Talking Points No. 4////Hyperlinks: "A Tangle of Discourses, Girls Negotiating Adolescence" by Rebecca C. Raby

 Rebecca C. Raby works to deconstruct what the category of "teenagers" even means in Western culture, particularly north America. Through this, she exhibits all three of the course assumptions since she gets into how it is a socially constructed category enforced by the media that "Others" (p. 10) teens. She uses a lot of detail to show the perceived generational "differences" between grandmothers and granddaughters (teenagers between 13-19), which really allowed me to understand how adults are conditioned to think of teens as people simultaneously "rebelling" (or resisting, p. 445) to find individuality and also going through temporary and hormonal phases. This dichotomy strips teens of their agency, which they are taught they have through things like self expression and thus consumerism. Raby also focuses on how teenagers are lumped together in one category that allows society to generalize about how teens behave innately, as a whole. Fundamentally, I think Raby teaches through the article various ways in which teenagers are in fact an oppressed group. Like other oppressed groups, they are conditioned into believing they have rights, but in fact are not equipped or encouraged (furthermore, are actually discouraged) from participating in social movements or behaviors that in any way don't meet the status quo.

This is a video about Justin Bieber's recent anti-abortion comments in Rolling Stone. In the video, there are several adults making the types of assessments that Raby is talking about specifically in the article.

In "A Tangle of Discourses," Raby talks about how teenagers are taught to "become" and enter new parts of their lives and identities and therefore taught to do things like speak their minds but then when they do they are written off as immature and going through phases. The newswoman in the video discusses Bieber's comment and several adults critique the incident. Basically, he is written off as being too immature to have an opinion on the matter and one of the speakers states that it was "unfair" for Rolling Stone to ask a fifteen year old a question dealing with such a "hot button" issue. Even though I disagree with Bieber's public statement due to the implications this has on young fans of his, I recognize the unfair dichotomy at play that Raby references. Bieber's opinion is supposedly misquoted, and he is first attacked for the statement. Then, his statement is considered illegitimate because of his age. It is also pointed out that Rolling Stone is a music magazine that shouldn't be making sales by asking young teens questions that *oh no* reveal their opinions on things. Well, of course, it is okay here to point out that Rolling Stone is kind of going off on a tangent by writing something so unrelated to Bieber's actual music, however, there is no discussion about all of the other companies capitalizing on things unrelated to their practice. The male speaking towards the end of the video also makes tremendous generalizations about teenagers, starting with things like "What teenager doesn't _______?"

Raby "focuses on five key, dominant, overlapping and, in places, contradictory discourses" including "the storm, becoming, at-risk, social problem, and pleasurable consumption" (P. 431). This anti-drug campaign commercial homogenizes teenagers by presenting them as a group that is in the middle of their confusing and hormonal storm, "becoming" since they are being presented with agency to choose not to do drugs, at-risk of peer pressure/poor health/loss of control/fatality/etc., social problems that must be self-disciplined and "in control," and consuming things other than drugs/alcohol for their own good. This leaves out the possibility that not all teenagers actually have this kind of control or choice, legitimate (not purely hormonal) feelings of depression or alcoholism due to things beyond their control in their surroundings, and infinite other possibilities. Basically, it oversimplifies the American teenager and perpetuates a socially constructed image of what it is to be a teenager.