I’m a big fan of teen movies and tv shows. I’ve always been curious about how teens behave in different eras like from the 50’s to the 90’s. I like seeing how culture evolves along with ever changing fashion, dating methods, and teenage jargon. Let me share my observation for each era. I think the 50’s was the start of good teen movies much like today. I think it has to do with the after-war culture. Teen stories of this era get to be more liberated and rebellious. One major reason also was the downfall of the Motion Picture Code during the mid-50’s. Try to check out my favorite 50’s teen movie, Rebel Without A Cause (1955) starring James Dean. I think the 60’s kids started to get a little crazy with the FM radio becoming popular. All the cool kids would just cruise around in their cars windows down blasting the radio and hang out in parking lots. Notable movies are American Graffiti (1973) and Animal House (1978). The 70’s got a little bit chill thanks to the hippie generation. They just listen to good music and smoke weed all the time. Notable movies are Dazed and Confused (1993) and Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). The 80’s teen movies started to get very similar to the teen movies of today. John Hughes was the king of this era. My favorite time for teen movies indeed. Now this observation is very narrow and based simply on movies. I’m not really sure if this was the culture of the time.
The movie for today, Clueless, was set in the 90’s starring Alicia Silverstone. What ever happened to her? I don’t see her around doing movies anymore. However she remains in my memory as my childhood Batgirl. The movie follows the story of Cher (Silverstone), a spoiled rich girl as she soon realizes that the world does not revolve around her. She is considered the queen of a Beverly Hills high school (Beverly Hills, 90210 movie much?) Her status is threatened when the new girl she places under her wing is becoming well-liked. This story sounds familiar. It’s like Mean Girls in the 90’s! The main difference between the two was the perspective. Think Mean Girls in Regina George’s point of view.
I think everyone has an idea how movies like this usually go. So I’m not gonna dwell on it too much. Soon enough when she encounters the real world, she quickly learns that things don’t always go her way due to a series of misfortunes. The whole movie was like. one giant irony. Cher thought that the new girl was the clueless one. But by the end, she admits that she’s the one who’s clueless. The movie did a pretty good job portraying the lifestyles of the rich and popular of the time. They were using cellphones when everyone else was still using pagers. Cher wore designer clothes. The fashion wasn’t entirely bad considering this was the 90’s. They had some weird loose squiggly overly-colorful fashion back then. I wonder if the generation would go back and adopt this fashion. In which case, I’d simply crawl under a rock and stay until it changes. Side note: I like how the movie didn’t portray too much sex. Cher was even a proud virgin waiting for the right man (You go girl!) I just hate how teen movies have too much sex sometimes.
If you’re a big fan of Mean Girls, I’m pretty sure you’ll get entertained watching Clueless. I bet you wanted to see it in the bitch’s perspective and this movie gives you that opportunity. I totally didn’t expect the ending though, a huge discrepancy between the movies. The last time I was surprised by a teen movie ending was Pretty in Pink (1986). Remember when I said she was waiting for the right man? SPOILER ALERT: Well it somehow turned into incest when Cher falls for her step-brother, played by Paul Rudd. It was nice seeing him playing the knight in shining armor role for once after all the stoner movies. Gosh that ending was equal parts surprising and equal parts creepy. Don’t let it stop you from watching the movie though!
One Movie A Day 