|
So often you hear songs with
teenage artists screaming about their misfortunes and the sad lives they’ve
had. One such example is “Welcome to my life" by Simple Plan. Whilst it has
powerful guitar and drum sounds it is the lyrics, the anger at some sort of
series of unhappy events in their lives. There are many movies with scenes of
teenagers feeling oppressed and becoming rebellious. The blame for this always
falls upon the parents but what I am interested to find out is where are the
teenagers who truly feel so angry with their lives – is there real reason to
hate what they have? There doesn’t seem to be and yet books and movies portray
teenagers as hormone driven humans who hate their lives and everything around
them.
So my question is where are
these people who, as you can see for yourself, hate the normal way of life? I
personally don’t know anyone who could honestly say they hate their parents. I
do know people who listen to Green Day and other punk bands and lead normal
lives, returning home after school to a warm caring family. Who is this
‘messed’ up – what teenagers are really so angry with life that they slit their
wrists. The stories of abuse may justify such crying out but of the people I
know, there are none who commit violent acts to rebel. These children don’t
seem to actually exist and really are just crowd - pleasers. The teenagers at
Columbine and more recently in Minnesota were really
depressed and hated every aspect of their lives. Their crimes were awful,
repulsive and make you wonder how many more of these kinds of teenagers are
there? In my opinion these boys were the exception, not the norm.
The most rebellious teenagers
I know sometimes have arguments with parents, enjoy watching MTV but aren’t
Satan-worshipping haters of society. They participate in the family events
without hatred and don’t plot to murder those who feel differently about
current affairs or other matters at hand.
The repercussions of
entertainment’s negative depiction of teenagers are that their opinions and
views can be dismissed with the wave of a hand and the patronising gasp
‘teenagers.’ When a teenager really feels upset about a situation, this can
sometimes be ignored with the result of real threat. This means that a child
who really does not feel happy with the way something has been carried out, may
be dismissed causing a build-up of resentment. This creates the teenager that
is so feared and seen as a threat but only over a long time, it would take
years for the ignored, bullied teenager to feel truly as those who murdered the
innocent at Columbine. Those children are not to blame for their behaviour
although it cannot be condoned it is society’s treatment of them that creates
this rebellious attitude.
To portray teenagers as
dangerous and confused leaves me asking a question, all adults were once
teenagers – do you all ignore and discount 7 years of your lives? That must be
great because, wahey – you thought you were 40? No, no, no, no – you’re 33! Why
not do that? All adults look back and say,
“Yup, I was a teenager once,
messed up years – what I did then does not count because it was all the
hormones doing my thinking."
This idea that all people
older than teenage should minus 7 is ridiculous and doesn’t make any sense
which is why, to portray teenagers as anything other than normal is ridiculous
and doesn’t make any sense. Teenagers are normal, they have rapid changes going
on but that doesn’t mean they should be counted as inferior. In fact, to do
that is unreasonable because I don’t know any teenagers who are so different
from their parents or so strange. Only difference is magnitude of the problem.
Parents have to buy cars teenagers have to buy videogames with cars. The ratio
is similar, parent earning £50,000 a year spends £30,000 and gets a fantastic
new BMW. Teenager earning £200 a year spends £100 on the console and £40 on the
videogame.
|
