Listen Up, Laguna Beach: It's MTV's Fault - Not the School Board's

Now on its third set of Laguna Beach high school students supposedly portraying the real Orange County, some Laguna Beach parents said enough is enough - and they told the school board just that.

On Nov. 6, parents and others from the Laguna Beach community met with the Laguna Beach School Board to discuss the negative effects of a now very infamous MTV show. Among the topics discussed was the negative image the show portrayed the real Laguna Beach in. The image they referred to would be that of a city full of ridiculously spoiled teenagers with the word "whatever" rolling off their tongues in nearly every sentence. In addition, some of the parents at the meeting complained about the traffic leading to the high school that has been caused by the filming of episodes. Some people at the meeting wanted to know what role the school board could have played in keeping the MTV cameras out of their lives.

In reality the school board, had very little power over MTV from the beginning of season one except to deny MTV access to filming at the high school, which is exactly what was done. The reality show instead exists because of the parents who sign waivers allowing their kids to be filmed. Most of the footage is, after all, shot on private property. 

It is hardly the school board's fault that this show has come to be what it is today. However, it has definitely become the school board's problem and MTV is just, well, completely indifferent to the sort of lowbrow entertainment the station is known for (and the complete lack of quality music that is part of their namesake).

In reality, if MTV wanted to show anything of substance with respect to Orange County, the station might have focused on another city rather than a beach community since most of Orange County is not comprised of beach communities. The county is also not composed of mostly caucasion teenagers who spend their time milling around South Coast Plaza all day, but then again, had the network done that the picture would not have been as pretty.