“I don’t think of kids as a lower form of the human species.” – John Hughes One of the most relatable subgenres of film is the story of one or a set of protagonists’ “coming of age.” These types of movies, usually involving older children and adolescents learning lessons about life as they reach the cusp of adulthood, spans decades. Some critics identify the 1955 James Dean drama Rebel Without a Cause as the first grounded and realistic portrayal of the youth subculture. And ever since, there have been many other famous (and many more obscure) forays into this type of storytelling. From George Lucas’s acclaimed 1970s teen comedy American Graffiti and the many genre-defining flicks of John Hughes in the 1980s (Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink) to the more irreverent takes on this story (Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical Almost Famous and the Judd Apatow-produced raunchy Superbad, just to name a few), the “coming of age” film remains comfortable and consistent territory for blockbuster and indie filmmakers both in Hollywood and all across the globe. But what is it about this subgenre that remains so tantalizing for both creators to craft and for audiences to immerse themselves into? Today, I will seek to provide an answer to the question by examining three of my favorite teen movies (each from different decades) of all time. [DISCLAIMER: This blog will contain spoilers for “The Breakfast Club,” “Mean Girls,” and “Eighth Grade.” You have been warned.] Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay Teens vs. Parents While his cinematic works are now upheld as the “gold standard” of teen movies, John Hughes earned a name for himself at a time when this subgenre was running dry. Having escaped the “beach party” films of the 1960s (Beach Party, Last Summer) but still largely defined by the “party house” films of the late 1970s (Animal House, Breaking Away), Hughes revitalized the subgenre by writing and directing stories that both audiences and critics enjoyed. The question I am asking, however, is what is it about Hughes’s work that remains the “gold standard” for this type of movie? In an attempt to address this, I will examine what is (in my humble opinion) the best John Hughes movie: the 1985 dramedy The Breakfast Club. For those unfamiliar with the premise of the film, Hughes tells the story of five high school students who, for various reasons, are forced to sit in their school library for eight hours for detention. Supervised by the assistant principal Richard Vernon (Paul Gleason), the kids arrive for detention that morning wanting nothing to do with each other and leave that evening understanding more about each other than even they understood about themselves. There is a timeless quality to The Breakfast Club. While it certainly has some dated aspects to it (ranging from culturally outdated attitudes about recreational drug use to the casual, colloquial use of homophobic language), the emotional core of the journeys that each of the characters go on remains ever so relevant to the struggles of growing up today and to the cinematic landscape as a whole. Over the course of ninety minutes, we the audience learn to love, learn to hate, love to hate, laugh at, laugh with, cry for, and come to empathize with the “Brain” Brian Johnson (Anthony Michael Hall), the “Athlete” Andrew Clark (Emilio Estevez), the “Basket Case” Allison Reynolds (Ally Sheedy), the “Princess” Claire Standish (Molly Ringwald), and the “Criminal” John Bender (Judd Nelson). Without a doubt in my mind, the most poignant, thematically rich scene in the film occurs towards the end when all five teenagers are sitting around in a circle coming to terms with both the relationships that they have developed with people that strangers mere hours ago and with the reason they are there. All of those reasons tie back to these kids’ strained relationships with their parents. Which, in my opinion, is why the film succeeds as a transcendent “coming of age” story put to the big screen. Echoed by the John Hughes quote that I opened this blog with, the problems that Brian, Andrew, Allison, Claire, and Bender share during their eight hours together are treated like they are real problems. Because they are real problems. Specifically, problems with their parents. Brian being pushed to the brink of contemplating suicide due to pressure placed on him by his parents about his grades. Andrew hazing a fellow student in the locker room due to his father conditioning him to always be the best (as in the most “macho” and “alpha”). Allison being generally ignored by her parents and thus lacking proper role models both in and outside of school. Claire being manipulated by her parents as a tool in arguments between them. And Bender suffering physical and verbal abuse at home which carves an unsavory path for him and his future. Our culture has acknowledged the idea of “rebellion” inherent to adolescents, both in popular culture and in film specifically, since the 1950s. But rarely had “coming of age” films prior to John Hughes offered genuine, realistic, and heartfelt explanations as to why teenagers act out. And I think that The Breakfast Club encapsulates that pivotal element of the human experience which so many films stumble and fall on their faces trying to do justice to. Image by GraphicMama-team from Pixabay Teens vs. Teens After reading Rosalind Wiseman’s book about high school clique culture Queen Bees and Wannabes, Saturday Night Live alumnus Tina Fey (30 Rock, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) enlisted Lorne Michaels to convince Paramount Pictures to purchase the film rights for the book. While she did write an original story, Fey partially based the screenplay that became Mean Girls on her own experiences Upper Darby High School in suburban Pennsylvania. While The Breakfast Club was the definitive “coming of age” movie of my parents’ generation, Mean Girls may just be that for my generation. This is a movie that I almost certainly would not have been exposed to had it not been for my mother and sister who watched it religiously. And while I found it sufficiently entertaining, I did not truly appreciate its greatness until I recently watched it for the first time in five years (if not longer). Having done so, I stand by it as not only one of my favorite teen movies of all time but one of the best comedies of this century. While everyone in both the main and supporting cast do a very good job in their roles, the standouts for me are threefold. Of the four primary characters, my favorite is Rachel McAdams as Regina George, the self-obsessed leader of “The Plastics” clique whose fresh-faced façade does little to conceal the devilish nature just steaming to reveal itself fully. McAdams plays Regina with a surprisingly affecting physical nuance; her facial expressions and mannerisms in one scene make you think that maybe she truly does care about others, while in another her biting hatred comes out so naturally that you