[Update] Representing the Contemporary Youth in Teen Television Drama
From Beverley Hills 90210 to Gossip Girl and Glee, the genre of the teen drama series has added a unique and multi-faceted dynamic to the American television landscape. The popularity of this genre stems from the way in which it challenges and dramatizes the realities of its young viewers, presenting them with a fantastical reality which is defined by melodrama, materialism and excess. This quality of the genre often causes adult viewers to dismiss the teen drama series as a product of guilty pleasure television.