Reverse frontierism

The faster the new semester approaches, the more eager I am to kill what remains of my brain-power. To that end, and having exhausted all of the more mainstream trash-TV¹ fare on Netflix instant watch, I've jumped continent and raced through a series and a half of the British teen drama, Skins.

Skins is basically like Dawson's Creek -- if Dawson's Creek had rampant profanity, nudity, substance abuse, raves, and gay sex². So, in short, it's amazing. To the Puritan Americanized eye, it's like a cornucopia of possibilities one could never imagine existing on the small screen, let alone acted out by a cast of teenagers. For instance, if you've ever watched any American teen drama, you'll be familiar with one of the stock settings: a neutral "club" where all the characters frequently gather to discuss their current fiasco, but where no alcohol is served and nothing whatsoever is smoked unless it's a Very Special Episode. As a doe-eyed innocent and gullible kid, I was convinced that every town had one of these cool "teen clubs," where teens go to have important teen conversations that are pivotal to their teen character development (and, in the case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to hatching elaborate vampire-killing plans). Only much later did I realize that this was all pure fantasy, that the closest venue of this kind is probably Starbucks. Skins skips all this elaborately coded trickery and just puts the kids in a damn bar already, with beer, cigarettes, and speed in tow.

True story: in late middle school/early high school, my girlfriends and I jointly composed a similar kind of teen drama. It was called Shattered Tapestries. We were each responsible for a character, around which one issue would be centered, and we all tried to one-up each other by packing in as much crazy drugs, sex, and delinquency as we could, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that none of us had yet had any experience in any of these departments. In fact, I have to wonder if our little homemade production didn't somehow end up in the hands of the BBC, because many of the plot and character arcs are downright eerily similar (my character was a girl with a tall black-haired, blue-eyed bisexual boyfriend, for instance... hmm).

Anyway, my point is, for all the swagger about this show being so true to life, OMG, etc., there's clearly more than a bit of wish fulfillment on the part of the young, hip writing team. After all, you probably don't get to be a writer for a BBC network by downing Class As like Tic-Tacs and spending every night hammered in someone else's house. No, you're probably a tad rowdy -- just enough to give you insider knowledge of some pharmaceutical lingo and the latest dance moves -- but mostly clean, sober, and professional. Your wild side only comes out at the keyboard.

The problem is, when I'm watching something like Dawson's Creek, I can roll my eyes and groan at all the obvious fakery, the layers of buttercream frosting padding any potential kernel of reality. With Skins, though, I'm totally thrown off my guard. It's British! What do I know about Britain! Maybe they really do have glo-stick raves all the time! Here are some questions that I have about Skins that I would like to have answered by a real live British person one day:

1. Do you have glo-stick raves all the time? Are you aware that The Great House Music Craze of '96-'02 has come and gone? Why are you still wearing those pants?

2. How is it that 17-year-old students with no jobs and no other sources of income (some of whom don't even have parents!) are able to constantly purchase a veritable mountain of drugs? I mean, I can understand an allowance of petty cash being squandered on the odd ounce or whatever, but these kids are smoking weed and chewing pills about as frequently as they're having glo-stick raves; i.e., all the time! Is this what socialism actually means? Can you please publicize that?

3. Are you really still so classicist? Why are all the rich (sorry, "posh") kids evil?

4. How and why did Dev Patel become the breakout star of this series? I mean, really. He's adorable and all, but boy is he a terrible child actor. Just atrocious.

5. "Safe?" Is this real life slang, or quasi-slang that no one actually uses in conversation (aka, "dope")?

There are a myriad of other questions and conundrums, but I almost don't want them answered. I'd prefer to continue maintaining the illusion of England as a magical place, a liberated place, a kingdom of wonder and fantasy, with perfectly-sculpted cheekbones and blacklights for all.

¹Honestly, though, my taste in "trash-TV" is fairly pedestrian. I've long ago lost the stomach for any kind of reality show, televised competition, or original MTV production, which pretty much leaves me with back-episodes of Intervention -- and that's only a last resort for when I'm very, very depressed.

²Perhaps a more accurate comparison would be Gossip Girl (which I've never actually seen... though, come to think, I don't know if I've ever made it through a full episode of Dawson's Creek, either). However, even making that comparison goes to show how ridiculously sheltered/sheltering we 'mericans are as a culture, and how selectively puritanical. I'm given to understand that while Gossip Girl has plenty of raunchy indications, it runs on the CW and therefore can't possibly contain any actual adult content. Compared to Skins, it sounds like the Hollywood billowing curtain shot: all innocent innuendo, no sinful meat.