Mtv’s 16 & Pregnant Glorifies Teen Pregnancy Essay

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 86 percent of mothers who breach stomach out-of-wedlock ar juvenilers. MTVs show 16 & fraught(p), which has only been on air since June 2009, is already reflecting the rapid boom in immature maternal quality across various cities in America. Since the early eighties MTV has been considered approximatelywhat of a cultural phenomenon for American adolescents and its depiction of enkindleuality has a strong tinct that continues to this day (Holtzman 2000).Created by Morgan J.Freeman (director of teen shows Dawsons Creek and lagune Beach), the show 16 & Pregnant has been said to be guilty of exacerbating, normalizing and scour glorifying teen maternal quality. Perhaps, its just reflecting a current social quandary occurring amongst womanish youth. Each week a new installation revolves roughly a different girl struggling with the challenges of teenage pregnancy. The ne some(prenominal)rk presents these characters as r eal, plucked from the grips of reality, validated and chosen to represent some disunite of normalized or otherwise glamorized middle-class individualism element of teenage maternalism.The show depicts womens roles that are lots typified to include traditionalistic sexual practiceed norms of hetero shake upual kinships, marriage, motherhood and femininity. 16 & Pregnant serves as a platform to broadcast what is seen as a stereotypical American nuance that is now engulfing teen girls everywhere. The social identities MTV presents reinforces those of traditional female roles and gender norms and attempts to establish a new model for big(predicate) teens in a modern age.Just by airing the show, MTV is absorb new ideas of teen pregnancy into American society. Historically, there has always been some sort of unspoken Christian tradition that has governed American womens birth rights that one should not get pregnant out-of-wedlock. Today, however, teenage pregnancy is so rampant that families are forced to surge with the situation in a positive manner, often honoring the decision the child has made in regards to keeping and raising the newborn child (Gallagher 2009).In a 2004 survey, the Parents goggle box Council reported that MTV is the most watched syllabus for those between the ages of 12 and 19. Studies showed notice MTV created a more liberal attitude toward pre-martial sex. Teenagers who watch MTV receive messages about sex that are likely to sway their own behavior. MTV is shaping the identity of the teenage mom, a pregnant 16 year old high prepare student whose uncertainty about motherhood is due to the feature that she views her pregnancy as the consequence of a selfish action that was ultimately unavoidable.16 & Pregnant normalizes sexual behavior that finally forces teenage girls into the traditional gender role of the grieving mother, one who is forced to take dole out of a baby while struggling to support herself (Schmidt 2009). The first episode of 16 & Pregnant takes place in Chattanooga, Tennessee and documents the life of Maci who gets pregnant by her first boyfriend, Ryan. For Maci, adoption and abortion were never an option, she figured she made the decision to give up unprotected sex so now she must deal with the consequences.At one point during an argument in the show, Ryan yells out, If we didnt maintain a kid, we wouldnt be together, and its clear from watching the that the twain are still just teens. Maci struggles to take care of her newborn child, who, formerly born, requires constant attention and deals with the turmoil of trying to get Ryan involved in the relationship of fatherhood. The teen mom is now a stable identity offered up on the MTV network to heterosexual female youth a child who is forced to mature and deal with adult realities as an certain way of life.The show is sending a message that it is normal for teenage girls to deal with such serious issues as birth control, adoption, abortion, marriage, and finances, further cementing these issues into the female identity at a young age. Maci symbolizes that it is now acceptable for a 16 year old girl to be a utilise mother in America. Episode two introduces Farrah, a chirk upleader from Council Bluffs, Iowa who juggles take, work and cheer practice. Her life functions a lot more complicated when she finds out she is pregnant.Farrahs best friend turns on her spreading nasty rumors, forcing Farrah to finish school online. Farrahs ex-boyfriend, also the babys father, begins to harass her after he finds out she is pregnant which leads her to change her number. I would take over never woolly-headed my virginity to someone I believed would treat me like this, Farrah exclaims about her ex-boyfriend. Farrah struggles with single motherhood and has to deal with a judgmental parent who looks down upon her decisions.Episode two again reinforces traditional American cultural eliefs of female gender roles by picture the woman as the single mother, ultimately responsible for(p) for the child, present the girl dealing with emotional problems while trying to hold the family together, tasks and situations often associated with femininity. These images become engrained on a young viewers minds and being sixteen and pregnant becomes just another fad for young girls to consider. MTV has a large history of reflecting the lives of our viewers with compelling reality stories, says Tony DiSanto, MTVs president of programming.The programs featured girls come from rural Mid-Western or Southern states, normally from small, labor towns, in attempt to appeal to teenage girls of the same background. The implicit message at the center of the series class prejudice implies that working-class girls from middle America, should opt to have a child because its as good a road to character development as working on the high school yearbook (Bellafante 2009). The show reinforces the stereotype that a woman is at l east a good mother, if not anything else and displaces the identity of teen mom onto middle American teenage girls.16 and Pregnant seems to, above all, incite viewers to working-class voyeurism, given how many cliches of lower-income American life are exploited. It could be possible that other MTV shows, are themselves, responsible for increases in teenage pregnancy. Shows such as The Hills and The Real World both portray the loose sexual moralistics of a younger generation, which eventually leads to an adoption of those ideals from the shows younger viewers. Researchers at the Rand Corp. say they have documented for the first time how such expo accepted to sexual suffice on TV can influence teen pregnancy rates.They be that teens exposed to the most sexual content on TV are twice as likely as teens watching less of this real to become pregnant before they reach age twenty. This means that if teenagers return having sex is the norm they will continue to engage in it. The relati onship between exposure of this kind of content on TV and the assay of later pregnancy is fairly strong, says Anita Chandra, a behavioral scientist. Even if it were haggard by other contributing factors, the association still holds (Bellafante 2009).So, is it in fact MTV who is esponsible for the abundance of pregnant teens it is helping to exploit? One thing for sure is that such a program like 16 & Pregnant is endorsing and authorize teenage girls as hyper-sexed individuals. So, why does a television show have such an immense impact on the female identity? Sociologist Chris doggies study of British Asian girls television viewing practices in the U. K. suggest that soap operas provide young women with resources to discuss issues that may not be sanctioned within some of the religious and cultural spaces they exist (N&K 2008).Nayak and Kehily, authors of Gender Youth & Culture (2008), would argue that this theory could be applied to teenage girls and reality television shows in the U. S. By watching these shows the conceptualization of appropriate femininities are derived. These shows allow young girls to make moral and ethical judgments about what they see and refashion gender values to caseful their own identities (N&K 2008). The girls in 16 & Pregnant largely set to the values of normative femininity in their search for romance, marriage, and long endpoint happiness with a male partnerIn the end, MTV is glamorizing the life of a teen mother and cementing its identity in a society where sex at a younger and younger age is already enough the norm. 16 & Pregnant is perpetuating the normalization of traditional gender roles by portraying young girls who have already been forced to take on such general notions of femininity and female identity. The young, unwed mom has now become a new identity for young girls to aspire to. Popular culture and the ways in which it is consumed forms a key site for the learning of gender identities, and MTV is the designa ted teacher.