S05E03- Mini: Under All the Make Up, Just a Frightened Little Virgin!

"Behind the make up you're just a frightened little virgin!"

It’s episode three of the current run of Skins and this time we are given an insight into what makes Mini tick. Superficially she is a popular girl, concerned about her appearance. She carefully measures out by the gram what she eats. She regularly attends classes led by guest star Kelly Brook at the gym. She comes across as a total bitch, whether it is telling Grace to totally scrap a fashion line she has spent weeks creating or telling a boy in the locker room that she ‘doesn’t fuck losers’.

The opening scene shows Mini waking up with an eye mask on, a metaphor perhaps for the superficial mask that she adorns when in public. However, in this episode both masks; metaphorical and literal, come off, revealing more about Mini’s true self. Mini, it transpires is not the popular Queen Bee that we initially perceive her to be, not only is she, one by one, losing all her friends but it becomes clear that she is not as sexually experienced as she would have people believe.

Essentially this episode centres around peer pressure. It is seen not only in the bowling alley scene where Mini is pressured into consuming alcohol but also in the portrayal of sex, especially sex for the first time. Skins has always been about bringing attention to issues that matter to teens or that teens experience. It has to be said that the stigma of losing your virginity and the social pressure is high up on the list of issues.

There is a myth propagated by many different sources that your first time must be perfect, that everything must faultless and thought out and planned. This in itself puts a lot of pressure on teenagers and I commend Skins for attempting to tackle this in some way.

Mini sets refreshing representations of women back decades

For a show that is so subversive in this aspect, Skins is very conservative in others. Its’ portrayal of women is somewhat damaging when it comes to attitudes towards sex. It is the women who are transfixed on this idea of sex for the first time having to be perfect. It is women in the show who feel like love is equated to sex and that you should only have sex if you are in love, a very traditional belief. It is the men who come across as having no sentimental attachments when it comes to sex and this only reinforces stereotypical gender attitudes towards sex. This flies in the face of representations of the modern sexual woman as seen in TV shows like Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives and only sets to reinforce the hegemonic values in place.

This episode saw the making and breaking of several relationships. An interesting turn of events in terms of Mini and Nick’s relationship came to fruition when Mini’s unwillingness to have sex with her boyfriend saw him opt for her best friend Liv instead. In addition to this the relationship set up in last week’s episode between Grace and Rich sees some progression when they both clarify that they are still friends, which is then cemented with an underplayed kiss between the two teens. The mysterious guy we witnessed in the opening episode makes a brief return, setting up a possible romance for Franky.

Skins it would seem keeps getting more and more interesting and they have begun to set up storylines that will impact on the rest of the series. I know I have fallen behind in recent weeks but I fully intend on catching up as soon as possible.

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