Lesson from "High School Confidential?" It's hard out there for a teenage girl

I've been hooked on watching WE tv's "High School Confidential" - a documentary series that follows 12 girls over four years at a Kansas City suburban high school - and I can't figure out why.

I mean, I'd like to forget about high school, not relive it.

But high school is also the perfect breeding ground for drama thanks to hormones, angst, optimism and, of course, youthful stupidity. Perhaps that explains the dizzying array of high school-teen shows that plague the airwaves every season, from the private school upper-crust hijinks of "The O.C." and "Gossip Girl" to the class-conscious spins in "Friday Night Lights" and "Veronica Mars." Then, once in a while, there's a show like "Freaks and Geeks," that portrays high school as it was - without all the hoopla and social commentary - in all its glorious suckiness and strange liberation.

In a way, "High School Confidential" could be seen as the real-life version of that type of show. It's honest. Sometimes frustrating. Often shocking. The girls chosen for the project are open in their discussions about the pressures of teenage life, but it doesn't come off as melodramatic.

The 25 girls interviewed for the series are fairly stereotypical at first glance - the aspiring model, the athlete, the overachiever - but generally break the mold by the end of each episode. Still it doesn't always end with "Breakfast Club" philosophical life changes.

On Monday I was forced to switch the channel when I heard Sara, an 18-year-old who decides to get married to her Marine boyfriend, whine ad nauseum about how her parents aren't behind her marriage 100 percent. This rant came at the heels of her future plans that somehow include three kids by the time she's 30, college and a home without falling into bankruptcy. (According to the Web site, she's managed to somehow achieve at least one of those things - buy a house and train to be a CRNA - so maybe I'm wrong).

Then again, I remember what it was like to be 17 and optimistic, so I probably shouldn't be too harsh.

"High School Confidential" airs on WE tv at 9 p.m. on Mondays with repeats on Wednesdays at 7 p.m.

-- Malavika Jagannathan, mjaganna@greenbaypressgazette.com