Topics like teen pregnancy, sexuality, adoption, suicide, drug abuse, cancer and eating disorders can be hard to bring up with your parents or children, and that’s why ABC Family has shows like The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Chasing Life, Make It or Break It, Becoming Us, Pretty Little Liars, The Fosters and Parenthood have brought these topics up through the characters of their shows and movies. ABC Family does a really amazing job at discussing these subjects through fictional and nonfictional characters. One of the best things ABC Family will do is have commercials about the hard-to-discuss topics with links or numbers families can go to for more information.
At the end of many episodes of The Secret Life of the American Teenager, a quick commercial with a character on the show will pop up with them discussing the national campaign to prevent teen and unplanned pregnancy.
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The ABC Family original movie "Cyberbully" was to represent the impact virtual words and actions could make on someone’s life. The main character, played by Emily Osment, during commercials discussed words that could really hurt and how to make it stop.
Keegan Allen from Pretty Little Liars spoke in a commercial about National Bullying Prevention Month and how bullying is not cool, not funny, and it isn’t okay.
In The Fosters, mothers Lena and Stef have a total of five kids: Brandon, adopted twins Mariana and Jesus, and the new additions of Jude and Callie. The Fosters expresses the fact that “DNA doesn’t make a family, love does,” as well as topics like sexuality, such as whom you like or who you are.
In season 2 of Make It or Break It, character Kaylie is moved into an eating-disorder rehab. The show discusses the pressures of sport, and where to get help when struggling.
Chasing Life, a show about a girl who finds out she has cancer and learns how to keep both a personal life s well as a career. The show reaches out to the feelings of those with cancer, as well as the family and friends of the person with cancer. Chasing Life is a great show in itself that can help any demographic understand the struggles of someone with cancer.
Most recently, the TV show Becoming Us has been bringing up a topic a lot up people struggle with, whether it be because they don’t know how to be politically correct about it or they are still learning how to feel comfortable with it. This topic is transgender. This is an unscripted drama about a son learning to live with his dad becoming a woman. The show follows his family and friends supporting one another.
Go to abcfamily.go.com to learn about other shows and what social awareness they bring to the table.
