Turning 16

An 8-part series focusing on teens throughout the "Third World," Turning 16 is comprised of six individual stories of teens in Jamaica, Niger, Egypt, Brazil, Thailand, and India, bookended by an introductory and summary episode. We watched the opener, Youth and the Global Village, which proved that global teens share much in common: they "like to revolt," "take risks," "try new adventures," and, as one teen put it, have "sexual intercourse with each other all over the world." To achieve this last goal, many Third World teens are instructed in condom application (already a major part of the American curriculum in some areas). Third World teens are the fastest growing segment of the world population, and they're coming more and more under the influence of Western popular culture: one girl goes to her hairdresser to get the "Santa Barbara" cut modeled after a soap opera character; on another youth, the word "Nike" is clearly legible on his scalp--making him, effectively, a free walking billboard. While the sound-bite approach doesn't always lend itself to fruitful discussion, here it could serve the useful purpose of engaging teens in a conversation about how kids from other countries are very much like themselves. How the individual episodes are structured we don't know (we were only sent the opener), still junior and senior high schools would benefit from these if they can afford the $795 series sticker price. Recommended. (R. Pitman)