Who is effy stonem

Real life begins after dark, when Effie sneaks out of the house to attend various parties. Profession… student. Effie seems like a harmless, ordinary school girl. Interests… drugs, mild arson, and nights out.

Effy is known throughout Bristol as quite the wild child. Relationship Status… single. In short: she is melodramatic and completely unrealistic, but that was the point. Effy is a characterisation of how teenage girls feel , not how they actually are. Drugs, sex, poverty, racism, divorce, domestic abuse, eating disorders, heartbreak — Skins came at these issues through the eyes of a teenager, with the emotional lens of an adult, taking each one seriously but respecting its audience enough to entertain rather than moralise.

Does nobody ask you why? In retrospect, it was a genius move, laying the foundation for Effy to supersede Tony in season three as the mysterious and Machiavellian lead. Of course, that could easily have gone tits up — when The O.

She was one of the most gripping characters of the entire Skins franchise, and it seems her appeal has only snowballed since. Skins, in general, has held up because, even in its most surreal moments, it was able to communicate the distressing and exhilarating experience of being young in such a relatable way.

In that sense, Effy is a vessel for the whole spirit of Skins. A severely depressed and traumatised character, Effy spends most of her arc running away from her troubles by creating more immediate ones. Instead of lashing out or doing nothing, she turns her violence inward.

Ultimately, Skins reflected the ambient melodrama of puberty better than any other show of its time. It never needed to be realistic, and neither did Effy.

She just had to reflect teenagers the way they see themselves. But the representation of mental health problems in Skins largely enforces representations of mental health problems as something that only affects a particular group of society, predominately white teenage girls rather than allowing viewers to see any diversity in those affected. Effy Stonem in particular portrayed a worrying stereotype of mental illness.

As a slim, white female, she conforms to all too typical tropes of mental illness. While girls who look exactly like Effy do suffer from mental illnesses, there are also vast majorities of people that suffer who do not resemble her in any way.

Effy is one of the most popular Skins characters, portrayed as beautiful and complicated. Her depiction of mental health, although at times gritty and bordering on realistic, is mostly based around a fantastical perception in which mental problems make you increasingly attractive and interesting.

There was also Cassie in the first generation of Skins, who from the first episode had a serious problem with an eating disorder.

Eating disorders are one of the most deadly mental illnesses, with an incredibly high mortality rate. By glamorising these problems, TV shows trivialise all those who actually suffer from these illnesses. Representation, particularly with issues like mental health where there is such prevalent stigma, is crucial in TV shows and popular culture in general. If people are led by shows like Skins to believe that mental health problems only affect people of a certain gender or ethnicity, like Cassie and Effy, there is no way to breakdown stereotypes and misunderstanding.

The Tab says Effy Stonem was the goal. Everything always miraculously turned out okay for her despite the fact that her friends had been murdered and gone to prison in the middle of her wild antics. All of this I can deal with. We don't need to try. There's also the knowledge that, at the end of the summer, they'll be reunited when they're locked inside their bubble in an alien city once again. Kaya doesn't know what tragedies lie in store for Effy in series four.

I've given my opinion But they'll probably just do what they want anyway! One thing's for certain: this will be Kaya's final series of Skins, after which the series will move on to its third generation of students at Roundview Sixth Form College.

And I do an American accent which I'm really embarrassed about! I just sat there crying for most of it. And then we won! At the moment she has no work lined up beyond Skins, but she knows where she'd like to go. And theatre. I really think it'll push me as an actor. And a lot of people are actually starting to see me as an actress now rather than just Effy off Skins. This article was originally published in Issue 2, Issue 2.

Credit: Phil Poynter and Victoria Young.