Oh, wow.

I don't actually have access to TV currently, but thanks to the glorious invention of Youtube, podcasts and "watch again" features on various channel websites, it's sometimes difficult to notice.

One of the things I've been able to watch, with only a slight delay vis-a-vis its broadcasting schedule, is E4's much hyped "Skins".

Actually what really got me turned onto it was a feature on a recent episode of Screenwipe, where Stewart Lee deplores the modern depiction of teenagers in television - "selfish, avaricious but also confident, sassy and cool, and really at home with sex and drugs". Versus the portrayal of teenagers in the 70s - "terrified of the world, uncomfortable, alienated and alone" and according to him, "much truer to what it's like to be a teenager."

It raises the question of whether so-called "aspirational" television is ultimately quite destructive because it distorts people's image of real life, and what they ought to expect from it. And also because it leads people to feel "left out". While images of teenagers wandering around on their own and feeling highly alienated is presumably a great comfort. I'm not convinced.

I think Lee's assessment was essentially based on the first episode and that trailer (watch), which are quite consistent with his description as quoted above, and admittedly are perhaps a touch over-the-top and excessive, a bit cartoon-ish even, not to say ridiculous or obnoxious. The follow-up episodes seem to attempt to explore the characters and their problems with slightly more subtlety and depth. And they begin with Cassie, who is one of the most delightful & compelling characters I think I've ever come across on television. She's essentially an awfully tragic figure who's entirely disconnected from reality and at the same time somehow appears as a shining beacon of sense and reason among the insanity & frivolity of the world surrounding her. Unfortunately Cassie was made for another planet, and we all know what happens to people like that, who dont fit or play the game - they end up in mental institutions.

Suddenly it doesn't seem quite so aspirational. Then again, I think there's certain kind of "aspirational ambivalence" - one can aspire to a certain kind of suffering, perhaps not so much Cassie's, maybe more like Harry Potter's. There is such a thing as suffering with style, in addition the the implicit premise that after hardship comes triumph, and reward.

So the characters might be a smidge excessive, a bit "type" and lacking in dimensions to make up the full trio. But maybe its ok for them to be exaggerated, and can be justified in the name of producing characters to really get one's teeth into, in short - Characters, as opposed to human beings. Because that's what reality TV is for.

This is Cassie, by the way.

Watch Stewart Lee arguing his case, as featured in a recent episode of Screenwipe, about 2/3rds of the way in, and all the others while you're at it, since you certainly won't be watching any Skins, as at time of going to press all online episodes had been culled.