Strung-out and barefoot, a teenage girl stumbles home as she tries to sneak in before her parents catch her. The image is laughable and somewhat unrealistic, but so is MTV’s “Skins.” The series follows a group of naïve minors from Baltimore who party their way through high school, getting themselves into more trouble than it’s worth.
In the first episode (Season 1, episode 1: “Tony,” MTV), Tony (James Newman), the attractive bad-boy and self-designated leader of the pack emerges. He makes it his mission to help his buddy Stanley (Daniel Flaherty) lose his virginity before his 17th birthday after repeatedly telling him it’s “embarrassing.” Stanley is told that if he brings the goods he can shack up with Cadie (Britne Oldford), the promiscuous druggie who enjoys creating phallic art. The boys plan on going to a party later that night where all of their plans will potentially go down. After borrowing $900 worth of weed from a prostitute house in the suburbs, Stanley is sure he will lose is V-card but arrives to find his hookup Cadie has overdosed. The night continues in a giant mess of teenage drunkenness, drugs, fights, and eventually ends with a car crashing into a lake.
Right off the bat, the episode seems over-the-top for the sake of being over- the-top. The characters are too rebellious for their own good, and it doesn’t help that the acting was hollow and uninspired. Britne Oldford’s character Cadie is supposedly the “hardcore” one of the bunch, but she just comes off as brain-dead. She tells Stanley that she will steal his virtue if he brings “really great narcotics” in a monotone, space-cadet manner. There’s no depth to her acting, but she’s not the only one. Almost all of the actors seem absent-minded and forced to interact with each other, but this could be a result of the lack of development of the characters in general.
What makes the show so unrealistic though is the vulgarity of the story line. The teenage girls are portrayed in a degrading way, as if they are willing to give themselves up to any boy that crosses their path. They come off as airheads with an unhealthy amount of self-esteem. In the most mind-boggling scene Tony’s girlfriend Michelle (Rachel Thevenard) says to Cadie, “Stanley is going to be handling you tonight, “ making her appear to be an object that can just be passed around. With an audience base of teenagers and young adults, it doesn’t make sense to create a world where women are portrayed this way.
The language the characters use is offensive too! A lot of creativity must be required to think of countless ways to describe losing your virginity. Once you can get past the foul-mouthed, raunchy and constant balls to the wall lifestyle of these teens (if you even can), the only mediocre thing the show has going for itself is the music. The soundtrack is carefree and upbeat, and plays as good backup music to the hectic mess unraveling on the screen.
If the pilot episode is any indication of season one, “Skins” is dud. In the final scene just after crashing a van into a lake Cadie says, “you’re alive, that’s cool.” If one good thing can come of the show, maybe we can feel more motivated and accomplished about our lives because it comes across loud and clear that these teens do not.
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