Fewer guns, more 'adult' dialogue: How will the Parkland, Fla., students impact teen TV?

‘Sweet/Vicious’ and ‘Dawson’s Creek’ are two series from the past that showed us how to move forward. (Photos: Getty/Everett Collection)

Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, creator of MTV’s campus-vigilante series Sweet/Vicious, grew up in South Florida. Her cousins went to Majory Stoneman Douglas High School, and her mother and aunt were driving on the local highway as the first-response vehicles rushed to get to the school after shots were fired Feb. 14.

“To think that gun violence is not something that’s at your doorstep is a mistake. I am so in awe of the Parkland survivors and the action they have taken to fight back. It speaks to my heart as someone that created a show about a woman who took justice into her own hands after she was tossed aside by the system,” Robinson tells Yahoo Entertainment, echoing other showrunners who’ve shared how much these #NeverAgain activists have inspired them in our “Why Teen TV Matters” series.

But she also goes a step further: “There is a reason there were no guns used on Sweet/Vicious. That was a deliberate choice. We as creators, writers, directors of entertainment have an obligation to these children who are being slaughtered to do better as storytellers,” Robinson insists. “Take a look at what you’re making and ask yourself — does this story absolutely need a gun or would it work with something else? Cause more times than not, I bet it would.”

She isn’t the only one who’d like to see those in the industry voluntarily re-think their weapon of choice.

Katie Elmore Mota, executive producer of Hulu’s East Los High who founded the production company Wise Entertainment to focus on socially relevant stories, admits she’s been brought to tears “many times” by the students in Parkland — and the fact that these teens have been forced to lead a fight adults didn’t. “I am beyond grateful to these teens for the work they are doing to awaken this country and fight the deadly gun lobby, the NRA, and the politicians who value the money that comes from the gun lobby more than they have valued the lives of our children. Enough is enough. These teens have tremendous courage and they are changing our country. Already actions are being taken because they spoke up. Now we must do our job and support them in this fight in every single way that we can,” she urges. “And Hollywood must not shy away from their responsibility in this and how we portray and normalize violence and guns. The stories we put into the world matter, what children watch matters. And we have a responsibility.”

While we wait to see how the students’ call for gun control in the real world may have an impact on the scripted one, the conversations they’ve created and carried on our TVs is a reminder of the kind of dialogue we should be hearing.

Last month, as The Vampire Diaries executive producer Julie Plec watched the teen survivors speak on TV, she couldn’t help but think back 20 years to the days when she worked on close friend Kevin Williamson’s series Dawson’s Creek.

As she told us, “Kevin made a very specific and unique style choice in that he purposefully wrote those teens to have almost hyperbolic language and communication skills, and I would say, probably the biggest lesson you can take from his choice was that when you’re writing for teenagers, you don’t treat them like children. You treat them, and you present them, as adults. And that was actually passing through my head when I was listening to all the Parkland students on CNN who were giving their testimony at the press conference. I said, ‘My God, they are so magnificently articulate, and the idea that there used to exist this sense in that particular youth genre that you had to write down or limit their vocabulary or narrow their point of view seems so ridiculous in the post-Dawson’s Creek era.’ Because you look at the reality of how teenagers communicate at their best, and we saw that.”

As much as Plec hopes these teens “single-handedly start the wave to change the world” — and they’re well on their way with the March for Our Lives on March 24 — she’d also love to believe TV helped pave the way. “I’d like to think as someone from an older generation that maybe it’s the programming that we gave them that inspired them to be their best selves, to talk about their issues rather than run from them. So maybe it’s a symbiotic relationship we’ve got going.”

Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, showrunners of Marvel’s Runaways on Hulu, would agree that it’s a two-way street: “We think the most important message shows like ours can send is putting smart, strong, young characters up on screen. … Representation is so important — and not just in terms of gender, race, and sexuality — but also in presenting teenage characters as complicated, flawed, smart, and idealistic … like the real-life teen heroes inspiring all of us today.”

Marshall Herskovitz, who co-created thirtysomething and exec produced My So-Called Life, wonders if now might be the time that TV takes a realistic look at how ill-prepared we’re leaving generations for the future. He has two grown daughters who, when they were adolescents, had the sense that “the world really didn’t give a crap about them.” They also grew up in the shadow of 9/11. “They felt that so many of the institutions of our society were breaking down. I think there’s a way in which we have failed our children as a society by not really addressing the future,” he says. “I think that it’s our responsibility as adults to create a future that’s sustainable. I certainly mean that from an environmental standpoint or in terms of climate, but I also mean it in terms of the ethics and morals of how a culture behaves — the institutions, education itself, the way Congress works, firearms, on, and on, and on. … How are we as a society creating the future that we think we should have? The answer is we’re doing a bad job of it, and I think that should be explored on television.”

He and his longtime producing partner, Ed Zwick, have pitched that kind of drama before. “It’s very difficult,” he says. “In other words, we were unable to sell it, because I think maybe it was just a little bit too much of holding one’s hand over the flame.”

Read more “Why Teen TV Matters” from Yahoo Entertainment:

Why vampires aren't as sexy in the age of #MeToo

Nina Dobrev as Elena and Ian Somerhalder as Damon on The Vampire Diaries. (Photo: Everett Collection)

The Vampire Diaries and Dawson’s Creek producer Julie Plec on the storylines you’d have to think twice about today, the inspiring Marjory Stoneman Douglas students, and the Roswell reboot.

This March marks a year since The Vampire Diaries signed off the air after eight seasons on The CW, and as showrunner Julie Plec thinks back to its beginnings, there’s no question what her biggest takeaway is. “There was a sensuality and a seduction to the vampire genre that now, [nearly] 10 years later, isn’t necessarily as sexy, right?” she says, alluding to the fact that vampires can compel or glamour humans (depending on whether you’re watching TVD or True Blood) and have overpowering strength and speed.

