Impact
Legal/Ethical issues.
The show often comes up with a lot of moral and ethical decisions that could possibly cause quite a stir within it's audiences. For example, there is a constant threat of cannibalism throughout the duration of the show, seeing as one group of apocalypse survivors have resorted to cannibalism and a somewhat feral nature. Whilst this is taking place throughout the entire series, there is also a lot of human drug testing and very brutal bone marrow extraction scenes, wherein the test subjects are still alive/awake. This could also raise a few questions within the audience, and definitely on the internet, as a lot of websites out there today like to question shows that contain such scenes.
Relevant issues of representation.The majority of the characters in the show are white, with only a few black main characters (one of whom dies within the first 3 episodes of the first season). In terms of gender roles, the show has actually made a female the main protagonist, and it doesn't end there. About 60% of the shows main cast are all females, and not the usual type of female that films and shows like to portray these days, the female characters in The 100 have generally taken on the roles that males would normally have in any film or TV series. This isn't to say that the producers have completely disregarded the male section of the cast, because they haven't. Each and every member of the main cast are all equally important and individual as a cliche main character would be, it's almost like the show is full of main characters.
Role of regulatory bodies. The 100 was given a variety of age ratings for different episodes, ranging from a few 12's all the way up to a few 18's. This is probably because of the amount of violence that occurs throughout the show, and mostly at the hands of teens. The show passed moderation uncut, which probably contributes towards it's 18 age rating for some episodes. The regulatory body in question was the British Board of Film Classification (the BBFC).
Impact/Effect on the audience
The shows target audience is teens and young adults, you can tell this quite obviously from the age of the main characters, the underlining theme of teen romance and more. Having teens as the main characters can have quite a big impact on its teen audience, but at the same time it might not be a positive effect on the audience. Throughout season 2 of The 100, there is a character called Thelonious Jaha who decides to travel across deserts and seas to find a "prophesied" land followed by a few of his devout followers, sound familiar? A portion of the audience thought that he was depicting "Moses", a biblical character that led his people across deserts and more to find the "promised" land, and they didn't like this.
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