Monday, December 12, 2011

Pregnant with Drama


Quinn Fabray walks through the halls of McKinley High showing
 off her new devil may care look.
Photo courtesy of aceshowbiz.com

A lot of television shows follow an outline with the same conflicts happening in different plots. One of these overly done conflicts happens to be the teen pregnancy. Whether it be a scare or an actual pregnancy many a drama television show has visited this conflict sometimes even several times over. While teen pregnancy has gone down in number since the 1950s, “the proportion of all teen births that are non marital has increased equally dramatically, from 13% in 1950 to 79% in 2000 (see chart)” (Boonstra).


Graph courtesy of guttmacher.org
Glee remains one of the only television shows to outline what happens after pregnancy to the new teen mother. Most drama TV shows let the audience forget that a character had a baby and gave it up or it died in earlier seasons. Glee dedicated at least eight episodes (and possible even more future episodes) to prolong a post pregnancy plot for Quinn Fabray two seasons after her baby's birth. Glee moves past just teen drama conflict to pull in viewers and onto issues surrounding teen pregnancy, Quinn season three says, “you think you can tell me what to do just because you signed a few papers? You're not her mom! I'm her mom!” (10:42). Read between the Glee lines: here is a problem that is happening, not just on most shows, most everywhere and there are actual consequences. Baby pacts, abortion, adoption and becoming a teen mother are never light matters or facts forgotten in passing years. Glee straddles a fine line between teen drama and social commentary, but most often finds a beneficial relationship.

http://www.fox.com/glee/full-episodes/3556956/






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