Teen Film

The teen films date back to the 1950s, with films like The Wild One (1953), Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Blackboard Jungle (1955).1 The 1950s was an era of economic prosperity in the United States. “American teen-agers have emerged as a big-time consumer in the U.S. economy,” noted a 1959 issue of LIFE magazine. “They are multiplying in numbers. They spend more and have more spent on them. And they have minds of their own about what they want.”

According to Thomas Patrick Doherty in Teenagers and Teenpics, this attention from big business helped to solidify ‘teenagers’ as a subculture within society.2 Although they were not strictly teen films, Rebel without a Cause and Blackboard Jungle proved that teenagers were a lucrative audience.3 Hollywood responded with a number of successful teen films including Jailhouse Rock (1957) which featured Elvis Presley and Gidget (1959).

Teen films experienced a renaissance in the 1980s with the release of films like The Breakfast Club (1985) and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986). In Teen Movies: American Youth on Screen, Timothy Shary ties the resurgence of teen movies in the 1980s to the development of shopping malls across the United States: “With the relocation of most movie theatres into or near shopping malls in the 1980s, the need to cater to the young audiences who frequented those malls became apparent to Hollywood, and those audiences formed the first generation of multiplex moviegoers.”4 This resurgence of teen films, like the development of the genre itself, can be linked to filmmakers tapping into this lucrative market.

The films of John Hughes

John Hughes—who made Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Pretty in Pink—is one of the most celebrated and recognised directors to work in this genre. As Timothy Shary notes in Teen Movies: American Youth on Screen: “Hughes may not have represented all varieties of teen experience, and he did not eliminate the negative and simplistic depictions of teens that would mar some future films. He simply made films about young people on their level, appreciating their experiences rather than exploiting them. The best teen films since then have done the same.”5

“The man’s gift as a screenwriter was monumental,” wrote Matt Dentler after the filmmaker’s death in 2009. “It wasn’t just about capturing the zeitgeist of modern teenagers in films like The Breakfast Club or Pretty In Pink, it was also about the way his writing was just do damn sharp. So smart, so funny. And, without his influence, the face of modern Hollywood cinema would be entirely different. I’m convinced that without John Hughes, we would have no Kevin Smith, Judd Apatow, Todd Phillips, or Wes Anderson. Plus, I’d argue that TV shows such as Seinfeld, The Simpsons, or The Office could not have succeeded without the road paved by his legacy.”

“John Hughes wrote some of the great outsider characters of all time,” said Judd Apatow, the director of Drillbit Taylor. “It’s pretty ridiculous to hear people talk about the movies we’ve been doing, with outrageous humor and sweetness all combined, as if they were an original idea. I mean, it was all there first in John Hughes’ films. Whether it’s Freaks and Geeks or Superbad, the whole idea of having outsiders as the lead characters, that all started with Hughes.”6

“He touched a generation,” filmmaker Kevin Smith told the LA Times. “If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be doing what I do. Basically my stuff is just John Hughes films with four-letter words.”7

The conventions of teen films

Teen films, which focus on the lives of adolescents, often deal with themes of rebellion, friendship, love and rites-of-passage. They explore what it means to be on the cusp of adulthood. They’re about and for teenagers. Although other countries have produced teen films, it is a genre that very much developed in North America. Teen films often feature characters based on American stereotypes, such as cheerleaders.8

Stereotypes in Teen Films

In The Breakfast Club, John Hughes deconstructs the well-established stereotypes of this genre. At the end of the film, writing a letter to the tyrannical Mr Vernon, Andrew Clark writes: “We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong…but we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us. In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain and an athlete and a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Does that answer your question?”

The Plastic

Although self-centered, back stabbing bimbos have long been a feature of teen films, it was Mean Girls (2004) that established the label ‘plastics’ to describe these superficial and vain characters. “They’re teen royalty,” says Damien from Mean Girls. “If North Shore was US Weekly, they’d always be on the cover.“

The Jock

In The Breakfast Club, John Bender (Judd Nelson) aptly sums up this stereotype when he says all you need to be a jock is “a lobotomy and some tights.” The Jock—who is usually arrogant and intimidating—is often the antagonist in teen films. “Here’s one of the great anomalies of the decade,” wrote Jonathan Bernstein in the book Pretty in Pink: The Golden Age of Teenage Movies. “What could be more inspiring, desirable and downright American than the prospect of young men and women engaged in the act of healthy competition?”9

The Rebel

In The Breakfast Club, John Bender is the brooding and rebellious loner from an abusive family who finds himself in detention after setting off a fire alarm. He has an hostile relationship with the vice principal Mr Vernon, antagonising him at every opportunity. In 10 Things I Hate About You, Heath Ledger plays a violent loner who reputably “lit a state trooper on fire” and “sold his own liver on the black market for a new set of speakers.”

Parents and teachers

Teen films often focus on the generational gap between teenagers, their parents and their teachers. Parents and teachers are often portrayed as out-of-touch and unfair, they don’t understand what teenagers are going through. “Parents were tyrannical in their expectations. They were criminals in their neglect. They were simpleminded. They were devious,” writes Jonathan Bernstein in Pretty in Pink: The Golden Age of Teenage Movies. “They were archaic in their remove from modern times. They were pathetic in their attempts to acclimate themselves to the new age. In short, they were across-the-board unqualified to shepherd their offspring through the choppy waters of the teen years.”10

The Setting

Because they focus on the lives of teenagers, teen films are often set in schools and their protagonists must negotiate this complex world of social cliques, detention, parties and dances.

