By Jordan Sunkel
Round Table editor
A 7-year-old boy turns on the television. Uninterested in the news channel presently on the TV, he starts flipping through the channels. Finally he stops at MTV and sees “Skins.” He grabs the snacks laid out before him, and settles in for the hour-long show. He will soon find out why the Parent’s Television Council has named it “the most dangerous program…ever…”
“Skins,” MTV’s newest series, premiered on Jan. 17 at 10 p.m. The show is an adaptation from a British drama by the same name. Since its television debut, “Skins” has been under fire for extreme depictions of teen life.
“Skins” is about a group of teenagers struggling to get through high school. It deals with many of the same issues as other teen dramas, such as “Degrassi,” “Glee” or even “That ’70s Show,” but “Skins” goes further than any teenage drama has ever gone.
The show depicts teens participating in excessive drug use, premarital sex, nudity, explicit language and other licentious behavior to such an extreme point that it is rated TV-MA. A TV-MA rating means that the program is targeted for adults and most likely unsuitable for children under the age of 17.
However, the core demographic for “Skins,” as MTV states, is not for 18-year-olds and above, but for viewers from the ages of 12 to 34. According to the Marquee Blog on CNN, about 1.2 million people under the age of 18 watched “Skins” on its premiere night.
Not only are those numbers disturbing, but so are the ages of the actors and actresses involved in the show. The youngest of the cast is only 15 years old. The PTC is in such an uproar about the actor that the PTC is calling on the Department of Justice to investigate “Skins” to see if the show violates the United States Code: Title 18, 1466A.
18 USC 1466A states, “Any person who…knowingly produces, distributes, receives or possesses with intent to distribute, a visual depiction of any kind… that depicts a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct… shall be subject to penalties…” that could be anywhere from five to 20 years in prison.
The most alarming part of “Skins” is how the show seems to condone the activities in which the actors participate. While MTV airs a commercial saying that teen pregnancy is 100 percent preventable, it contradicts that message when the main character of “Skins” tries to convince his friend that it is embarrassing for a kid of his age, 16, to not have had sex yet.
It is ridiculous that any television show would allow that message to be broadcasted to millions of people. Teenagers already struggle with finding their identity and fitting in, and letting 12-year-olds believe that having premarital sex is the “cool” thing to do is not ethically acceptable.
In response to the criticisms, MTV released a statement saying, “‘Skins’ is a show that addresses real-world issues confronting teens in a frank way.” “Skins” portrayal of teenage life may be blunt, but there is no reason to let it remain on TV for all to see. The PTC is correct when it says the show quite possibly may be the most dangerous program to ever be put on television.
