Since I was 14 years old I have watched the teen drama One Tree Hill on the CW television channel. It is based on half-brothers Lucas and Nathan Scott who are 9 months apart, in high school, and living in the fictional town of Tree Hill, North Carolina. Their father Dan Scott went away to college leaving his high school sweetheart alone and pregnant while he went on to fulfill his dream of becoming a NBA Basketball star. During his freshman year of college he gets another woman pregnant and then returns to Tree Hill married to her. When the show starts, Dan has not been a part of Lucas' life or acknowledged him as his son and the two boys have grown up hating each other, resenting one another for the lives they could have had if the other did not exist.
Watching this show as a teenager there were many things that were real to me. First the plot of the television show seemed extremely plausible. In my personal experiences things like that happened all the time including in my own family. Since I had a half sibling I could relate to it. Second the high school the main characters attended was very much like my own. So every week I would tune into the show and see what I felt could very much be my life in some respects.
In January, One Tree Hill started its 9th and final season. I have most of the seasons on DVD and now that I am a lot older I have noticed things that are not as real as I once thought. First off every person on the show is extremely good looking, fashionable, and had parents who conveniently let them be on their own doing whatever they please with little to no consequences. Having a more experienced mind I realized that this was not realistic at all. Another thing I noticed was that no one seemed to ever have to go to the bathroom or take a shower or do their hair or makeup.
And finally in its fifth season the show was fast forwarded four years into the future and picked up the lives of the main characters after college and in their adult lives. Careers included a successful published writer, a multimillion dollar fashion designer, a passionate high school English teacher, a NBA star, and a music executive who opens its own record label in the town of Tree Hill. How likely would it be to have friends who are all extremely successful in once in a lifetime careers? Not likely at all. But in the world of television people can do anything and be anything and we as the audience buy into it because the lure of seeing such things pan out in front of our eyes will always be appealing.
Keyanna -- this well-written and nicely thought out. Can you think of any other affect wrought by the representation of all those beautiful, successful people, their perfect hair and their fabulous careers? Might it inspire or discourage someone? Might it make someone think that it's normal to have a four-bedroom house on a quarter acre, and that's what we need to be happy?
ReplyDeleteIn my personal experience this show has always inspired me. Like I said in my post reality for the characters hits them all the time and it shows both sides of the spectrum. The one character Lucas is a published author. His first book written about the lives of him and his friends was successful but when he goes to write another book it isn't successful at all and he realizes that the career of a novelist is not as easy as it seems.
ReplyDeleteLikewise another character Brooke Davis is rich but when her family loses all of their money she has to learn how to be independent. And even in the days where she was rich we learned how broken her home was and how she really had to take care of herself.
So the show I feel has a lot of human emotion and relates to its audience in many ways.