Generation Multiplex : The Image of Youth in Contemporary American Cinema

by Shary, Timothy; Considine, David

• ISBN13: 9780292777712
• ISBN10: 029277771X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of Texas Pr

Summary

When teenagers began hanging out at the mall in the early 1980s, the movies followed. Multiplex theaters offered teens a wide array of perspectives on the coming-of-age experience, as well as an escape into the alternative worlds of science fiction and horror. Youth films remained a popular and profitable genre through the 1990s, offering teens a place to reflect on their evolving identities from adolescence to adulthood while simultaneously shaping and maintaining those identities.Drawing examples from hundreds of popular and lesser-known youth-themed films, Timothy Shary here offers a comprehensive examination of the representation of teenagers in American cinema in the 1980s and 1990s. He focuses on five subgenres--school, delinquency, horror, science, and romance/sexuality--to explore how they represent teens and their concerns, how these representations change over time, and how youth movies both mirror and shape societal expectations and fears about teen identities and roles. He concludes that while some teen films continue to exploit various notions of youth sexuality and violence, most teen films of the past generation have shown an increasing diversity of adolescent experiences and have been sympathetic to the particular challenges that teens face.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
David Considine
Preface	xiii
Acknowledgments	xv
Introduction: The Cinematic Image of Youth	1	(25)
Social Representation and Genre Analysis	11	(8)
The Study of Youth, In and Out of Movies	19	(7)
Youth in School: Academics and Attitude	26	(54)
Trends in the Subgenre	27	(3)
Schoolkids	30	(2)
Transforming the Nerd	32	(9)
Delinquents and Their Avenues of Anger	41	(9)
Resisting Rebels	50	(11)
The Labor of Being Popular	61	(8)
The Sensitive Athlete	69	(9)
Conclusion	78	(2)
Delinquent Youth: Having Fun, on the Loose in Trouble	80	(57)
Trends in the Subgenre	81	(2)
Delinquent Styles	83	(3)
Daviant Dancing	86	(8)
Natural Encounters	94	(9)
Patriotic Purpose	103	(7)
Tough Girls	110	(12)
African American Crime Drama	122	(13)
Conclusion	135	(2)
The Youth Horror Film: Slashers and the Supernatural	137	(43)
Historical Context of the Youth Horror Subgenre	138	(2)
Trends in the Subgenre	140	(3)
Research on the Youth Horror Film	143	(4)
Styles of the Youth Horror Film	147	(1)
The Slasher/Stalker Film	147	(21)
Supernatural Movies	168	(10)
Conclusion	178	(2)
Youth and Science: Technology, Computers, Games	180	(29)
The Three Dimensions	181	(2)
Simple Science	183	(13)
Games and Computers	196	(12)
Conclusion	208	(1)
Youth in Love and Having Sex	209	(46)
Trends in the Subgenre	210	(2)
Patterns and Images	212	(2)
Youth in Love	214	(12)
Youth Having Sex	226	(28)
Conclusion	254	(1)
Conclusion: Youth Cinema at the Millennium	255	(10)
Appendix A Filmography of Youth Films, 1980-2001	265	(14)
Appendix B Subjective Superlative Lists	279	(4)
Notes	283	(18)
Bibliography	301	(8)
Index	309