Unrealistic Representation

With the recent happenings with Honey Boo Boo and her family, I feel like it would be good to talk about how people in poverty are viewed on television, especially reality television.  The show I would like to talk about is the show on MTV called Teen Mom.  There are two different versions, Teen Mom and Teen Mom 2.  They are all people that were on the MTV show 16 and Pregnant.  TM and TM2 follows the lives of some of the characters as they figure out how to raise a baby and continue moving their lives forward.

The people chosen to take part in 16 and Pregnant are more often than not lower class people from rural/less populated areas.  I have noticed that quite a lot of them are from the southern part of the states.  The moms are usually kids that enjoy going out and partying and are generally not the most responsible people.  Then they end up with an accidental pregnancy and the teenage father freaks out.  Now all of a sudden they have to pay for hospital visits, baby essentials, and sometimes even a place on their own since some of the parents end up kicking the teens out.  

Money is almost always seen as an issue in 16 and Pregnant, but by the time the moms end up on TM or TM2, they are living comfortably.  One instance stands out to me with Kailyn from TM2.  When she was on 16 and Pregnant, she was living with her boyfriend at the time in his home.  His family took care of her and she basically had nothing.  In TM2, Kailyn is able to buy her own home, pay for a wedding, drive a $50k suburban, and live really comfortably.  It gives a false hope to people that live in the lower class that they can so easily turn things around like that.