According to a study, this MTV show caused teen pregnancy to fall by one-third in 2010 — all while making a glamorous start [to the lives] of the young mothers.
The latest season of “16 and Pregnant” aired last spring on MTV in the United States. In five years, the reality TV show, which follows the pregnancies and deliveries of high school students, à la [the movie] Juno, has set up shop in the country: Its Facebook page has more than 6 million fans.
The show exhibits the daily life of very young girls before and just after delivery. In the successive portraits, which are very well put together, teen pregnancy is presented as a mistake that needs to be lived with.
This year, researchers have analyzed the phenomenon and its impact on teen birth control. Let’s have a closer look at the social usefulness of this multitude of mini-Junos, of which MTV France broadcasts several episodes each week.
Blonde, Less Intelligent Junos
It’s the story of young girls who haven’t been well protected, who have gotten pregnant and who have decided to the keep the child (in puritanical America, abortion isn’t even a possibility). Variety came later. But in the first seasons, and even now, most of the women are white. They live in a suburban and comfortable America of little white houses with porches and yellow school buses.
They’re Junos, only blonder and less intelligent, who don’t match the typical image of the real American teen mother (older and poorer). Their parents are relatively loving and open.
The episodes talk about teasing at school, the future fathers who don’t provide, the mothers who are both unhappy and moved [by the experience] at the same time, the painful delivery, the abandoned studies, the nighttime wake-ups, the social isolation — or the heartbreak of separation in the case of adoption.
The show is a success to the extent that the teen who watches it, slumped on the couch and inevitably self-centered, sees how her comfort could be ruined, in a very concrete way, if a child arrived in her life.
Mackenzie, the High School Star, Is Pregnant
For example, we follow 16-year-old Mackenzie. [She’s] pretty, blonde, small and fit, and is a top-level cheerleader. Her boyfriend, Josh, is a tall, dark and handsome rodeo fan, but is otherwise kind of a doormat. They’re the model American couple, the one that the whole high school must envy in secret. Except that they are going to become parents too early and “it sucks.”
Pregnant, Mackenzie can no longer do back handsprings. Josh has to find a job after high school and it’s getting on his nerves. He doesn’t even know when the baby is due. That disheartens Mackenzie, who starts sounding like a shrew. She is too tired to keep going to class.
Before the delivery, Josh gets into a car accident. Mackenzie tries to put on a good front for her friends who continue to live the lives of children (“What clothes should I wear the first day of school?”).* She gives birth by caesarean, in full makeup. They get up eight times a night, in the chaos of the Mackenzie family room.
The teenager goes back to school, but everything has changed.
Abortion Ignored
In the United States, the show is a big hit: Episodes regularly exceed 3 million spectators. The names of the characters (the girls or their children) are rising on the list of the most popular names given [to newborns] in the country. But no one really thinks the same thing.
The series claims to be educational. It partners with a teen pregnancy prevention organization. It has the scientific endorsement of a psychiatrist, Dr. Drew Pinsky, who encourages teenagers to consult sites on contraception.
In an article in the New York Times from April 2011, the journalist Jan Hoffman seemed rather convinced by its benefits. He interviewed several social educators and professors impressed by the impact of the show on teens, who are “sucked into the drama of it” but “see that they don’t ever want to be in that situation.” The show promotes conversations between parents and kids at home.
An article in the Washington Post from about the same time period is more cautious. The journalist is sorry, for example, that abortion is constantly ignored in the episodes (a young couple who put their daughter up for adoption is even openly pro-life). Only one “special” episode, titled “No Easy Decision,” was dedicated to [the subject] in December 2010 — and this single time provoked a scandal within conservative American circles.
The journalist finds that the show avoids other important subjects, such as complications linked to nursing and delivery.
20,000 Prevented Births Thanks to the Show
The United States is the industrialized nation most concerned with teen pregnancy: According to an article in The New York Times, 410,000 girls between the ages of 15 and 19 gave birth in 2009 (1,100 a day), a number that has been declining for the last few years. In comparison, in France, the number of teen pregnancies carried to term, which also are trending downward, was 4,500 in 2010.
In 2014, the American TV show became the subject of studies and seminars. What has come out of them is contradictory.
Last January, two economists, Melissa Kearney (University of Maryland) and Philip B. Levine (Wellesley College) showed that there was a strong geographical correlation between MTV audiences and the drop in numbers of teen pregnancies. After each airing, they showed that [the number of] Internet searches and exchanges on social media concerning contraception rose. The number of tweets containing the words “birth control” rise by 23 percent the day after an airing [of the show], says the study.
According to researchers, around 20,000 teen births were avoided in 2010 thanks to the show and its spin-offs — a decline of around one-third of the overall decline in teen births in the United States during that period.
Sex Tapes and Plastic Surgery
At the same time, another, more qualitative study takes a more skeptical look at the societal impact of the program. Its spin-off, “Teen Mom” (also on MTV), tells the daily story of some of the teenagers post-delivery, which might also contribute to the “glamorization” of teen mothers.
Researchers at Indiana University have shown that regular watchers of the show think that underage parents have “an enviable quality of life, a high income and involved fathers.” In reality, say researchers, “nearly half of all teen mothers fail to earn a high school diploma and earn an average of $6,500 annually over their first 15 years of parenthood.”
In the study, it is clarified that the show “16 and Pregnant” does a better job of filling the role of prevention than its spin-off, “Teen Mom” — a pure reality show, really, which has made stars of certain moms from the first episode and given them a lot of money.
Producers Should Resist Temptation
The girls that were chosen to film “Teen Mom” are, incidentally, becoming trashy and disappointing celebrities. One of them, Amber, was hospitalized after a moment of craziness (domestic violence). Farrah, who underwent plastic surgery, found herself in a dark “sex tape” situation, all of which can regularly be found on the cover of Us Weekly.
Another problem: Several girls from “Teen Mom” chose to have a second child while they were [on the show] (to keep the producers’ interest?). Mackenzie, the cheerleader, has two children at this point, with whom she poses on the beach.
In an article in The Atlantic, a journalist neatly summarizes the problem: “I suppose if they truly want to make a difference, television executives should resist the temptation to follow up on an extraordinarily successful franchise about the horrors of teen pregnancy with a similarly popular series that looks more like ‘The Hills,’ except with diaper bags.”
It’s not in MTV’s plans to stop. The channel intends to launch a new season of “Teen Mom” in 2015.
Limited Success in France
In France, where the problem of teen pregnancy has reappeared with the financial crisis, the impact of the series is probably minimal. The girls of the show are culturally remote from French girls. But at MTV France, they say that the show is one of the most watched programs for 15-24-year-olds anyway. It is classified as a documentary.
The show “So True,” broadcast on NRJ 12 [in France], also regularly paints the picture of very young mothers. But the images and the editing tarnish the subjects so much that it is difficult to identify with them.
*Editor’s Note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.
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