gossip Girl, The Inbetweeners, Modern Family, Misfits, Skins et al.
The settings change, but the stories of teenagers never really alter. They are at a difficult transitory point in their lives, dealing with grown-up issues with almost child-sized brains, putting out feelers for adulthood. The differences between my era’s teen icons and the current crop are remarkable and often subtle, from the way they speak to how they dress, but I think the most important development is the ubiquitous presence of the internet. Information is everywhere and available all the time. When I was in Year 11, mobile phones were just gaining purchase in the lives of teenagers, not the focal points of social activity that they are today. I look at these smartphones and (not so) fondly remember my brick Motorola, on the now defunct One2One network.
Is there a dearth of good British teenagers on television? Maybe. Almost all the teenagers I enjoy watching at the moment are American, and not on teen-centred shows: Haddie and Drew on the very, very good Parenthood (from the people who brought you Friday Night Lights), and Zach and Grace on The Good Wife (I cannot understand why this excellent show is not bigger). Best of all, I am loving Dana Brody on Homeland. Actress Morgan Saylor (born 1994) is superb, twisting her hands and face to convey perfectly what her character requires. She also nails the ridiculous leaps of teenage temper: happy and giggling one minute, tough, snarling and spitting the next. (Not to tar all teens with the same brush, but Dana’s excellent punctuation in a recent text does point to a more mature writing team.)
Some Girls’ first episode drew in an audience of 451,000, and this week’s third episode built on that to reach 530,000. I hope it finds a steady home and audience on BBC3, not least because the channel needs more good comedies in its stable. British teenage life as seen on television is distinctive and often inventive and very funny. That is worth portraying.
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