Teen Movies

Teen movies are films that are aimed to a teenage audience, generally with teen-aged central characters, dealing with the common issues and dramas that face adolescents. The most obvious and prevalent plotlines usually involve high school students and the various situations that can occur from the school year, parties, relationships, alcohol and drugs and the social cliques.

Of course, in addition to these movies themes there is also the popular genre of the teen slasher movie which is one of the most successful blends between horror and teen movies that dates back decades. It was the 1980’s that saw the real rise in popularity of these films with the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the Thirteenth dominating pop culture and movie culture of this decade.

The late 1990’s and early 2000’s saw the return to gross out comedies that ridicule the embarrassing moments of being a teenager with also delivering some sort of moral message for teens, beginning with movies like American Pie and Road Trip.

The origins of teen movies began back in 1938 with the Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland classic “Love Finds Andy Hardy” which has the unofficial title of being the first romantic teen comedy, with teen movies progressing right through to the angst and comedy of the cult John Hughes films (The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) through to the horror flicks that grew in popularity in the 1990’s (Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer) with the predominately female lead character films of the 2000’s (Mean Girls, Bring It On).

Examples of Teen Movies are High School Musical 3: Senior Year and Hairspray:

Types of teen film

As well as the classic teen film, which is similar to a romantic comedy, there are hybrid genres including:

  • Teen sci-fiction
  • Teen horror
  • Teen drama
  • Teen comedy
  • Teen musicals

Codes and conventions

Codes and conventions of the teen film genre vary depending on the cultural context of the film, but they can include proms, alcohol, illegal substances, high school, parties and all-night raves, losing one's virginity, relationships, social groups and cliques, and American pop-culture.

The classic codes and conventions of teen film come from American films where one of the most widely used conventions are the stereotypes and social groups. The wide range stereotypes most commonly used include:

  • The Jock
  • The Princess or The Plastic
  • The Geek
  • The Rebel
  • The Misfit, or The Outcast
  • The Average Girl/Boy (the boy/girl next door)
  • The New Girl/Boy

Apart from the characters there are many other codes and conventions of teen film. These films are often set in or around High School as this allows for many different social cliques to be shown. This is different in hybrid teen films, but for the classic romantic comedy teen film this is almost always the case.

Copyright: This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Teen film".