David Denby's High-School Confidential: Notes On Teen Movies

While high school in reality is full of surprises and twisty roads, teen television shows and movies are based off a strict set of conventions that allude to other teen films. In David Denby 's "High School Confidential: Notes on Teen Movies," he describes the typical movie storyline and characters: the blonde, superficial cheerleaders that make up the popular crowd, along with the buff, handsome jocks versus the social outcasts comprised of geeks and freaks. Denby continues to explain the nature of these two social standings, including how the “cool group” bullies anyone below them. Denby goes on further to discuss how a particular outsider usually becomes the hero or heroine of the story, despite their social discomfort or awkward

The representation of the LGBT community in the film industry has long been a topic of much debate. In her article, “It Ain’t Easy Being Bisexual on TV,” Amy Zimmerman addresses this topic with specific interest on bisexual representation. By appealing to the logic of her audience, using an informal tone, and referring to relatable content, Zimmerman constructs an argument which persuades readers of The Daily Beast that the film industry is unfairly and inaccurately representing bisexuals. However, her argument holds little influence over those who are not movie fans or The Daily Beast readers.

Representation in media is hugely important as it influences, both consciously and subconsciously, culture and society. Gender representation is especially important in this day and age because more and more media is being consumed by younger audiences. In G-rated animated movies and televisions shows targeted for young girls, the female characters are hyper-sexualized and, 9 out of 10 times, their stories revolve around finding a man to love them, facilitating our cultures obsession with heteronormativity. Boys are encouraged to watch male dominated action movies, full of violence, sexy, scantily-clad women, and heteronormative, hyper-masculine stereotypes. Boys who are interested in any media designated “for girls” is seen as less masculine and may face bullies and pressure from all walks of life, at home and in school. Society begins teaching boys and girls how to gender immediately, what is appropriate, tolerated, encouraged, and what is unacceptable. As we grow up our media becomes more violent, more sexualized, and even more gendered. I will be exploring gender representation in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gilmore Girls, and The 100, discussing the problematic and the progressive representations of gender, starting with Gilmore Girls.

As the years have gone by, you can see the change of how gays and lesbians are widely seen in mostly every tv show or movie in today’s society. This is something most of our own parents didn’t even grow up seeing gays throughout the media. Living in today’s time period, you’re able to see how the influence has changed the way people see gays and lesbians. The nation has become more accepting of the gay and lesbian culture verses back in the days of when our parents and even grandparents were our age. Not only was is rare to see homosexuals on television, it was portrayed negatively, and now you can see it portrayed positively.

Identity; Romance; Segregation; Beauty; Friendship; Within the film industry’s classic interpretation of female adolescents, these elements of teen culture are typically represented. A film’s demonstration of themes such as relationship tensions or social status struggles are that which attracts the popular viewership of female adolescents, for they are personally dealing with similar experiences. Furthermore, in continually representing the aforementioned traditional elements of teen culture, the film industry seems to make it so films’ story-lines and characterizations adapt to and directly reflect the era in which the film is set. This adaptation is significantly demonstrated in the popular teen films The Breakfast Club (1985), Clueless (1995), and Mean Girls (2004) as they each clearly and diversely characterize young women based on the distinct time period and the cultural attitude towards teen girls of that time. The Breakfast Club (1985) details five high school students in Illinois, a nerd, a jock, a bad boy, a weirdo, and a

A controversial issue these days is over Hollywood’s negative depictions of homosexuality. Such portrayals were so focused on silencing queer people and basically putting their emotions in the “closet.” A documentary The Celluloid Closet, which is based on The Celluloid Closet book by Vito Russo, analyzes the representation of gays and lesbians in Hollywood films from the 1890s to the 1980s. The Celluloid Closet argues that Hollywood’s portrayal of gays and lesbians has often been harsh and homophobic, which led gays and lesbians characters to be defined by their sexuality, lacking any character development throughout the plot.