“And you could look at it back through the lens of say the #MeToo movement and object to what may be a little bit of a glorification of a rape culture, but what we were working with at the time was a gothic romance with a fine line — a very fine line — separating it,” she says, with a laugh. “And I used to get in arguments about it being a gothic romance and not wanting to censor the sexuality of the characters, even if it felt a little questionable at times, like specifically Damon and Caroline in the first couple of episodes [when he used her as a plaything and drank from her against her will]. Because that’s what vampires represented, and that’s what vampires were. And the culture has just shifted enough that you’d have to think twice before you dove in that boldly now, I think.”

Another storyline that doesn’t feel “of the time” today is the classic bad boy trope, which, Plec admits, she’s had great success exploring on TVD and its spinoff, The Originals (which returns April 20 for its fifth and final season). “It brings to light a lot of questions about women’s self-worth and passivity in that male/female dynamic, and so that’s shifting as well,” she says. “It’ll be [interesting] to see how you can create great romance and tension in a romantic relationship without being able to rely on those old tropes of the guy picking up the girl and throwing her over his shoulder and saving the day, you know.”

As someone who also worked on close friend Kevin Williamson’s series Dawson’s Creek for a time, Plec can, too, admit that 20 years later, a plot point like Pacey having sex with his teacher hasn’t aged well. “There was something kind of sexy and dirty and naughty and wish fulfillment about that back then that leaves a really nasty taste in my mouth right now,” she says.

Still, there are some Dawson’s arcs that more than hold up. She thinks back to Jack (Kerr Smith) coming out in Season 2 — and in Season 3, experiencing the first passionate kiss between two men on TV (thanks to then showrunner Greg Berlanti being willing to walk away from the series if the network wouldn’t air it). “Essentially that scene where the father rejects Jack and leaves him in a puddle crying was a fictionalized version of Greg’s actual experience, which he’s talked very freely about in his own interviews,” Plec says. “The beauty of that storyline is the idea that as a young adult, [Greg] had an experience that he had to keep a secret for a while, and then when he revealed his secret, it didn’t go well, and then for him to be able to exorcise that demon through writing — to actually show the story to an audience and show them all the beautiful things about that story that he himself had never gotten to see as a viewer.”

That’s also an illustration of why Plec has always been drawn to the teen genre. “What’s most inspirational about writing for that age is that everyone at that age is either living their biggest truth or their biggest secret, and sometimes both. And they communicate in a very straight-forward way. They tend to sort of say what they mean, and express their feelings without filters in a way that you just don’t do as much as an adult,” she says. “And so as a writer, it makes it a particularly honest experience — I don’t have to think, I can just put my thoughts on the page as I would have wanted to when I was 17.”

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students Emma Gonzalez, left, David Hogg, and Cameron Kasky raising their voices. (Photos: Getty/AP)

Last month, when she was watching the teen survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting speak on TV, she thought again about Dawson’s Creek.

“Kevin made a very specific and unique style choice in that he purposefully wrote those teens to have almost hyperbolic language and communication skills,” Plec says, “and I would say, probably the biggest lesson you can take from his choice was that when you’re writing for teenagers, you don’t treat them like children. You treat them, and you present them, as adults. And that was actually passing through my head when I was listening to all the Parkland students on CNN giving their press conference. I said, ‘My god, they are so magnificently articulate.’ And the idea that there used to exist this sense in that particular youth genre that you had to write down or limit their vocabulary or narrow their point of view seems so ridiculous in the post-Dawson’s Creek era, because you look at the reality of how teenagers communicate at their best.”

Katherine Langford as Hannah Baker in 13 Reasons Why. (Photo: Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection)

The conversation those students, and fearless shows like 13 Reasons Why, are creating in the country give her hope. “If you’re looking at all of these kids talking about being shot up in their school, then you’re applauding a show like 13 Reasons Why for creating an environment for people to talk openly about their feelings, about their mental illness, about their sadness, about the things that make them feel dark. If talking about mental health is the norm and not the aberration, then I think we solve a lot of the world’s problems just by definition of that.”

Because again, when done well, these shows can make a difference. For her next project, Plec will direct the pilot for The CW’s Roswell reboot, written by Originals alum Carina Adly MacKenzie and based on the Roswell High book series. This time, the story centers on the daughter (Jeanine Mason) of undocumented immigrants who returns to her hometown of Roswell, New Mexico, for her 10-year high school reunion and discovers that her teenage crush (Nathan Parsons), who is now a police officer, has been hiding the fact that he’s an alien with unearthly abilities. When a violent attack and long-standing government cover-up point to a greater alien presence on Earth, the politics of fear and hatred threaten to expose him and destroy their deepening romance.

“Carina was raised in the Muslim faith by an Egyptian mother, although she is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed young woman, and after 9/11, the next day everyone in her school was exhibiting blatant Islamophobia, and she had to sort of stand up and say, ‘Hey, wait a second, guys. Watch yourselves.’ And so to be able to tell that story through this lens is really important to her because it is something that she went through as a teenager.”

And it’s an experience that today’s teens can still relate to. “Anything that you’re making for that particular audience, you know deep down that you’re in some way, in success, laying the foundation for important things like tolerance and inclusion, and openness to issues like mental health or self-esteem,” she says. “You’re touching people at the right time, where your message can actually make positive change if your message is well-executed — and there’s something really uplifting and powerful about that.”

Read more “Why Teen TV Matters” from Yahoo Entertainment: