ABC Family: A New Kind Of Family…That No One Wants

BY KAYLA LOKEINSKY

A high-school guidance counselor agrees to change a student’s schedule so that he is more likely to meet a girl who will have sex with him. A cheerleader breaks up with her boyfriend after discovering that he accepted sexual favors from another girl. A good-girl French horn player discovers she is pregnant after a one-night stand at band camp and debates with a friend whether or not to terminate the pregnancy. This isn’t the storyline of a dramatic soap opera, but rather the events that occur in a typical episode of The Secret Life of the American Teenager, the most popular TV show airing on ABC Family. With it’s adult plotlines and emphasis of inappropriate behavior, ABC Family has proven themselves to be “a new kind of family”…one that no one wants.

ABC Family was originally The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) Family Channel when it was founded in 1988. Then, in 2001, it was sold to Disney and was renamed ABC Family. As part of the purchase agreement, they are required to have the word “Family” in the title of the network. However, the tagline family doesn’t fit with the racy shows that they currently air like The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Pretty Little Liers, That 70’s Show, and The Lying Game.

Geared towards an older audience, the channel’s new shows glorify premarital sex, teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol use, and many more issues that shouldn’t be seen by children. Yet, they promote themselves as being a family channel.

In addition to the sexually-explicit shows, the network also airs movies along these same lines. Movies like Mean Girls, where sexuality, cursing, and sheer crudeness are prevalent, are aired right after a showing of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. So not only is ABC Family airing movies that are not suited for families, but they are also insinuating that these movies are the same as Disney cartoons by airing them one after another.

However, ABC Family’s biggest crime is that they are distorting the idea of being a family. They are insinuating that typical families all have pregnant teenagers and let their daughters spend the night at their boyfriends house or drink alcohol. They are taking what used to be wholesome making it unreconizable.

So even though ABC family programming has diverged from what any rational human being would deem “family-oriented,” they were stuck with the name. The best ABC could do is try to re-label their network as “A different kind of family,” the kind of family you watch in all its dysfunctional glory to appreciate your family even more.