I believe most people over 30, if asked whether they would go back to being a teenager, would break into a light sweat and answer categorically not. Emotional flashbacks can cause the most stable adult to judder and cringe. I think, for starters, of the pressure of looking good and the inevitable fashion faux pas. I used to put bread rolls under my bra straps in the 80s to create massive shoulder pads. The only advantage of this is that you have something to nibble on after a disco.
Now there’s another memory that inevitably makes us clam up – the teenage disco. A minefield: impossible to navigate without scarring. Even if you did have a relatively unscathed event initially, you always knew it was building to a sudden slow song when you were meant to pair off with a boy who felt he had permission to snog your face off. I never knew which was worse – having the awkward kiss or standing on the edge of the dance floor, swaying casually to the music as if it didn’t remotely bother you. That’s when I would run to the toilets. And eat my shoulder pad.
What a depressing picture you are portraying, Miranda, I hear you say? Well let me stop you there. Because this is exactly why I wanted to create a kids show about teenage life – a programme that was honest about teenage difficulties but that also gave solutions and celebrated the joy of youth and all the chaos that goes with it.
So Sammy, the show I have co-created with Rob Evans for Disney, is about a vlogger. She’s not seeking online fame, but simply wants to share some real teen stories – as opposed to hour-long makeup tutorials on eyebrow shaping. Sammy is more interested in the absurdities of her life, like the time she was Snapchatted wearing the same jumper as her geography teacher (a 55-year-old Rotary member) or the night she danced like a loon at a silent disco (after everyone else’s headsets had been switched off). Sammy is a fun, optimistic girl who doesn’t take herself too seriously – not that she ever could with a party shop-owning mum and a deluded French step-brother who thinks he’s the coolest thing to emerge from Paris since Daft Punk. Even when there are pitfalls, she always sees the funny side. I hope it gives teens some hope, some escapism and maybe some wisdom along the way too. Things we all need.
We all know how hard it is being a teenager and today the peer pressures seem more heightened than ever. Every Instagram pose, chirpy tweet, funny Snapchat, all fuelling levels of insecurity and isolation – because it’s so easy to assume all those people are having the time of their lives. Even at the ripe old age of 44, if I see friends doing a grinning group selfie at an event I wasn’t invited to, I can find myself thinking “why wasn’t I asked, why do they look so much younger than me, I bet they had the best night of their lives and will now go on holiday together every year and I will have to sit at home poring over Facebook photos of their every meal, and swimming pool shots from a high angle so they look skinnier than they are, I hate them all…”!
Luckily at 44 you also see what you are doing, know it to be nonsense, quickly put the negative voice back in its box and replace it with deep thanks to be in your pyjamas at 9pm rather than out at a thumping party. But as a teen, these pressures are very real and can be horribly upsetting.
Although it’s easy to feel a permanent sense of cringe about one’s teenage years, I do remember a lot of freedom to be silly. That should always be encouraged, and ideally never lost as we age. I am not suggesting public disturbance silly, but allowing young people to let go and not focus on getting it right, or what they should be doing as a career. All that can come.
So Sammy is on Disney Channel app and DisneyLife now
