Hi-Lights

Skins show incorrectly portrayed as child porn

Thursday, March 03, 2011 By Desiree Matthies

Skins US, a toned down version of the Skins UK, premiered Jan. 17 on MTV. With the premiere came a major upraise from the Parents Television Council (PTC). The release from the PTC called Skins “the most dangerous television show for children that we have ever seen,” according to tvguide.com. Although the PTC may be right that the show isn’t appropriate for children, the show isn’t geared toward children. The show is rated MA for mature audiences, Skins states before every episode. Children aren’t the mature audiences, teenagers and young adults are. Many have also said the show is racy. The show may be racy but many other networks have shown racy scenes on their networks and the PTC didn’t get involved. The show was aired on MTV, not the Disney Channel. MTV isn’t geared toward children; many of the shows are also for teenagers and young adults and the lives of young people. Skins shows the lives of teenagers and how they deal with school, friends, peer pressure and their love lives. Although the life of drugs, alcohol and sex is not the life of all teenagers, it is the lives of many. Even though many parents who have seen the show believe this isn’t the life of their own teens, this is the life of many. The truth hurts. Real teenagers do the things shown on Skins. Real teens experiment as teenagers before they have to grow up and take full responsibility for themselves. One major controversial topic is the show seemed to be sexually explicit and few say even categorized as soft porn. The definition of pornography according to dictionary.com is “writings, pictures, films, etc, designed to stimulate sexual excitement.” Although the show does contain sexual content, it is nowhere near pornography. So far in the first season there has only been one nudity scene. The scene showed character Chris, played by Jesse Carere, running down the street with his behind showing. The scene caused a lot of controversy because Carere is only 17- years-old, still a minor. Although this can be portrayed as child pornography, it could have been a lot worse. The scene wasn’t a sexual scene; it was a scene of Carere running from his house because he was locked out after he tried to shower. Along with the controversy over the drugs, alcohol and sex, parents are also not comfortable with the lesbian scenes and a scene from the “Cadie” episode. In the episode, the character Cadie, played by Britne Oldford, gets sexual with an older man at a friend’s party. This is 2011. Teenagers experiment with their sexuality and some teens become involved with adults. Things like this do happen. As stated before, “the truth hurts.” Although Skins provides a lot of controversy, the show also provides much entertainment. If viewers do not like the show they can simply change the channel with the click of a button.