The film we begin with in our exploration of the teen genre–texts that focus on teenagers, adolescence and coming of age–is Rebel Without a Cause. It is this film text, along with the novel The Catcher in the Rye, that herald the emergence of youth culture after the Second World War.
As many theorists (Driscoll, Doherty, et al.) claim, the arrival of films like Rebel, coincides with the decline of the Hollywood studio system in the 1950s, and related threats to the profitability of cinema, which produced a flood of films in which teenagers were central in order to cater to a market newly identified as ‘teenagers. This is linked to/with forces intimately more connected to adolescence, such as post-war suburbanisation and the rise of television, which extended the significance of the family home. Amidst these influences, the teenager appeared as both exciting film content and reliable film goer. Indeed, Hollywood’s discovery of the teenage moviegoer initiated a progressive “juvenilization” of film content.
Below you will find a reading on teen films, Rebel Without a Cause and Blackboard Jungle.
TASK: As you read the article, take notes (using the Cornell method or some other technique) to organise key quotes, your interpretations and thoughts on key ideas and an overall summary of the text. The summary will ideally be two or three paragraphs outlining what the thesis, focus, or main point/s of the article are.
ARTICLE ONE: “The Teenager and Teenage Film”
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