Media coursework Bibliography:
Keith Grant, B. (1st Dec 2003). Genre And Youth. In: Film Genre Reader III, Volume 3. Texas: University Of Texas Press. Pages 492-497.
Films about teenagers have utilized different techniques and stories to represent young people within a codified system that delineates certain subgenres and character types within the “youth film genre”. Unlike other genres that are based on subject matter, the youth genre is based on the ages of the films characters, and thus the thematic concerns of its sub-genres can be seen as more directly connected to specific notions of different youth behaviours and styles.
Eggert, B. (2013). The Definitives: an ongoing series of indepth essays and appreications of the very best cinema. Available: http://www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/rebelwithoutacause.asp. Last accessed 10th September 2015
Through the film, a division of young adults received a personality and individualism never before represented onscreen, establishing their place within their own unique cultural identity, language, and social rituals, as represented by Ray’s picture and in those which followed to use his film as a benchmark. Ray’s picture was the first to “get” 1950s adolescents with all their conflicts, oblivious parents, sexual confusion, social anxiety, and alienation
Keith Grant, B. (2003). Youth In Film History. In: Film Genre Reader, Volume 3. Texas: Texas: University Of Texas Press. 499.
However. Hollywood did not suddenly bank on hedonistic teen roles in the early 1950’s: their process of introducing the post-war teenager was careful if not apprehensive, as they gradually exaggerated the ephebiphobia -fear of teenagers- that was seeping into popular culture and politics. After a few notable “clean teen” performances in the 1940’s by Jeanne Crain in Margie (1946) and Elizabeth Taylor in Little Women (1949), the fifties teen performer was embodied in the archetypal James Dean. Dean’s performances in Rebel Without A Cause is probably the most influential demonstration of pure teen angst in American cinema. Marlon Brando had already showcased the young rebel image when he made The Wild One but Dean’s affected demeanour was more enduring.
Anxito,J. (2014). Masculinity, Gender Roles, and T.V. Shows from the 1950s. Available: http://the-artifice.com/masculinity-gender-roles-tv-1950s/. Last accessed 18th September 2015.
During the 1950’s, it was of the utmost importance to socialize boys strictly as boys. Through these television shows, boys were shown how “real men” were supposed to act. These shows display clear differences between men and women, with women as subordinate. For boys in the 1950s, “being a man” and never doing anything that anyone could consider feminine was a lesson taught to them by their fathers and by the popular culture of the time.
Thomas Elsaesser, “Nicholas Ray (Part 1)”, Brighton Film Review no. 19, April 1970, p. 15
Writing on the relations between the rebel and society in Ray’s films, Thomas Elsaesser puts it well: Either they [Ray’s rebels] attempt to escape from society altogether and retreat into a world of tranquility – in which they themselves are doomed, and their actions become suicidal. Or their revolt itself is an attempt to revalidate “degraded” ideals, of the social system itself, and then their reconciliation is bought at an exorbitant price…. These rebels try to live the explicit dreams of their society, while their very natures – or their alter ego – constantly belie any possibility of permanent reconciliation.
François Truffaut, “Feu de James Dean”, Arts September 1956; quoted in Graham McCann, Rebel Males: Clift, Brando and Dean, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 1991, p. 141
François Truffaut commented at the time, “In James Dean, today’s youth discovers itself [through the] eternal adolescent love of tests and trials, intoxication, pride and regret at feeling ‘outside’ society, refusal and desire to become integrated and, finally, acceptance – or refusal – of the world as it is”