#writtenvideoessay

[writtenvideoessay]

The problems with casting adults as teenagers

So often in media, teenagers are portrayed by adult actors. In fact, the majority of teenage characters on tv have adult actors. There could be a variety of reasons: adults are generally better actors, teenagers are busy with school, etc. However, often the biggest reason is that producers want to show the characters having sex.

This is damaging in many ways. For one, teenagers who consistently see full grown adults as teenagers begin to believe that that is what they should look like. It also creates this harmful belief that teenagers are and should be having sex at a very young age. Riverdale, presented, at least at first, as a realistic portrayal of teen life, casted actors who are well older than their characters entirely in order to have graphic sex scenes. Teen wolf, although not presented as a realistic portrayal, still has older actors, while less nudity. Teenagers are never able to see themselves in tv and then force themselves to look and behave older than they are in order to be like what they see on tv. The affect on how teens view sex is just as dangerous. It both glamorizes it as the be all end all for romantic relationships and normalizes the idea that teenagers, even as young as 14, should be having sex.

Most tv shows starring teenagers cast far older characters, with few exceptions. Disney is by far the best at casting actors who are the ages of their characters, although that is not saying much. The result from that is mixed. The actors who Disney cast generally stay in the business and become some of the most well known actors or singers in Hollywood, for example, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, and Zendaya. This is becuase they have to be very talented to be cast at such young ages and grow up utilizing that talent, with the result that by the time they are adults they have been acting for years and already have a following to propel their careers. This also leads to damaging publicity at an early age and far more opportunities to fall to the common vices of Hollywood.

In my opinion, however, it is possible to cast young actors for young characters and keep those actors from falling prey to addiction or paparazzi. The Harry Potter franchise casted child actors with little to no lasting damages for those actors. Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson are both well known respected actors who have had no scandals or apparent struggle to adjust to adult life. Rupert Grint, while still a prominent actor, has appeared to have a very normal life.

In the end, the damage caused by casting older actors as teenagers is far more damaging than casting actual teenagers, if done right.

[writtenvideoessay]

Game of Thrones essay

Game of thrones has such a specific sexism, on the one hand there are a variety of women, all of whom have different skills. They make choices that directly affect the plot and other people, and they all have interesting personalities beyond just good looking nice girl or hot bad girl. However, with very few exceptions, the women are all incredibly sexualized.

Most every woman on the show is sexualized, not only by the other characters on the show, but also by the writers and directors. I don’t feel the need to go into specific examples becuase there are just so many it would be hard to choose.

Beyond the sexualization, though, the female characters are generally separated into two categories, feminine or unfeminine. This is seen throughout the show, but I think it is most visible when looking at the juxtaposition of Arya and Sansa. Arya, from the beginning, is very Tom-boyish. She likes archery and playing with her brothers. This is contrasted by Sansa, who desperately wants to be a lady.

Arya never loses her boyish tendencies, or her unfemininity, but instead channels those tendencies into succeeding in generally masculine path. She becomes an assassin and loses, or at least hides, all emotion, which are generally considered feminine. This, while not true of all of the women who take the unfeminine path, is easily one of biggest characteristics of the unfeminine women protrayed in screen. Arya giving up the ladyship offered to her by Gendry is symbolic of her giving up ladyness entirely.

Sansa, on the other hand, rarely does anything unladylike throughout the show. Even when being punished by all the men around her for being female, she never loses her feminine nature. In the end, she becomes lady of winterfell, and then queen. I do think it is interesting that she names her dire wolf lady who dies very quickly (in my opinion, however, Lady represents Sansa’s innocence, not her femininity). Going back to my earlier statement about not doing anything unladylike, once could say that she kills Ramsey brutally, which is very unladylike, and then she shuts down her emotions, also unladylike. However, even when she kills Ramsy, she leaves him to his dogs, she doesn’t get her hands dirty.

Her emotional shut down, when she rules winterfell is interesting in its own right. I said before that emotions are seen as feminine, and while that is true, in Game of Thrones, there are no powerful women who show emotion, at least out loud. Catlyn Stark shows emotion in private, as do Cersei, and Margaery to an extent. While this is not the main topic of this essay, I do find it interesting that the women on the show are not allowed to show emotion and be powerful.

Arya and Sansa are the best examples of the unfeminine vs feminine women, but there are no women who aren’t classified as one or the other. Brienne is unfeminine, Margaery is feminine. Ygritte is unfeminine, Daenerys is feminine, and so on. While I don’t have a large problem with the idea that there are more feminine women and less feminine women, I think the idea that women have to be one or the other is absurd and could be dangerous for young women to grow up thinking. Women can be both.