The soundtrack

Early teen films, such as Rock Around the Clock, Jailhouse Rock and Gidget, prominently featured rock’n’roll music which was becoming incredibly popular with teenagers. As Catherine Driscoll notes in Teen Film: A Critical Introduction: “1950s teen film as a whole produced a new relationship between teen film and popular music that has continued to be crucial.”11 In the 1980s, director John Hughes continued this trend. The opening sequence of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off features footage from MTV, a television music network that was extremely popular with teenagers in the 1980s. The films of John Hughes always made effective use of popular music to help convey the narrative. “The films of John Hughes, who died yesterday, derived much of their power from their soundtracks,” wrote Luke Lewis for NME. “More than any other filmmaker – except, arguably, Quentin Tarantino – Hughes understood pop’s function as an emotional shortcut: where the script was sometimes lacking, a song could fill in the gaps.”12

Activities

  1. Write down a list of all the teen comedies you have seen. Some examples include Mean Girls, Napoleon Dynamite and Bring it On. You might like to look at Entertainment Weekly’s list of top teen films to jog your memory.

  2. Write your own definition of ‘teen comedy’. What expectations do you have about the characters, setting and plot.

  3. In your workbooks, write down each of these characters stereotypes as a heading and, in a brief paragraph, describe what they’re typically like: the jock; the cheerleader; the nerd; the rebel.

Assessment Task

Test your knowledge of teen films with this short quiz.

Napoleon Dynamite

Write a review of the film Napoleon Dynamite. Here are some hints and tips to help you get started.

  • Come up with a clever title for your review.

  • Give a synopsis of the film without giving the ending away, for example: “The Wolf Man, which was produced in 1941, is one of the most atmospheric werewolf films ever made. The movie opens with a passage about lycanthropy from an ancient tome: “A disease of the mind in which human beings imagine they are wolf-men. According to an old legend which persists in certain localities, the victims actually assume the physical characteristics of the animal. There is a small village near Talbot Castle which still claims to have had gruesome experiences with this supernatural creature.” When Larry Talbot returns to his family’s ancestral home after the untimely death of his brother, he discovers that lycanthropy involves more than just howling at the moon and chasing cars.”

  • When you write about a character for the first time, it’s important that you write the actor’s name in brackets, for example: “The Frighteners is a surreal, offbeat horror film deftly crafted by director Peter Jackson. Frank Bannister (Michael J Fox) is a paranormal private detective who starts investigating a string of mysterious deaths, aided by a quirky ensemble of supernatural sidekicks. Bannister soon realises that he’s not dealing with just any spook when he encounters a wraith-like spirit intent on claiming more victims, each one marked with a burning number in their foreheads.”

Things to consider when writing about Napoleon Dynamite:

  • What did you think of the humour used in the film? Was it offbeat? Odd?

  • What did you think of the performances of the main characters, including Napoleon, Pedro and Uncle Rico?

  • What other information can you find out about the film? Has it achieved any awards?

  • What did you think of the music?

  • What were the most memorable or funny scenes?

  • What type of person might enjoy this film?

More information on the film can be found at the Napoleon Dynamite IMDB page.

To get a feel for how movie reviews are written, you might like to check out Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert’s blog and The Guardian.

Planning a short teen film

Now that you’ve studied the genre, it’s time to make a teen film of your own. As a student filmmaker, you have the location and actors already sorted out. Because this is probably one of your first films, try to keep it simple. Have no more than three characters and one location. Your finished film should be approximately two minutes in length. You’ll be making the film at school, so think realistically!

Imagine a short scene that involves these two characters. It might be a jock shaking down a nerd for lunch money. It could be a stereotypical geek trying to be cool. Once you’ve come up with a simple idea, write the screenplay using Celtx.

Screenplays are written in a particular format. This is to ensure that they are easy to read when you’re on set making the film. There is an excellent guide to screenplay formatting at the Oscars website. Screenplays usually have the following:

Scene heading. The scene heading is the line that appears at the beginning of a scene. It will usually look something like this: INT. CLASSROOM – MORNING. In a scene heading, INT is used to designate an internal location, EXT is used for an outside location. It is also customary to identify the time of day.

Action. Action refers to what is happening on the screen. You cannot include any other information in this section of your screenplay.

Character Name. Before a character speaks, the character’s name appears in the centre of the page.

Dialogue. Dialogue is indented further than the action and appears beneath the character’s name.

The following is an example of a student screenplay which features all of the formatting listed above.

Using the drop down menu at the top of a Celtx document, you can easily format your screenplay.

Footnotes

1 Driscoll, Catherine. Teen Film: A Critical Introduction. Oxford: Berg, 2011.

2 Doherty, Thomas Patrick, and Thomas Patrick Doherty. Teenagers and Teenpics: The Juvenilization of American Movies in the 1950s. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988, p. 42.

3 Doherty, Thomas Patrick, and Thomas Patrick Doherty. Teenagers and Teenpics: The Juvenilization of American Movies in the 1950s. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988, p. 58.

4 Shary, Timothy. Teen Movies: American Youth on Screen. London: Wallflower, 2005, p. 54.

5 Shary, Timothy. Teen Movies: American Youth on Screen. London: Wallflower, 2005, p. 72.

6 http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/25/entertainment/et-goldstein25

7 http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/25/entertainment/et-goldstein25

8 Driscoll, Catherine. Teen Film: A Critical Introduction. Oxford: Berg, 2011.

9 Bernstein, Jonathan. Pretty in Pink: The Golden Age of Teenage Movies. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1997, p.163.

10 Bernstein, Jonathan. Pretty in Pink: The Golden Age of Teenage Movies. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1997, p.52.

11 Driscoll, Catherine. Teen Film: A Critical Introduction. Oxford: Berg, 2011.