Teenagers are functionally autistic. I don’t mean that as a slight; I play on the fringes of the spectrum. But much of the narrative tension of comes from the inability to read social cues. That makes television shows about teenagers difficult to pull off. And for now, “Awkward” is doing just that on MTV.
When most shows try to portray the high school life, they’re writing for two audiences. One is teens (quelle surprise), and those with a bit more life experience. In both cases, an *uncanny valley* develops in both tone and social failures. Teens can tell false slang (Juno, Brick) and adults can still point to “Stop trying to make fetch happen!” Teens also don’t want to see too many missed chances (too depressing) and adults don’t want to watch dumb kids.
Awkward has an appeal because it makes a virtue of its leads’ more mature attributes without assuming that they’ll occur on a permanent basis. And while the slang occasionally veers into Diablo Cody territory, it remains honest by never sticking around for longer than one episode (just like IRL, guys). Those are the high level reasons that it works, but the show gets more play out of the details.
For one, Sadie (antagonist) is less attractive, but more popular than Jenna (our protagonist). Find me another show that manages to do that and reference body issue twice without it being a joke? I’ll buy you a cookie. Maybe even three. Speaking of three, there’s a love triangle, but it’s decidedly more realistic. Girl likes boy, boy likes sex but not relationships for the first line. The second is with a guy already in a relationship. It doesn’t sound fun, but it’s much more realistic than what we normally see.
Speaking of realistic, a lot of shows make cringe-inducing adult-teen interactions. Awkward actually follows through. People who have seen either version of Skins recognize the immature teacher archetype. But by making Jenna’s parents teen mom and dad, it allows for more interplay about roles and boundaries. And that’s a lot more helpful than the dumb teacher (who in this case is a dumb counselor). And again, there are flaws.
The most recent episode has Jenna trying to pull off the omniscient narrator without separation, and it seemed like an easy way to resolve the love triangle. And the adult characters seemed more like amusement park caricatures for the sake of a 30-second denouement.
But Awkward has a lot of things going for it. Above everything else, there’s an honest view of sex (kids to it) and drinking (see previous) that doesn’t promote either. More importantly, MTV.com has all previous episodes available on site. Check one out and tell me what you think before next Tuesday, or tell me what makes great teen TV?
