Visions of Teenhood

I wouldn't say I'm angry, brooding, and just on the edge of wreaking havoc on my highschool, but I can seriously identify with a lot of the emotions represented in the teen movies displayed on the Daily News website.

Juno is known as the witty, spunky, pregnant girl. She is going through a teen pregnancy, which, of course, not all of us can identify with. However, she's afraid, anxious, and worried. All fairly obvious emotions in teens. She's pretty confused about what she wants and is worried about her own needs and meeting the desires of others. She feels strong pressure from different sides, and that's an attribute of teen life that seems to be extremely true.

The Graduate, starring Dustin Hoffman, is one of the last movies that come to my mind when thinking of coming of age movies, but reading the Daily News' aspect, it's a fairly accurate representation. The main character is completely lost in his future, so he takes his confusion and puts it into a relationship with an older woman. Once again, all us teens may not be jumpin into bed with older men/women, but we've certainly been confused to the point that we don't know what our emotions are telling us. I can certainly identify with this character because he's worried about being handed the mediocre life of workign in "plastics." Especially as seniors, we can identify with the worry of our future.

The character in the Breakfast Club is almost something entirely different. He is "angry to the point of violence, with a father who beats him, it's no wonder he tortures his classmates." This character approaches everyone with anger and attitude, but what's important to see underneath all of that is that he's pretty desperate for attention. Maybe we won't all admit it, but we all want our friends, parents, and teachers to notice us. This is his goal in the film. We're certainly not twins or could ever be best friends, but as teenagers we understand the need to be understood or even just seen.

However, modern teenhood is perfectly depicted to me through the film Brick. After your first watching, you'll be frustrated and angry. "Teenagers don't talk like that. They don't solve crimes. They don't use payphones."  There are more than a million arguements against it. But then if you really think about it...no...we don't act like they do in that movie...but that's how teen life feels. We all feel like we're gonna figure it out. We're always concerned about our friends. And we always feel like we're smarter than we are, that we're saying all the right things, and that we're the hugest representation of our clique. We feel desperate and starving for attention, and we want to save everyone. We may not be detectives and star in our own modern film neo noire film, but it's the underlining feelings that get being a teen spot on.