AcceptAllChangesInDoc Two weeks ago, the teen soap opera Skins returned for its second season on the BBC America cable and satellite network. This time around, Skins is being shown an hour earlier, at 9:00 p.m. ET (only 8:00 p.m. in America’s heartland) – the better to expose more teenagers to the show’s warped content.  With the death or departure of the show’s previous cast of characters, the new season focuses on high school student Effy and a new crew of drunken, sex-crazed, drug-addicted teens. The new season kicked off with the insufferable Cook exposing himself to the entire high school assembly, then proceeding to seduce Effy by helping her perform every activity on her “checklist” of school rules she intends to violate– smoking, having sex, drinking, having sex, doing drugs, having sex, sniffing glue, having sex, possessing pornography, having sex, and having sex. You know. The usual activities that every typical, average teenager engages in during high school.  Cook concludes the episode by having sex with Effy in the school nurse’s office, with the nurse listening nearby.

The August 20^th episode introduced another new character, Congolese immigrant Thomas. Though initially sweet-natured and obedient to his parents, a few days experiencing the depravity of the psychotic Skins gang turns Thomas into yet another pot-smoking pervert.            After helping to carry the drunken Pandora home, Thomas hits on the idea of making money by selling the marijuana left behind at Pandora’s aunt’s home by a former Jamaican tenant. Effy helps Thomas enlist the rest of the fun-filled Skins gang to sell the pot at an underground rave, where Thomas runs afoul of gangster Johnny White (who previously attacked Cook when the high-school student visited one of his brothels).  

In addition to the drugs and incessant sex, this season of Skins also maintains its trademark profanity, with such scintillating dialogue as the following:

Johnny: “Bring the [muted ‘f***’ ]! Bring him in the flat, you [muted ‘tw***’]…I wouldn't want to live

  here. I'd have to be a dirty arsehole, right?”

Goon 1: “Dirty arsehole.”

Goon 2: “You wouldn't be a dirty arsehole.”

*****

Johnny: “You look like a [muted ‘f******’] nonce, you [muted ‘tw**’].

               He's pushing dope at my [muted ‘f******’] shindig! [Muted

                 ‘Motherf*****’]! [Muted ‘f******’] hell!

****

Katie: “When you got [muted ‘t***’]) like mine, you've got to flash them a bit, haven't you?...

Breasts, girl. You should try it.”

****

JJ:  “What's up?”

Cook: “My [muted ‘c***’].”

Delighted by Thomas’ participation in the gang’s sex-and-drug antics, Pandora offers him her virginity. The couple is interrupted by the arrival of Thomas’ mother, who sends her son back to the Congo so he can’t get into more trouble; but the episode concludes with the clear implication that, having tasted the joys of promiscuity, profanity and pot offered by the Skins crew, Thomas will quickly return.

The problem with Skins isn’t only its over-the-top, outrageously offensive language and depictions of irresponsible teen drinking, sex, and drug use. Nor is it even the influence such depictions can have on the limited number of teens who watch BBC America. MTV recently announced that it will soon begin producing a U.S. version of Skins, with American actors and American teens contributing to the scripts – just as the PTC predicted could happen after Skins’ premiere on BBC America. If the same kinds of stories and behavior are highlighted on MTV’s series, potentially nearly every American teenager will be exposed to Skins’ warped world-view. With scientific studies proving that what children and teens see on TV DOES influence their actions, promoting such reckless behavior is the very essence of irresponsibility; and forcing parents to pay for their own children’s corruption is yet one more reason for Cable Choice.

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