thought she lacks a sympathetic bone in her body. My other two favorites come from the supporting cast: Lizzy Caplan as newcomer Cady Heron’s (Lindsay Lohan) friend Janis Ian and Regina’s former best friend, and Fey herself as Cady’s teacher and mentor Ms. Sharon Norbury. Caplan’s character arc, while not at the forefront like Lohan, is complex whose desire to ruin Regina’s reputation due to Janis being shoved to the wayside by Regina, and thus making her a bitter young woman obsessed with revenge. Fey, on the other hand, serves as a great mentor figure to Cady (and the rest of the characters) by forcing these young adults to reckon with the consequences of their actions. Furthermore, I think that Mean Girls embodies another incredibly significant element of the human condition that is only enhanced during adolescence: navigating toxic relationships with other people. The society we inhabit, wherein billions of people develop and maintain thriving, positive relationships with others, cannot exist without having to manage some negative relationships as well. And I have to ask: is there a better microcosm for all the potential good and bad relationships that one fosters in society than high school? Which gets to why I love Mean Girls. By exaggerating this crucial aspect of both human society and high school culture via comedic portrayals of stereotypes ranging from the “queen bee” to the shut-in outcast, the movie serves as a showcase for how the personalities we interact with in high school are inescapable in the “real world.” In other words, human beings have to contend with the spectrum of different people before, during, and after our teenage years. Without question, in my opinion, Mean Girls is a loving yet honest examination of adolescence through this ever so important lens. Image by Coffee Bean from Pixabay Teens vs. Themselves
Bo Burnham, who started out getting millions of views on YouTube producing comedy songs during his late teens in the mid-2000s, became one of the most successful and recognizable comedians of my generation. After releasing his debut EP in 2008, Bo fo Sho, when he was eighteen years old, Burnham produced three comedy specials (Words Words Words in 2010, what. in 2013, and Make Happy in 2016) before taking a break from stand-up comedy due to suffering several panic attacks both on and off the stage. In an effort to process his struggle with anxiety, Burnham began writing the screenplay that eventually became Eighth Grade in 2014. Initially, according to Burnham, the story was not intended to be about adolescence but ended up taking place in eighth grade due to how he was feeling during that time being reminiscent of the terrors one experiences during that period of life. The writing style itself was partially inspired by Burnham viewing YouTube vlogs of teenagers with virtually no views, let alone an active and engaged audience. Furthermore, he decided to make the protagonist of his screenplay female so as to avoid projecting his own personal middle-school experiences onto the story. After a month-long shoot in the summer of 2017, Eighth Grade premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January of 2018 to nearly universal acclaim. After its wide theatrical release in July of that year, the film grossed seven times its budget and went on to become one of the most well-received indie movies of the year. Eighth Grade has only been out for two-and-a-half years now, so it remains hard to tell whether or not it will become the definitive “coming of age” film of Generation Z. I suspect, however, that it will for several reasons. First and foremost, Burnham has the uncanny ability to strip any inkling of nostalgia about junior high away from the day-to-day life of protagonist Kayla Day (Elsie Fisher). From the cinematography to the score to the sound design, the viewer always feels like they exist right alongside Kayla so as to live and breath in her world and all of its tragic parts. On top of that, Burnham’s encouragement of inarticulate dialogue and quirky mannerisms from the teen actors works to inject some authenticity into a move about youth culture being directed by a man in his late 20s who (due to the rapid cultural evolution that defines the early 21st century) is already “out of touch” with the teens of today. But what I think really makes this film transcend the genre in which it resides is the central examination of adolescents’ relationship to social media and how it affects the development of their self-esteem. There have been films and television that highlight cyberbullying, catfishing, and other uses of the Internet by teens that damage their relationships with others and show the extent to which it strips kids more traditional methods of socialization away from them. But Burnham goes one step further. In Eighth Grade, he wants to examine how vlogging culture and the demand by teens to constantly “perform” for their friends on social media takes a deep toll on their self-confidence and can bring about tragic results. Whether in a scene highlighting just how different pre-teens and young teens are to kids on the cusp of adulthood in terms of social media use to a very intense and tragic scene about Kayla’s struggle (and ultimate triumph) to understand sexual consent, the subtext is always the same in one form or another. Thus, he recognizes that an essential aspect of modern adolescence that cinema has struggled to depict accurately is that of how social media warps kids’ ability to socialize and can severely damage their view of themselves. Again, it is unclear whether Eighth Grade will become as timeless as I think it already is. That being said, I think it is undeniable that it will only get better with age. So, what is it about the “coming of age” film that appeals to me so much? I am reminded of something that Burnham said in an interview about Eighth Grade.[1] To paraphrase, the term “coming of age” to refer to these types of movies is rather outdated because we as human beings are always growing up relative to our age in any given moment in time. This jives quite well with the John Hughes quote from the start of this blog because filmmakers like Bo Burnham, John Hughes, and many others who tell stories of growing up understand that the struggles, victories, and challenges that define youth are no different than those which define adulthood. Teenagers seem to just be more “out loud” about their experiences. And it will do our society well to be in touch with them about these things because we may very well learn something about what is going on in our own lives. What is your favorite “coming of age” movie? What is it about this subgenre that works for you, or doesn’t? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUzFkqby6-c
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Austin McManusI have no academic or professional background in film production or criticism; I simply love watching and talking about movies. Archives
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