New American Teenagers: The Lost Generation of Youth in 1970s Film

Barbara Jane Brickman

Mar 2012 · Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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Taking a closer look at teen film in the 1970s, New American Teenagers uncovers previously marginalized voices that rework the classically male, heterosexual American teenage story. While their parents' era defined the American teenager with the romantic male figure of James Dean, this generation of adolescents offers a dramatically altered picture of transformed gender dynamics, fluid and queered sexuality, and a chilling disregard for the authority of parent, or more specifically, patriarchal culture.

Films like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Halloween, and Badlands offer a reprieve from the 'straight' developmental narrative, including in the canon of study the changing definition of the American teenager. Barbara Brickman is the first to challenge the neglect of this decade in discussions of teen film by establishing the subversive potential and critical revision possible in the narratives of these new teenage voices, particularly in regards to changing notions of gender and sexuality.

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Barbara Jane Brickman is an Associate Professor of English and Film Studies at the University of West Georgia, where she is developing a Film Studies program. She has previously published articles on the pathologization of female teens, fantasy and the teen spectator, and the queering of fandom. Her current project focuses on the depiction of adolescents in the films of the 1970s.