TV Review of MTV’s Skins, as Forced and Awkward as Teen Sex

In the above review of The Mechanic, I speculate that maybe if teenagers were having more sex, they would be less violent. [Christian conservatives can come on here and jump down my throat if they want to but young males getting it on the regular typically don’t storm their schools looking for random people to shoot]. Luckily, I have MTV’s Skins to give me an example of the promotion of teen sex over Jason Statham blowing up a city block to kill a guy.

Skins has become something of a lightening rod of controversy as parent’s groups—whose kids apparently will be scandalized by this depiction of teen sex because the other 10,000 depictions of teen sex have had little effect—have strongly cautioned parents against letting their kids watch the show. Because, of course, we all know telling teens not to do something will immediately evaporate any interest they might have had in doing it. Then they have threatened boycotts of the show to get MTV to take it off the air. MTV, in the perpetual cycle of déjà vu, released the following press release “free speech blah blah artistic freedom yada yada it’s the parent’s jobs to watch their kids horseshit horseshit horseshit we don’t promote teen sex so much as a dialogue about teen sex [insert number of viewers we hope will watch this dialogue here] ” and the same song and dance they’ve engaged in with one of their shows every year or so since The Real World.

I actually agree with MTV, but the argument they put up is so stale it makes me wish I didn’t. Of course, the various parent’s councils are an always ridiculous group of people that could probably benefit from more sex in their own lives instead of policing their kid’s sex lives, their kid’s friend’s sex lives, and the entire TV landscape in search of a rogue titty. They’re salmon swimming upstream, trying to change the culture because it no longer reflects them instead of changing themselves.

Of course, all this controversy couldn’t be better for the show because it disguises a really key point of interest: the show sucks. The fog of controversy can cloud the quality of a show you might otherwise be able to tell, crystal clear, has no quality. Every episode—hell, almost every scene—has a forced sexual situation that would never happen in real life, and the other party (usually a guy) just acts slack jawed and stupid at what’s happening right in front of them. Skins continues the trend of portraying young women as down-for-it as teenage boys are, while an audience of teenage boys might be watching, thinking “if only it were that easy.” The show is forced, awkward, and unrealistic, which makes it the perfect metaphor for teen sex.

Scene Stealer to Watch: I hate to cop out on a gimmick so early in the site’s run but it’s hard to find someone that really distinguishes themselves in this ensemble cast. In the two episodes I’ve seen, the cast is mostly inexperienced actors (supposedly the best part of the vastly superior British show) and it really shows.