trinityw82y: Moms Making Money

Maci, Farrah, Amber, and Catelynn have morphed from cautionary examples to celebrity magazine staples, but MTV isn’t extending them the red carpet. Joyce C. Tang on the balancing act between morality tale and entertainment juggernaut.

Will Maci and Kyle reunite? Will Amber overcome her anger issues? These were the questions viewers were left with after last week’s season finale of MTV’s Teen Mom. Although Tuesday night’s reunion show may provide some answers, the celebrity magazines have already been beating the network to it.

As the curtains close on the show’s second season, its “stars” find themselves at an awkward moment, straddling the line between the harsh reality of teen parenting and the potential to cash in on the celebrity of reality television. Teen Mom’s season finale hauled in 5.6 million viewers, making it this summer’s second most popular show on the network. And the teen mothers’ ups and downs have lately become fodder for celebrity weeklies, from People to Us Weekly to OK! Magazine.

After seeing the strong ratings for the show, Us Weekly was the first to put the girls on a cover. “It was the right combination of a large enough audience that was passionate that could drive a sale for us,” said Lara Cohen, news director at the magazine. And the decision paid off, she said: Us Weekly had one of its biggest sales of the summer with that issue.

For MTV and entertainment magazines, cashing in on the show’s success is business as usual. But for the teen moms, their success and popularity, not to mention their show’s integrity, rely on a narrative that highlights their struggles and hardships, and the notion of suffering the consequences of one’s poor decisions.

“Teen pregnancy is not easy,” said show producer Morgan J. Freeman, and it’s clear the onus is on Teen Mom to underscore that fact. The girls “have an enormous amount of responsibility. The focus is on that.”

Since the series’ origins in 16 and Pregnant, it has hewed to a story line familiar to high school classrooms across the country. And as the girls have graduated to become teen moms, one fights to get a GED, another juggles school and a full-time job, and a few battle for custody rights and child support. Viewers, and the media, would be reluctant to embrace a show that compromised that narrative.

“It certainly would change the dynamic of the show if they had money to spend on nicer houses and nannies,” said Cohen of Us Weekly. “It would ruin what’s really interesting about the show. The whole reason that we wanted to cover them to begin with was that their struggle was compelling and very real.”

If anything, the show’s message combined with MTV’s packaging mean that Teen Mom works as a very clever and glorified public service announcement, for which the network has received considerable praise. Petite Maci laments losing her virginity to ex-fiancé Ryan, whom she broke up with after it was clear he was too immature and selfish to be a responsible and caring father. Dark-haired Farrah flip-flops between relying on an abusive mother for economic and emotional support and flailing for independence. In the season’s first episode, Farrah and her mother are trying to find a way forward after Farrah’s mother struck her. Then there’s Amber, who was captured on camera punching her daughter’s father and trying to push him down the stairs. MTV quickly turned the incident into a domestic-violence teaching moment. When Us Weekly featured all four girls in an issue, the piece was packaged under the headline “What We’ve Learned.”

I have good news and bad news. The good news first: Robert Zemeckis is making another move back towards live-action. The bad news: it might be with a remake of The Wizard of Oz, which Warner Bros. is attempting to assemble. And while this might not be a shot for shot remake a la Gus Van Sant and Psycho, the idea is awfully close, as the studio wants to use the script from the 1939 version.

Think this sounds like a direct attempt to counter Disney’s Oz film, The Great and Powerful Oz? (Which provisionally has Sam Raimi directing and Robert Downey Jr. as star.) Well, it probably is. Warners owns the Wizard of Oz screenplay, and this would be a way to quickly put a film into production without mucking about in all that tedious business of hiring a new writer. The ’39 version had over a dozen writers on it anyway; isn’t that enough?

So, provisionally file this under ‘boneheaded executive scheme,’ which comes as no surprise. But why is Robert Zemeckis playing along?

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