Le Geek, c’est chic?

Don’t get me wrong, I am well aware that TV is smothered in sensationalism. It seems that unless a person or a storyline isn’t stretched to the extremes then we wouldn’t believe it. But when a stereotype is so far on the other side of the personality spectrum than you’d expect, it becomes kinda difficult to take it all seriously.
Exhibit A: Gossip Girl. All those beautiful clothes and ridiculous week-by-week scandals cannot mask the fact that Dan is by no means a Geek. He is scripted as the loveable, hopeless-in-love brain box that cares about his studies and his family. Geek? What a Geek. If you cast your mind back to school and college, the Geek was probably someone who was bouncing up and down, looking like they were about to have a mental hernia just to answer that question in class that everyone was trying to avoid. The person who was eventually asked the answer after minutes of everybody else staring down at the desk feeling hopeless. The Geek was someone who usually substituted personal hygiene for individual credit. We all suffered that hamsterish sawdust smell all so they could get an A for the homework the rest of us ‘forgot’ to do. So if Dan (Penn Badgley) walked down the corridor, book in hand, he’s not the one you would be throwing that half drunk can of coke at. You would probably stare in sheer disbelief that someone so beautiful actually went to your school.

Exhibit B: Soaps. Well, Hollyoaks, if we’re being really picky. But it’s the same-old, same-old when a stereotype comes along. It’s either a LAD or total slag that turns good after ‘years and years of being messed around’ (?!) or that ferrety little Geek who ‘after years and years of being the ‘good’ one’ turns into a druggy and sets the pub alight. There can never be just someone normal, someone who enjoys studying and then moves along the standard path of Sixth Form and University. No. It’s clear that the Hollyoaks casting team have chosen someone stunning, found a pair of comedy glasses and dungarees in the costume bin, and asked them to walk around like they’ve suddenly produced a Quasimodo style hump from all those library books they’ve got. What a joke.

Exhibit C: Skins. Quite obviously. Even if this series is so appallingly acted then at least we can sit there and laugh at how casting directors expect us to believe that these people really are who they say they are. And even more so in this series than in the glory days of Tony and the gang. Take for example Rich, the metalhead and rock’n’roll lover. Shave his head and he’s a stand-up gent. Simple. And all of the kids in it scream stereotype, because that is what we all were in youth right? Running amok in fields and vandalising farms. God we were all terrors. Show me someone who had the Skins adolescence and I’ll be amazed. All I can say is that at least those who created The Inbetweeners knew that, even if you thought so, you weren’t cool at all deep down.

So, pass me the TV salt pot please, I need to take a pinch from it.