What I'll Miss About Bunheads Is The Way It Talked About Sex
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There were plenty of things to nitpick about when considering the ABC Family show Bunheads, which was cancelled, sadly, inevitably, on Monday evening. Despite fawning reviews from many notable television writers, the show still displayed little diversity amongst its cast, no matter how realistic it would have actually been for a group of young ballet dancers in a small, wealthy California town to be all white. That being said, Bunheads had one important thing going for it: It was on its way to becoming one of the best depictions of teen sexuality on television in a very long time.
Bunheads was an especially bright star given ABC Family’s middling history with depicting sex in its teen shows. While The Secret Diary of an American Teenager at least acknowledged that teenagers do stuff together, that show was largely dramatic and full if ridiculousness. The shows that ABC Family did put out that handled young adult sex with nuance – like the surprisingly funny 10 Things I Hate About You or Greek for the slightly older demographic – always seemed to get cancelled before their time. The shows that have been big successes, like Pretty Little Liars, have treated sex a little more Hollywood-ized, a little less realistically.