Staff Writer
If 1960s youth is defined by freedom songs and anti-war protests and 1980s youth is defined by the “Material Girl” in bad clothing, what will define our generation? Will our pop culture represent who we are?
In October, Voice of America, a service funded by the United States government that was once dedicated to providing news and informational programs overseas, decided instead to broadcast music by Britney Spears and Eminem to traditional Arab countries in hopes of portraying America’s youth culture. This should accomplish the task of giving already sneering Arab countries a depiction of typical American adolescent girls as half-naked sex objects living in their “own little nasty world” and boys as the angst-ridden and racist time-bombs illustrated so well by Eminem’s lyrics.
Unfortunately, this is the pop culture that is supposed to represent America’s youth. Although we are defined as Generation Y, we are more collectively known as The MTV Generation and characterized by shows such as “Undressed” and “True Life: I’m a Sex Addict.”
“Most of pop culture portrays this meaningless life that’s completely superficial. It’s all about sex, money, cars and girls, and there’s so much more to our lives,” said De Anza student James Soderstrom. “It’s sad that this is what we have to represent us.”
Though the name may have been initiated by the 1980s teenage obsession with music videos, MTV has become a representation of youth culture and therefore, the framework for others to judge youth by. But are they right? Is that who we are? Are we typified by the swimsuit-clad Spring Break partiers who participate in contests requiring them to “rub as much honey on your partner’s body in two minutes?” Will we be known as the sex-crazed and image-driven generation? Or is there more to us? Last time I opened my eyes, there was.
“Look around and you see these multi-dimensional people who feel and dream and learn and even philosophize! That’s who we are, but our ideals and beliefs aren’t shown on MTV,” said De Anza student Alicia Maier. “Sexuality may be a part of our lives, but it does not, by any means, define who we are.”
However, in some ways pop media does represent our increasingly liberalistic viewpoints. Fifty years ago, producers would not dream of creating a sitcom that celebrates homosexuality or writing music about drug addiction – now they can.
“Hopefully, people would look at the pop culture of today and see how open-minded our generation is,” said Youssef Bouhouch,
a De Anza student. “Unfortunately, they probably wouldn’t be able to look past the trash that’s put on MTV.”
“Pop culture represents what youth is obsessed with watching, but not who they are,” said student Kristeen Fjerstad. “The media feeds off of what people like and then exaggerates it. From that, teens see what they want to become, but it will always be an exaggeration of real life.”
Sadly, sex sells. Image sells. Super-ficiality sells. Since a show about “real” people-a show that does not revolve around sex and image-would probably not fall into the category of entertaining, we may never truly be represented by our own pop culture.
