Prime Time Romance author, Kate Robb, on her favourite teen drama tropes
"What is it about teen dramas that keep me coming back for more? I don’t have definitive answers, but I do have a few theories."
This post was written by Kate Robb, author of Prime Time Romance.
I am a millennial woman. Let’s get that confession on the table. My hormone-filled teenage years are far behind me. I watch proper television shows and read proper books for a woman of my advanced world experience–except when I don’t.
Every so often, I love to binge an oldie but goodie—a teen drama from my own teen years, with characters who speak as if they are in their thirties, familiar plots, and a disproportionate number of beautiful people.
I know these shows had problems. My now fully formed frontal lobe acknowledges that the shows I loved as an adolescent did a poor job of handling a lot of topics. They often over-rotated on gender and racial stereotypes or lacked representation at all. They promoted diet culture and purity culture, and when they did try to tackle tough topics, let’s say– killing off a character for driving under the influence, the core cast members often fully recovered from the trauma and moved on to a new problem by the start of the next episode.
So why do I still love to sit down on a rainy Saturday and binge-watch until Netflix asks me if I’m okay? What is it about teen dramas that keep me coming back for more? I don’t have definitive answers, but I do have a few theories.
Love Triangles
Pacey or Dawson? Edward or Jacob? Jess or Logan? (notice I omitted Dean…the answer is never Dean.) We all have our preferred “teams” when it comes to love triangles, and most of us will defend our decisions until our graves. There is something about love triangles that is addicting. Maybe it’s that we simply have preferences? Blonde and beautiful or dark and dangerous? Or maybe it’s the decision itself? Weighing the pros and cons of each suitor draws us deeper into the story. Or maybe we simply like having options? Two disproportionally hot love interests fighting it out– is there really a downside? Whatever it is, the love triangle has always been a staple of Teen TV drama.
The bad boy
I love a bad boy. The only thing I love more than a bad boy is one who has suddenly decided to redeem his bad-boy ways because he has fallen in love. Growing up, I was definitely an OC girl, and Ryan Atwood had this trope down to a science. He brooded. He fought. He looked up from under his feathered blonde bangs and smouldered. Marissa fell for him. I swooned. The ironic thing in my case is the men I dated in my teen years and beyond were far from bad. I chose what would be referred to in technical romance terms as “the cinnamon roll” or “nice guy with golden retriever energy.” Maybe it’s because biology has us often seeking out practical matches that have a higher chance of a successful future. Maybe reading or watching bad boys is our way of having our cake and eating it, too, because that is the beauty of watching or reading about someone you might not dare to date in real life: you get the whole experience, even if it’s only in your head.
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The Setting
I can’t think of a single Teen TV show of my youth that took place somewhere normal or average. Dawson’s Creek was an idyllic seaside town (what I would have done to have a boy pick me up in a row boat) the OC was beach-side mansions. Even Buffy had a high school that looked more like a Beverly Hills mansion than a publicly funded institution (it was also the high school set for Beverly Hills 90210.) These shows had a way of making even normal day-to-day look somehow better. I wonder if the reason the settings were so over the top was because the plots were also stretching the boundaries of probable. It might be harder to question why Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy is dating a random high school girl when the gang is at a humongous cabin mansion in the woods.
Utter ridiculousness
I still can’t pinpoint a single thing that draws me to my teen drama shows, but I can tell you what makes me continue to talk about them, and that is the utterly ridiculous plot points that have me questioning what was in the coffee in the writer’s room. From Dean’s heart being eaten by a golden retriever right before his transplant on One Tree Hill to Dawson’s Dad dying in a tragic car crash because his ice cream fell off his cone and he invoked the five-second-rule, teen dramas have a way of throwing wild curveballs. Do I hate these curveballs? Yes. Do I also secretly love the drama that ensues? Yes. Maybe it’s the same logic as with Bad Boys? I know it’s bad, but I want it anyway.
As you can tell, I have definitely thought about my love for teen dramas a lot longer than the average bear. So much so that I decided to write a romantic comedy about it. My main character, Brynn Smothers, is stuck in the grind of her day-to-day life. Her only escape is binging the TV show she loved as a teen. But when a thirtieth birthday wish has her catapulted into the fictional town of Carson’s Cove, she finds herself caught in a love triangle with the boy next door she always fantasized about and the bad-boy bartender she definitely did not. It’s sweet and swoony and, of course, utterly ridiculous.
I encourage you to check it out when it hits shelves on September 4th!
Get your copy of Prime Time Romance by Kate Robb here.