The series premiere starts with a bang when the guidance counselor, Mr. And she uses that power for (mostly) good. She’s the queen bee of Central Rochester High School, wielding way more power than any real-life high schooler could ever hope to achieve. Y&C is a high school comedy-drama and Anna stars as the main character, Farrah Cutney. The first season’s now available on YouTube Red and I’m super excited to be reviewing it here. She basically just kicks butt at everything, and her latest show Youth & Consequences is no exception. She’s also written, directed, and/or starred in numerous shows and movies. She’s a hilarious YouTube sensation with over two million subscribers who regularly offers life advice on her channel. “This precludes women from having any positive role models for aging.If you haven’t heard of Anna Akana, you’re seriously missing out.
“Viewers never really know what an older woman, say 50 or 60 or 70, should realistically look like,” she tells Teen Vogue. Myrna Hant, a researcher at the UCLA Center for the Study of Women, says that the inconsistency surrounding female age on film feeds a larger, systemic problem in our culture. (Looking at you, Aunt May.) Yet, it’s where the warped idea of what a female body - regardless of age - looks like. In many other roles, women are cast to play much older than they truly are.
What’s interesting about the casting pattern in teen films is that it feels singular to the genre. “So when they’re looking at models of teens on TV, they’re absolutely engaging in comparison,” Greenberg says. Greenberg explains that teenagers specifically are observers because they subscribe to the spotlight effect - the idea that everybody’s looking at them all the time, even though that’s not true. “And we know that social comparison can be a thief of joy.” But, psychologically speaking, the teenager is anything but a passive viewer. Of course, you could argue that teens aren’t paying attention to any of this, and they’re just hoping to be entertained. “My producer wanted our show to be realistic, so kids watching could relate and identify to all the situations and grow with the actors playing them.” That said, all of the cast members were between the ages of 12 and 17 at the time of the show's premiere. The show’s casting director, Robin Lippin, says she and her producer intentionally sought out those ages in actors. Take Saved by the Bell, which began with characters around the age of 13 and 14. Perhaps that’s why true-to-age casting in teen shows and films has such a different feel. “That leads to all kinds of body-image and social-comparison issues,” Greenberg says. But when teen idols on screen don’t share in that anguish, it can make the teen viewer vulnerable to feeling self-conscious and depressed about it. “Some days they’re thinner, they’re a little heavier, they have pimples, their hair is a little frizzy. A person in their 20s is more likely to have a consistent appearance, whereas an adolescent may change more frequently. “It can give the message that they’re supposed to look good all the time,” she tells Teen Vogue. Barbara Greenberg, PhD, a clinical psychologist and teen and family expert, says casting actors in their 20s can complicate an already challenging time for teens.