One of my guiltiest pleasures has to be the 16 and Pregnant series on MTV. It is a reality series which follows the struggles of girls who have gotten pregnant at a young age. Throughout the series, each girl struggles with finishing school, mending relationships, and maintaining finances.
I personally enjoy the show because it is very entertaining. I enjoy watching dramatic lives on television, while I live my significantly less eventful black and white life. Additionally, as a 21 year old college student without a boyfriend, I do not have many lessons to potentially learn from the show. Recently, I stumbled upon a blog which raised the question of whether the series was created to educate teens on the importance of safe sex practices, or whether it is just another revenue generating machine.
I personally think that the show is much more of a profitable series than a cautionary tale to teens. While you could easily argue that because the series shows more struggles than happy times with the girls, teens are warned that early pregnancy is not desirable. And that could very well be the way that the of the series intends on teaching prevention. However, if MTV was really trying to mitigate teen pregnancy, they would have explained prevention--something which is never spoken about during the show. None of the girls ever talk about how they got pregnant. Nobody every says that they skipped a pill, had a condom break, or weren't practicing some form of birth control. Because the show does not provide any strategies for teens to prevent pregnancy, it's intention is not to educate teens, but rather to make a profit.
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