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My Generation
By Kari Croop,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Contrived docu-fiction drama relies on stereotypes.
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What's the Story?
Borrowing its concept from a Swedish TV series, MY GENERATION is a fictional drama filmed as if it were a documentary. The premise is that, a decade after following nine diverse high school students through graduation in Austin, Texas, in 2000, the film crew returns to revisit the now-grown subjects and see what they're up to as adults. Characters include Rolly, "The Jock" (Mehcad Brooks); Jackie, "The Beauty Queen" (Jaime King); Steven, "The Over-Achiever" (Michael Stahl-David); Dawn, "The Punk" (Kelli Garner); Caroline, "The Wallflower" (Anne Son); Kenneth, "The Nerd" (Keir O'Donnell); Brenda, "The Brain" (Daniella Alonso); Anders, "The Rich Kid" (Julian Morris); and Falcon, "The Rock Star" (Sebastian Sozzi).
Is It Any Good?
Despite its documentary-inspired format, My Generation comes off as completely contrived and improbable rather than real. After all, relying on tiresome stereotypes like "The Jock" and "The Nerd" is bad enough -- as is expecting viewers to accept these obviously adult actors as high school teens via flashback.
But the fact that these characters grow up, intermingle, and all happen to have ties to some of the most critical moments in recent history (including the Enron scandal, the controversial election of George W. Bush, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the Iraq War) is the icing on a very poorly constructed cake. If this were a comedy, we might actually laugh, but since it's a drama, we're not supposed to.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the show's portrayal of high school stereotypes and whether labels like "jock," "nerd," "brain," etc., are still valid generalizations. Do today's high school students tend to lump each other into narrowly defined categories, or is it possible to be more than one "type"?
In terms of format, has there been another series like this one on American television? How does it compare to other shows filmed in a documentary style? Does applying the documentary format to a scripted drama work as well as it does for a comedy?
How realistic do the characters and the situations they find themselves in seem to you? Does the documentary format affect your expectations for realism?
TV Details
- Premiere date: September 23, 2010
- Cast: Jaime King , Kelli Garner , Michael Stahl-David
- Network: ABC
- Genre: Drama
- TV rating: TV-14
- Last updated: March 31, 2022
Did we miss something on diversity?
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