Photo retrieved from NYDailyNews.com
My friends and I have been waiting for the season premiere of WE's High School Confidential for months, and it is finally here! Tonight, the show will premiere for the first time on WE. For those of you who haven't heard about this, it is a show that follows 12 high schooler girls from freshman to senior year. It follows them through the ups and downs of high school. The craziest part about it is that it is taped at Blue Valley Northwest in Johnson County. With so many people at our university, including myself, that are from this area, I could imagine that many people will be watching this.
Although I do know the sisters of some of these girls, I don't know them personally. I can't imagine how any of them are feeling right now with the show about to premiere. Since WE is a national network, people from across the nation are going to be able to watch their high school experiences.
I would imagine that some of the girls might not be ready for what they are about to experience. I know that all of these girls are currently sophomores in college. When I was a sophomore, I would consider myself pretty different from who I was in high school. I fear that the problems that these girls faced in high school are now going to continue to follow them in college. The website for the show http://highschool.wetv.com/ gives bios for each of the 12 girls. They have also coined each girl for having a specific "niche." While some of the girls are coined as "the best friend" or "the party girl," some of the girls are coined as "suicidal thoughts" and "anorexic wrist cutter." I really hope that any problems that these girls faced in high school are over and dealt with, but I fear that some of the wounds may still be fresh.
The creator of the show, a mother herself, says that she did this to explore what happens to girls during the years of high school. I think that this show will really help other high school girls that are going through these same problems. Many TV shows seem to show unrealistic aspects of highschool from each side side (example: Full House to The O.C.) I think that this show will prove that teenagers, especially girls, go through a tough transition in high school.
I agree, it is very interesting to see yourself again in high school, especially half way through college. A documentary was filmed at my high school (Highland Park, Illinois) which was nationally broadcast. If I can remember, I believe the show actually flopped, and the students (5-10, I forgot the actual number they documented) were displeased at how they were portrayed. I'm not saying this show will have the same fate, but I do want to see how the show does nationally.
I am excited for this reality show even though I am not from Kansas. I think it will be interesting to see how they portray teenagers from Kansas. I am hoping that it will be a positive reality show and actually help people instead of what reality shows normally do today. If I was those girls I do not know if I would be able to watch it because I could not watch myself from when I was in high school. They will have to be strong girls in order to watch themselves and not be negatively affected by what they did during those four years. That is a long time and sometimes its better to leave the past in the past.
It's going to be interesting to see if the public response will be positive or not... Blue Valley schools are definitely a little more privaledged then others. I'd like to see this same little social experiment say at... well any inner city school. I'm excited to see if the show truly represents what high school was like for so many of us.