The Ever Changing Youth Culture

            Ask someone to recall their teenage years and one may talk about football games and popularity, an over all positive experience. Others may discuss being socially unaccepted and not fitting in and the stress of being an adolescent. An article by Thomas Hine defines adolescence as “inevitably a period of storm and stress.” This period during one’s teenage years is often portrayed in youth culture films. In this paper I will examine youth culture movies, discussing the history, social aspects, and conventions of the subgenre, famous people in the subgenre by using the movies Dead End, Rebel Without a Cause, The Outsiders, Foxfire, The Virgin Suicides, and SLC Punk as examples, as well as the current status of youth culture films.

            The youth culture film developed from its parent genre, drama. Filmsite.org defines a drama films as a serious presentation, portraying realistic characters, settings, life situations, and stories. A youth culture film typically has a teenager or, mostly, a group of teenagers as the main characters dealing with these various life situations and stories. The teenager began to take shape during the Great Depression. In the 1930s, the reform of child-labor laws took place. Almost all young people were thrown out of work, as a part of public policy to save jobs for men who were supporting families. Dead End, one of the first youth culture films, debuted in 1937. The movie was based on the screenplay Sidney Kingsley, directed by William Wyler and produced by Samuel Goldwyn. In Dead End, Baby Face Martin, a gangster, returns to his childhood neighborhood and learns that life isn’t exactly what he thought it to be. But it was the Dead End Kids who stole the show with their antics. Juvenile delinquency, young punks and gangs, and youth rebellion are themes the Kids face, as well as the adults in the movie. It also deals with the social inequalities the children faced with their slum being overshadowed by an elegant apartment building nearby. In an original review of the film, The New York Times said, “As a motion picture, however, it has technical faults … its reshaping of the play’s pivotal character to make him conform to the accepted cinema hero type. But in spite of these relatively unimportant failings … the story of the frustrations and rebellions of the underprivileged people of  Dead End has been brought smoothly and forcefully to the screen by an admirable cast.”  Even though Dead End was not a youth culture film by today’s means, it was a start. While the pivotal character in Dead End was forced to conform to a cinematic archetype of a hero, as the youth culture genre grew, so did the type of  “heroes” in youth culture films. The ‘50s decade ushered in the age of Rock and Roll, a new younger market of teenagers, the rise of drive-in theaters to a peak number in the late ‘50s and a youth reaction to middle-aged cinema. In the period following WWII when most of the films were idealized with conventional portrayals of men and women, young people wanted new and exciting symbols of rebellion.

In 1955, James Dean sky rocketed to “symbol of rebellion” status when Rebel Without a Cause appeared on the big screen. Jim, a rebellious teenager played by Dean, tries to fit in at a new school and stay out of trouble. The movie set the style and tone for future youth culture movies.  One movie reviewer called it, “a violent, brutal and disturbing picture of modern teenagers.” All of the youths in the movies had issues with their parents, a key element for youth culture films. This movie tends to blame the insecurity and rebelliousness of its three key youngsters upon their parents for not understanding. For example, Jim hates to be called a chicken because he considers his father a “chicken” because he lacks the assertiveness to stand up to his mother who is constantly nagging him about various things. In various scenes throughout the movie, Jim tried to prove he is not chicken by fighting with knives or by taking part in a “chicky race,” in which two boys race as far as they can before being the first to jump out of the car and being declared a chicken. Another key to youth culture films, which also occurred in Rebel, is the friend or sidekick of the main character. In the movie, Jim befriends a goofy, unpopular kid called “Plato.” The more popular kids are constantly picking on Plato, and eventually make him want to kill them. Ironically, Plato ends up getting killed by the police during a small stand off. This sets up another characteristic of youth culture films.

In most of the films, the sidekick or friend of the main character dies. The death of the friend(s) usually happens after the main character goes through some sort of epiphany or brings about some sort of epiphany. In The Outsiders (1983), Ponyboy Curtis, an orphaned teenager played by C. Thomas Howell, and his friends have to defend their social status as greasers. The deaths of Curtis’ best friend, Johnny Cade (Ralph Machio) and Curtis’ mentor of sorts, Dallas Winston (Matt Dillon), help him to grow up and grow out of his rebellious ways. But not all of the “rebels” in youth culture films are boys.

