The Hard Times of R.J Berger does a great job in my opinion with showing the different discourses that surround adolescent high school students, as well as showing the issues involved with gender, race, and sexuality that surround adolescence. The show generalizes around a 15 year old boy named R.J Berger. R.J is considered to be very nerdy and isn't accepted by the popular crowd at his high school. R.J has two main friends that he hangs out with, Miles and Lily. Miles is very loud overweight kid that only thinks about one thing and that is scoring with the ladies. Miles always seems to get R.J in some kind of trouble that he has a hard time getting out of. Then you have Lily, who is extremely sex-obsessed and does nothing but lust after R.J every chance she gets. I chose to do this blog on this show because it is extremely heavy on the stereotypes of high schoolers which makes it very easy to point out different discourses associated with them. For example you have your typical jocks and cheerleaders who are the most popular kids in the school and then you have your nerdy kids that are the less popular ones.
In the show there is a character named Max. Max is your typical meat-head jock who can care less about anyone other than himself. Max gets most of his pleasure from picking on R.J and just basically making his life a living hell. For two whole seasons of the Max can be seen as your typical heterosexual high school teenager. In the last episode of the second season Max is discovered by R.J, kissing a guy and later tells R.J that he is gay. This goes back to the discussion of compulsory heterosexuality. Which explains how heterosexuality is so naturalized as the norm and all people are considered to be heterosexual unless they "come out" (Queer Desire, Romantic Comedy, and Citizenship Power Point). Max explains to R.J that he is afraid to come out because he doesn't want everybody to treat him different. This shows how hard it is for adolescence to express their sexuality because there is such a big deal with acceptance in our young culture. It is easy to not be accepted by your peers if you are "so called" different than the generalized norm in society.
Also in the show there is a character named Jenny. Jenny is a cheerleader and the most beautiful girl in school. She is considered widely popular by everyone. Jenny is the stereotypical blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl who is all about purity and all around being considered to be a good girl. Throughout the first season Jenny dates Max, which also ties into the stereotypical idea that all good girls like bad boys. While Jenny would love to stay pure and keep up on all of her morals she falls to the temptation to have sex with Max just so that she can keep him and feel accepted. This goes back to the discussion on adolescence and sexual desire. Girls are not represented as full sexual subjects and girls feel like sex is required in order to keep a boyfriend (Youth Studies Power Point). I feel that adolescent girls that want to be good girls but then go and date bad boys are very insecure with themselves and focus on what other people this of them entirely too much. Every girl and guy for that matter should just be themselves and shouldn't care less about what other people think of them.
To finish up my discussion I would like to talk a little more about Jenny. I feel that other than R.J, she is the most important character in the show and she really keeps the show going. The show is based around a lot of strong sexual fantasies of adolescent high schoolers and Jenny usually seems to be right in the middle of that with pretty much whole school lusting after her. I wanted to relate her character to Harris' article on the can-do girls vs the at-risk girls. A can-do girl is explained to be a girl that is middle to upper class, is a good student, wants to be pure and wait until marriage to have kids, and has access to unlimited resources. An at-risk girl is explained to be a girl that is more lower class, more likely to get pregnant early, and not having as much access to resources. I think that Jenny would fit into the category of an can-do perfect (Harris). However by the way that Jenny acts and how she wants people to think of her you would think that she was an at-risk girl. I think that the character of Jenny is a very good example when it comes to talking about the sexual desires in adolescent girls and as well as good representation of girlhood in adolescence.
Work Cited
Brown, Adriane. "Intro to Youth and Pop Culture” Women’s Studies 230 Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Popular Culture. 23 May 2011
Brown, Adriane. "Queer Desire, Romantic Comedy, and Citizenship" Women's Studies 230 Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Popular Culture. 23 May 2011
Harris, Anita. "The "Can-Do" Girl Versus The "At-Risk" Girl." Future Girl: Young Women in the Twenty-first Century. New York: Routledge, 2004. 13-36. Print.
