Why do high school dramas never show the school aspect of their lives?

This fall at Cornell, I’ve felt more like a gossip girl character than ever, even while social distancing. As soon as I sit down at a cafe after classes, I’ll get a text from a friend and stop whatever I’m doing to go hang out with them outside. Then 45 minutes later, we’ll both run to a cafe to continue talking, just like the characters in school dramas. At our next location, we might run into another friend and fill each other in on the latest tea, still not focusing on homework. Meanwhile, one of us may be on a zoom call, and that person has to make an effort to not be distracted by the group. I’ll be honest, my friends and I don’t really scheme like Blair Waldorf, but we have found ourselves running around campus, not focusing on homework as much as we should, and catching up with friends a lot this fall. Likewise, in the school dramas seen on TV, you mostly see the gossip and schemes, but never see the kids doing homework.

Let’s talk about why you rarely see these kids actually learning like students in real life. The directors know that many viewers who tune in to their TV shows do not want to be reminded of school. Some kids come home and immediately turn on their TV or Netflix to relax. So, if the characters in the shows do go to school, the directors will include it as a part of the set. Instead, they’ll focus on the more fun parts; the cafe scenes with a friend, the friend group’s shenanigans, the parties, social media posts, and other superficial parts of the typical American teenager’s life. If the genre is fantasy, the directors will capitalize on the magic and nonrealistic aspects of attending school in a fantasy world.

Something I’ve noticed when watching TV shows and movies myself is that in order to improve the flow, school lessons are only included if the lesson is about something related to the plot. Take the third Harry Potter movie for example. They show Snape’s lesson about werewolves because [spoiler alert] the characters find out later that their other teacher is a werewolf. In shows about the typical American teenager, the classroom scenes are usually reserved for comedy or important confrontations between characters. While these situations can happen in real life, it sure doesn’t happen that often in my classrooms at least. These school dramas can create unrealistic mindsets for people coming into high school. I’ve noticed that some people try to create drama in their friend groups to mimic the drama in the shows they’ve watched. Whereas, other students feel that school is mainly about learning and it doesn’t come close to what Hollywood perpetuates. Sure, real school can be boring compared to the TV show schools, but some people I know are fine with spending most of their afternoons doing homework and extracurriculars without drama blown out of proportion.