TV Genre continued...(part II)

“Secret Life of an American Teenager” involves many different syntigmatic and paradigmatic meanings. Within this show, the producers have portrayed the life of a young 15-year-old girl who gets pregnant. Through struggling with this pregnancy and having to tell her family, she "falls in love" with a guy who wants to support her through the pregnancy and wants to marry her. I think this show portrays the idea that this doesn't happen very often in society- that many people aren't willing to sacrifice their life to help another person with their problem; this situation most certainly doesn't happen very often with 15-year-olds. It makes us wonder if “true love” can really occur at age 15? (I don't believe so.) This TV show, shows that love can have different meanings. It does mean sacrificing yourself for the one you love, but at the same time, we have to wonder what the true meaning of love is. It is pretty amazing to me that TV shows can influence us so much. It is Hollywood's goal to keep showing us ideas and meanings through shows until we stop questioning them. I hope that as I watch TV shows now, I will be able to identify what genre a show is, look at paradigmatic and syntigmatic meanings, recursitvity and hybridity, and that I will see that TV shows do have power and control through these genres.