I like the comparison of Jenny with the “can-do” and “at-risk” mentality. The image of a white, blond, all American girl next door, fits perfectly with the “can-do” outlook. The fact that she always looks perfect can show an audience that consumption is a priority to success. The “can do” girl always has the best accessories, handbags, jewelry and hats. Jenny’s popularity could be linked to the display of the consumer lifestyle that is portrayed. In the Harris article we are told, “Successful and independent young women are constituted as an all powerful market, both in terms of their own purchasing power and their influences of consumption and lifestyle patterns.” Jenny’s perfect outward appearance clearly shows an adolescent audience that in order to be a “can do” girl consumption of the latest products is the new package to young female success.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog about this show. I’ve only watched this show a few times but each time I’ve seen it, I’ve felt it’s really just like the rest of the shows and movies about class high school humor. The characters are incredibly stereotypical (ie the dumb jock who’s mean to all the girls, the pretty, blonde popular girl who all the girls envy an d all the guys drool over, and of course the token nerdy guy who lusts over the popular girl), and I honestly feel like the plot line is seen in just about every other movie, such as American Pie, and is just a satirical representation of high school. They make teenagers out to be classified as either smart and nerdy or dumb and popular who are just always dying to have sex, and this isn’t truly what high school life is always like.
ReplyDeleteI have never really seen this show but I definitely think you did a good job describing it. I think you did really good describing the stereotypes of most high schoolers such as the jocks, the perfect pretty blonde girls, and the nerdy kids. The character of Jenny the cheerleader definitely fits in perfect with the description of the can-go girls, you can simply tell by appearance, she seems to dress and accessorize very well. I also like how you brought up the character of Max who is assumed to be heterosexual by everyone up until R.J discovers him kissing another guy. I think this is something that we strongly focused on in class. Overall I think you did very well analyzing adolescence in popular culture.
ReplyDeleteI would have to disagree with you on the part that this show deals with issues of race. This show is very sexualized show dealing with high school students trying to get laid but I have never seen an episode dealing with race then again I don’t watch this show regularly. Homosexuality is such a marked trait in society still that it seems like every show with a gay character needs his own coming out episode where it is made into such a big deal. It is like letting everyone know they are still the same as them except for this one little thing.
ReplyDeleteI love the way that you break down the show, and critique the main characters.I am actually a big fan of the show, and I agree with many of the points you made in your composition.The one character though that I would like to focus on is Jenny, for the reason of her being a can-do girl (Harris). I wrote my blog on a character that was an at-risk girl (Harris), and it amazes me how they are so parallel to one another. For example my character was black, raised in the inner city and faced with early motherhood. I believe that Harris's argument can be seen very clearly through the comparison of the two.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your description of the show. I have attempted to watch this show before and have never been able to watch more than five minutes of it because of its vulgarity. Personally, I do not think this shows an accurate depiction of high school students, at least I didn’t know any high school students like that. I view this show on the same terms as the American “Skins” and that it should be taken off the air. I think this show glamorizes the type of highly sexualized adolescent discourses it depicts and shows them as normal, when they aren’t. Although I do not like the show, I did agree with your analysis of Jenny’s character being the “can-do” girl.
ReplyDeleteYou did a really good job summarizing the show-- I think that the included pictures also helped picture which characters were which. I'm glad you pointed out the influence stereotypes used in this show. I feel like the Hard Times of RJ Berger is a parody because these stereotypes are so exaggerated. Each character has a place where he or she "fits"-- the nerd, the jock, the cheerleader etc. However, there is nothing ever seen except stereotypes in this show and I feel like that doesn't offer a "youth critical studies" view of adolescents. I have only seen this show a few times but the ones that I did see had the characters focused on trivial emotional matters and sex, which is a common belief portrayed throughout the media that this is all adolescents are capable off.
ReplyDeleteI don't really watch the show, but I have seen it a few times. You did a really good jobs summarizing the show and giving character descriptions. I did not know that the jock character was gay. Making this character gay definently universalizes sexuality. I did notice a change in the show when RJ started dating Jenny. This started to change the stereotypes that were made about the characters because you would think that snce Jenny was the pretty popular girl that she would not date RJ, however she does. Even though this show is a good depiction of teenage life, these teenagers are still very hypersexual.
ReplyDeleteLike you stated, there are plenty of stereotypes surrounding high school students, however in a sense I feel like these stereotypes are limited to a certain social class of high school students. From my perspective, I have only seen these stereotypes portrayed in a predominantly white middle-class setting, furthermore, I find it hard to relate Jenny's mindset solely to the “at-risk” girl. I feel that the “can-do girls” are equally as “insecure” if you will as any other girl. As stated in the article “can-do girls” face a lot of the same issues as “at-risk” girls, its just there are different outside factors that contribute to the decisions they will make.
ReplyDelete