Moral Panic

by Matthew Durington

The suburb has long been held as the end result of the American Dream and communities like Littleton, CO, have served as bastions of the morality that a belief in this utopia entails. The tragic events that continue to occur in pristine communities like Littleton reveal how nervous these surreal spaces really are. Although the need to literally protect suburban life as we know it seems to be the predominant melodrama being portrayed through your favorite media outlet, the battle to preserve the "idea" of the suburb and the "ideal" suburban teenager is actually being waged. The question continues to be "how could this happen here?" and the answer consistently lies outside of the suburban environment.

During research over the past year in a suburban community of Dallas where 17 adolescents died of heroin overdoses in recent months, this question continued to be reiterated. Blame finds interesting places to rest in the circle-jerk of finger-pointing that commences among politicians, parents, school officials, law enforcement, token psychologists and the media after a suburban adolescent tragedy. In the case of Plano, TX, the "clear-cut reasons" for suburban teenage heroin overdoses were black drug dealers from the inner city, predatory Mexican nationals courtesy of NAFTA and the ever-mysterious heroin chic. All of these forces "targeted" and "infiltrated" the suburban environment, magically creating a demand that supposedly never existed before. The fact that many of these teenagers had access to inordinate amounts of money, came from two-income families and felt invincible had nothing to do with it. Regardless, teenagers and the suburb where they live are framed as victims of outside forces that have invaded the suburban space. This same trajectory is revealing itself in the media coverage of the tragedy in Littleton where real-time coverage demands quick and uncomplicated answers.

The displacement of blame away from the suburb can be found in the anatomy of a Good Morning America segment last Wednesday. In the space of two minutes Diane Sawyer revealed the great "why" and "how" of the massacre at Columbine High School through film clips of The Matrix and The Basketball Diaries, the music and imagery of Marilyn Manson, and the video games Doom and Mortal Combat.

This volatile recipe of popular culture has quickly become not only the supposed catalyst for suburban high school killing sprees, but also the marker for teenage marginalization. Hence, the appreciation of Goth culture and video games creates a dual identity for teenagers who become regarded as both at risk and a risk to those around them. While these factors may share a portion of the blame in addition to the chilling revelations that Adolf Hitler is alive and well in various suburban mafias, it is the speed at which the media attempts to look outside of the suburb for causes that is especially troubling. If this had occurred at an urban high school everyone would know where to look.

By looking outside of places like Plano and Littleton for the causes of adolescent tragedies, the idea of the suburb as a reservoir of morality remains intact.

Teenagers are under enormous pressure to reproduce the social roles of their parents who have "made it." The labeling of the two young men as "outcasts" and "freaks" is due to the fact that they could or would not become the "jock" and became marginalized. The effects of this marginalization became all too clear with the targeting of their victims, the ones they couldn't be and the ones they could no longer scapegoat. We must ask ourselves what kind of teenager the media then constructs when this is all said and done. Just as the displacement of blame away from the suburb results in further polarization from environments where this supposedly "would" occur, at the end of the broadcast jocks are still jocks and the kids are still freaks.

The media coverage creates the end to a meaning rather than the means to an end.

Matthew Durington is a doctoral student at Temple University in Visual Anthropology. If you want to respond to this Slant, or if you have one of your own, contact Howard Altman, City Paper news editor, 123 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106 or altman@citypaper.net.