In the ‘80s and ‘90s, there was a surge not only in youth culture films, but in youth culture films portraying the lives of teenage girls. Women in society were becoming more powerful, and this was reflected in youth culture films. Various media outlets bombarded audiences with the likes of Alanis Morisette, a not-so-famous Claire Danes in My So Called Life, and a book about a therapists work with young women, Surving Ophelia. All of a sudden, girls on screen were tackling major issues and sorting out relationship issues with one another. Girls are suddenly deciding their own fate and being more active. In Foxfire (1996), Legs Sadovsky (Angelina Jolie), a mysterious tough girl, helps four girls over come the sexual oppression of their peers and teachers at their high school. The girls build a bond in which they rely on each other, not guys, to take care of them and watch their back.  But while the girls are portrayed as powerful, they are also still portrayed in a sexual manner. In Foxifre  the girls are getting their trademark flame tattoos, and three of the five girls are topless throughout the scene.

This is also the case with The Virgin Suicides (1999). While none of the girls are naked, Lux Lisbon(Kirsten Dunst), the older and most outgoing sister, and her four sisters try to live a normal teen life in spite of their parents’ rigid, strict rules. Dunst is portrayed as very sexual in nature, constantly making passes at various boys, having sex with the school stud, and, after being committed to a life in her own home, having sex on the roof top of her home with a number of boys. Like Foxfire, the Lisbon sisters bond together and comfort one another throughout their lives, and in the end even commit suicide together. Most assume the sisters commit suicide to punish their parents regardless of the consequences to themselves.

The theme of punishing the parents regardless of the consequences to themselves is evident in SLC Punk (1999). Stevo (Matthew Lillard), a recent college graduate living in ‘80s Salt Lake City, Utah, wants nothing but to live in anarchy with no rules and no government. Although a punk, his parents accept his lifestyle, but beg of him to do something with is life since he did so well in college. All Stevo wants to do is party, do drugs, drink and hangout with his punk friends. When his best friend dies from an accidental drug over dose, Steveo realizes that he is not the punk he thought he was without his friend. He decides to go to Harvard Law School, which he got into because his father applied for him. Modern day rebels in youth culture films not only engage in the underage smoking and drinking that occurred in the older movies, but also rely on drug use. In SLC Punk, there is not only weed, but also acid. One of the girls in Foxfire dabbles with heroin after deciding her life is worthless. Ironically, both had issues with their fathers, although the girl’s being worse. According to an article by Irvin Molotsky, a child in a two parent family with a poor or fair relationship with their father has a 60 percent or higher risk of substance abuse than a child growing up in a single mother family.

With the surge in teenagers continuing to grow through out the 21^st century, it’s almost guaranteed youth culture movies will hang around. While more teens are going to the movies, it’s not exactly serious movies they want to see. “These aren’t Gen X kids… It’s not Reality Bites (1994). There is a different feel in the air. These kids want to have fun,” said the producer of Scream 2 Cathy Konrad. In the same article, 14 year-old Ann Horwitz of Bethesda, Md said teens like to go to the movies so much, says Ann Horwitz, 14, of Bethesda, Md., because “movies create a world that isn't our world. It puts you in another place and time, and everybody gets a kick out of that.” Kids today see movies more as an escape versus a place for them to receive a message that a youth culture film might give them. The article also says that teens like to see familiar faces in the films, and youth culture films don’t usually have your cookie cutter teen film star in the main role. Today’s teens are flocking to movies like Scream (1996), where Sydney, played by the familiar face of Neve Campbell, is trying to escape a serial killer who has taken many of her classmates on their path to killing her. In the article, one teen said Scream “was cool because . . . we were really scared one minute and laughing like crazy the next.''

As societal and teen issues continue to grow and change, so will the themes of youth culture movies. For example, The Outsiders (1983) was set in the ‘50s because this was the time when the baby boom generation started to come of age. During this time, teenagers made up more than half of all movie ticket sales, and Hollywood began making a string of “youth pictures.” Many filmmakers working during the ‘80s grew up watching the movies as well as spending their adolescence in the ‘50s, and were drawing from their own experiences when making their films. Adults in the audience as well, were able to remember their youth. In the mid ‘90s, “girl power” exploded and films like Foxfire (1996), took center stage. At the end of the movie, after Legs moves on to another town, the girl she leaves behind knows her individuality and strength, and is proud to display it rather than hide it.

In this paper, I have discussed various aspects of youth culture film, including the history, some exemplary films, and key concepts found in youth culture films, and how youth culture films draw off of society for their plots. But what people get from youth culture films overall is a glimpse into a life they may never be able to live themselves. While everyone would like to be able to stand up to that person or group they don’t get along with, or do something their parents or society doesn’t approve of, most people aren’t willing to take that risk. But youth culture films do. And for that they will always be around.

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