American High

Recently in my Teens and Tweens class we were told to watch the movie "American Teen". While I was on the IMDB, I found that many of the people who saw the movie thought the TV series "American High" was better. Here's the post I made at my class blog:


While I was reading about American Teen on IMDB after viewing it, a lot of the members discussing the movie thought that it was a rip-off of the PBS series called American High that ran from 1999-2000. Like American Teen, American High followed 14 Illinois high school students who were mostly Seniors (instead of just 4). Also, the director gave each student their own camera to record video diaries as well as shoot some of their live on their own, which allows for a lot more interesting footage and a more documentary feel than the cartoons sometimes presented in American Teen. I was wondering if anybody had seen the show or are at least interested in it. On this blog (http://tenpast.blogspot.com/2009/04/american-high.html) , a person who recorded all 13 episodes on videotape has posted some clips of some of the episodes.

In addition to getting more coverage because of being a TV series instead a single, 2 hour long movie, the students seem to be less stereotypical than those presented in American Teen (although the students chosen turned out to have more depth, originally they were presented to us as simple stereotypical characters: the jock, the geek, the homecoming queen, and the artsy girl). Take for instance, the blog's description of Pablo:

"Born in Ecuador and moved with his mother to the U.S. when he was young. His mother's been divorced twice, and he lives with her and his young half-sister. A talented writer, poet, and photographer, he's also well-known amongst school administrators for his frequent troublemaking and drug involvement. In a surprising turn of events, near the end of the series, he considers enlisting in the Marines instead of going to college next year."

The beginning of the first episode also portrays Morgan as a teenager who believes that teenagers should act truly reckless, just like we discussed in class as being mentioned in the article we read.



So what do you think of the show based on the clips on the blog? Would you want to see more? Do you think it's better, more realistic portrayal than American Teen?