The representation of American teenagers in films during the 1950s and 1990s

Résumé du document

The ‘teen film', ‘teen flick' or ‘teenpic' has changed since the 1950s when it started to define itself through Juvenile delinquency films. As was recently commented, ‘the teen flick has lost its shiny innocence and become a cynical brute' (Maher; 2006: 13). Over the course of 50 years, the American teen film evolved from the advent of the teen audience in the 1950s to the nostalgic depictions of youth featured in 1970s film through to the golden age of teen films in the 1980s and finally to the illustrations of Generation X in the 1990s. Films about the young are not necessarily addressed to the young and films addressing the young do not necessarily focus on young characters. But two films, Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Kids (1995) stand out in their articulation of the anxieties of teenage angst, gender, and delinquency and the types of stories that are depicted. Indeed, these two films are landmarks of their genre and period. They are very different in their depictions of teenage angst and yet similar in essence to the issue. Undeniably, both were groundbreaking. One sparked a frenzy of identification amongst middle class teenagers and the other was highly controversial in its pseudo-realist and documentary style and raw depiction of teen behavior in urban areas.

Extraits

[...] Kids also differs from the 1950s film in its innovative idea of placing the teenagers concerned at the centre of the creative process. In the 1950s, most young adults were unable to gain access to media production. As Shary (2005: observes, the assumption seemed that adults could portray the youth experience based on their personal memories and current observations; the only creative input young people actually had was in performing the roles adults designed for them. Indeed, there was very little that teenagers could do to influence their own portrayal. [...]

[...] Members of this generation are often referred to as ‘GenerationXers' or ‘slackers'. The latter were depicted in Richard Linklater's 1991 film Slacker. [...]

[...] (1997) Pretty in Pink: The Golden Age of Teenage Movies. New York: St Martin's Griffin pp.220-221. Clark, L. (2006) in Achour, B. Enfants du Desordre' in Le Nouvel Observateur April, p.8. (1995) in Felperin, L (1996) Kids review. Sight and Sound, May, London: British Film Institute p Cook, P. (ed.) (1999) The Cinema Book. London: British Film Institute, p Dixon, WW. (2000) “‘Fighting and Violence and Everything, That's Always Cool': Teen Films of the 1990s” in Film Genre 2000, Albany: State University of New York Press, p Edwards, E.A. [...]

[...] The reason is, sex has become death. Somebody says, ‘This ain't no love ride, baby.' Somebody else says, worry. It's me, Casper.' You have to think, the name of a ghost - a friendly ghost for kids? Then you understand. Kids are becoming ghosts. Indeed, Kids was not about teenagers trying to find a date and it was certainly love ride'. Hence the irony when a taxi driver tells Jennie, look like the prom queen.' And although sex was the main motive, it was fuelled by drugs, partying and violence. [...]

[...] Therefore, Kids, with its pseudo- documentary and cinema-verite style, was the groundbreaking teen film of the 1990s. Larry Clark stated that he ‘always wanted to make the teenage movie that America never made', (in Schrader; 1995:74) and show that ‘kids have sex, kids take drugs, kids party, kids have fun' (in Felperin; 1996:55). Indeed, the film seems to be defined through these four activities. The main protagonist, Telly, who is called virgin surgeon' by his friends, embodies Clark's idea that ‘kids have sex'. [...]