In their journal article of “Hetero-Romantic Love and Heterosexiness in Children's G-Rated Films,” Karin Martin and Emily Kazyak discussed how the animated Disney films as well as G-rated movies construct heterosexuality to young viewers – children, as they should not contain any of heterosexual scenes. According to the authors, young children are seemingly involved deeply in media world as it is a fruitful chapter of their sexual socialization; animated Disney films or other G-rated movies are what they are oftentimes engaged and attracted. It is always plotted as a stunning, beautiful lady waits for a brave, handsome guy to come to her life, then they would live happily ever after since the movies mark relationships between opposite sex repeatedly,

In today’s world, the exchange of information between individuals is largely based on the media alone. Conversations are held through social media sites, the news channels become the deliverers of new waves of specifically chosen stories, and the rest of the media effects the subconscious of the society. Movies, television shows, and “general” knowledge contribute to the rest of the mass media that affects the minds of people. The subconscious of the people can form the characteristics of the young and solidify ideas within the older population. The problem of the current society is that the subconscious ideas transferred to the media is particularly in the favor of Caucasians. This excludes people of African descent, Latinos, Asians, and other recognizably new minorities such as transgender. The overall effect of this subconscious problem is not very measurably but it can have disastrous consequences within each respective culture. Among all the minorities listed, African Americans and people of African descent have a tendency to be the most often misrepresented.

A concept of a stereotypical teenager in the 20th century was to grow up through childhood but not surpass the values, beliefs and attitudes of a typical adult. In the 1998 film, the audience is shown a great selection of characters, symbolism and setting which reinforces the idea of a teenage role that shows a new perspective that affects society.

Media is not only a form of entertainment; it also shows the social perspectives around the world. Through television and other forms of media, people learn social norms and how to interact with others. It can also influence personal perceptions, views and values. Media also has a large influence on how people view and treat others. How media portray events related to homosexuality has a powerful influence on public opinion. Many movies and TV series include gay and lesbian characters such as Modern Family, The Fosters & Pretty Little Liars. The media has encouraged social acceptance of homosexuality. Twitter has given a greater voice to the LGBT community worldwide to promote and support LGBT rights by starting campaigns such as the ‘It Gets Better Project’ which gives individuals to share their coming-out

The contemporary portrayals of teens in films are still very similar to the portrayals of teens during the 1980s. The six major approaches to teenage films during the 1980s are the following:

With reference to relevant cultural theories analyse the representation of sexuality in a film/television text of your choice.

In Martin and Kazyak’s article, the authors point out how children’s movies, which are very accessible and woven into children’s play and learning, are one of the ways society teaches heteronormativity to young people. They do this through a research study which examined the sexual and hetero romantic content in children’s G-rated films that were popular and came out in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. The authors discovered two main themes from this study. The first theme is that children’s movies create heteronormativity through portraying hetero romantic love as special and powerful, which can be seen in the dramatization of characters ‘falling in love’ and the portrayal of a romantic relationships being the ‘most important’ (Martin and Kayak,

Although majority of the participants said that they assumed media representations had negative impacts on other lesbians’ identities and lesbian communities, it was also brought up that it could and can be used as a positive influence on identity. One of the examples given by one of the participants was the media’s use in helping her realize she was a lesbian in the first place by portraying lesbian women that she began to have sexual feelings for. Another women had explained that she felt if a young girl was struggling with sexuality, media could possible provide the outlet for her to not only learn about lesbian relationships but to help identify herself as one as well. It is through Gomillion’s article that we can relate to the medias positive influence on lesbian identity where she explains, media had influenced self-realization, coming out, and current identities by providing role models and inspiration and also media role models serve as sources of pride, inspiration, and comfort (330). We can see that media has the potential to aid and contribute positivity to lesbians self-identity, if only we can move from the stereotypical and unrealistic representations so dominantly used. The participants also expressed a sense of media’s growing potential to have a positive influence on lesbian identity. The history of lesbian invisibility and the vast number of lesbians and lesbian relationships currently on mainstream media has the potential to greatly impact how lesbians are viewed and thus how they may look at themselves. As lesbianism becomes more of a norm and less of a fetish and a broader variety of lesbian women are brought into the mainstream hopefully including different races, classes, abilities,

Media and its representation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual (LGBT) themes has been prevalent throughout time. According to the collections of studies and stories by Meem, Mitchell and Jonathan (2010) concerning LGBT individuals, it is important to represent such themes because it is able to enlighten people on how our society as a whole, has become dynamic. The Media can be seen as a “central source” where negative perceptions can be created. As a result, stereotypes can be either created or perpetuated about this group, negative or otherwise. Media as a medium, therefore, is an extremely powerful tool in our society, and can be used to change or create people 's perceptions about this particular segment of our world (LGBT).