Portrayal of high school

  When we look at high school in real life and as it is portrayed in television, the two are shockingly different. Going in as a freshman I remember having high expectations for the year and being naïve, I figured it would be similar as to what I had seen on TV. When I was younger, I watched shows like The Secret Life of the American Teenager and Lizzie Mcguire. Like many things displayed by today’s media, their perceptions of high school are majorly twisted to the reality of it all. In Secret Life, high school was shown to always be full of parties, guys, and sex. In my experience, high school was not like that whatsoever. I did not go to a single party, and I never even had a boyfriend in high school.

     My expectations for my freshman year were somewhat shattered after realizing that it is not all that it is cracked up to be. The media portrays high school as this one big constant party when in reality it is a time of hard work, struggle, and success in which these shows do not portray whatsoever. The media seems to have done this in the past too in films and television. For example, the film Grease. This is an excellent movie, but it does fabricate the realities of high school just like the others. Alongside the constant singing and dancing, there is the reality that boys do not look or act like what is shown in films than they do. I am keeping in mind that everyone has a different high school experience, but what the media portrays is something that no one will ever experience first hand. The drama is something that I feel is completely overly fabricated in shows like the ones I mentioned. There is drama in every high school, but not to the extent to which the media portrays.

   Another aspect I find in common with TV shows and films is that popularity means everything, which it of course does not. In High School Musical, it is depicted who is popular and who is not as does Sixteen Candles. This goes to show how this aspect of portraying high school has stood the test of time. All in all, our experiences vary, but the media will always portray it a certain way, therefore skewing our expectations.