Story published on Women's Views on News, November 13, 2012
WVoN asked real teenage girls for their views on the new BBC3 comedy.
Some Girls follows the lives of four 16-year-old girls who play football together at school, and live on a fictitious council estate in South London.
The first of six episodes screened last Tuesday features Amber, who is trying to extricate herself from her possessive boyfriend while her friend Viva has to suffer the bullying football coach at school and at home, as she is expecting a baby with her father.
Teenage pregnancy, teachers, tranquilisers, sex – nothing is off limits for this programme. But how well does it reflect the lives and experiences of real teenagers?
“The situations and the language were relatable. Overall I thought it was a very good programme,” said 15-year-old Anike Shantan from London.
Shantan particularly liked the coach, who came down on the girls as teachers do.
“Going to a girl’s school everyone is really roped into having boyfriends and news and gossip about that stuff,” she said.
Seventeen year old Viviyana Matanda, a sixth form student from Cardiff agrees.
“I quite liked it, I thought it was pretty funny,” she said.
“Some of the stories like the teen mum, very relatable. It’s exaggerated, but you know people like this. “I guess it represented the situation we are in, but in a more comical way,” she said.
Ellie Manning, 17, from Cardiff, did not think the programme realistic, but found it funny nonetheless.
“I live near an estate, but I’m very naive to what goes on. They are all going through the same things as us. Our lives are all the same,” said Shantan.
The programme is about teenagers, but is screened at 10 o clock, after the watershed, too late for a lot of younger teenagers to watch on a school night. If you watch it on the IPlayer a button comes up asking you if you are over 16.
The programme is clearly aimed at teenagers. “It’s definitely for people our age, anyone older wouldn’t really understand,” said Matanda.
And it addresses issues faced by young women before they reach 16.
It is ironic that to produce a programme that reflects the true experience of teenagers it has to be shown at a time that places it out of reach of many of them.
Shantan believes there is a lack of programmes for young women of her age on TV.
“There are kid’s programmes and there is the Disney channel, and then it goes straight to adults. CBBC ends at 12,” she said.
The 17-year-olds we spoke to were already watching adult programmes.
Some of the girls were concerned about the way girls their age are portrayed on TV.
“If you watch American shows they are much more mature than us. In the UK teenagers are portrayed as chavs or immature, it’s usually fairly stereotypical, but that is what we find funny so you can’t really complain” said Matanda.
Shantan said: “On TV it’s like all girls are after boys, running around with skirts round our knickers running after boys.
“It would be nice to have TV shows that show us in a good light. They all say the same thing.”
You can watch Some Girls here
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