Teens Making a Cause for Rebellion Essay

To start, the film seems like your basic run-on-the mill coming of age tale with a group of teenagers growing up to desire more after they graduate high school. However, there are various more themes discreetly displayed throughout the runtime of the film. For example, one central sociological overtone of this film is Marxism. With this overtone, it becomes possible to view this light-hearted and comedic movie in a

Teen culture in the 1950’s took off with the introduction of “Rock ‘N Roll”. An estimated 13 million teens spent $7 billion in 1956.(5) Teens felt free to do whatever they wanted, but that was not totally true. There were many common rules for the teen society in the 1950’s. Some of the rules were: Obey authority, control your emotions, and don’t even think about sexual intercourse.(Silverman 6)

     One of the major themes that are presented throughout the whole entire movie is the dysfunctional relationship between one of the characters and their fathers. The movie portrays father figures as problematic which then shape the actions and the characters themselves as the movie progresses. We can see all three dynamics of the father figure presented through Jim, Judy, and Plato. Through Jim, the father figure that he is presented with is a father who is weak allows himself to be walked on by Jim¡¯s mother and grandmother. Judy¡¯s father, on the other hand, is quite the opposite of Jim¡¯s father in that he is the overbearing, masculine, and insensitive. Lastly, we see the absence of a

Open protest, conflicting interests, lives changed forever. This is a rebellion. You’re willing to fight the authorities to be heard. Armed rebellion is only justifiable if nothing else works. The Rebellions of Upper and Lower Canada, Red River Rebellion, and Northwest Rebellion are all part of Canadian history. They show us that people can go against the government which usually results in a large loss of life, but more importantly change.

“In our media-intensive culture it is not difficult to find differing opinions… The difficulty lies in deciding which opinion to agree with and which ‘experts’ seem the most credible” (Espejo 11). The perceptions of one age group in society of another age group are built upon assumptions that are made through what is visible. However, rarely is anyone willing to understand the reason behind someone’s actions. Sibling rivalry, the death of a loved one, moving to a new school, competition among peers, and the reputation adolescents have today often end up giving a misperception of society to teens and of teens to society, thus damaging the relationships between society, as illustrated by J.D. Salinger in The Catcher in the Rye.

The 1950’s was a time of great social change. The word, ‘teen-ager’ was recently coined and applied to people aged thirteen to nineteen. During this decade, people’s perception of youth and adolescents drastically changed as children became more rebellious. Previous to 1950. society consisted of two main stages of human development: children and adults. When the Baby Boom started in 1946, producing more babies, a new era of music, attitudes, practices, and dance began to appeal to kids that did not feel socially accepted by adults in society. This was the start of the teenage rebellion. With increased teenager presence came more disapproval because of rebellious behaviour. Teenagers were pitted against media, parents, and local authority. Teenagers started disobeying parents, getting expelled from school, and fighting back against authority. Indeed, the ‘50s were a time that saw upheavals towards the impact of the music, change of attitudes, new fashions, and new dances developed children into teenagers.

In making the movie’s main themes teen estrangement and paternal issues, the filmmakers, either intentionally or not, created a film that shows how the average family functioned in the 1950s with Judy’s family. Whether or not we realize it, almost all forms of art depict in some way the time period in which they were created, from the works of the Shakespeare to the paintings of Pablo Picasso. And, while Rebel without a Cause may not stack up to those pieces of art, it certainly does share in their ability to reflect the day in age in which it was

Through this, the writer and director, John Hughes, shows the inequalities and disadvantages that each type of teenager can have. This film is culturally significant because it serves as an antidote to all teenagers who feel alone or pressured

A sociologist could analyze these aspects of the film, such as the socialization of individuals into different subcultures, and compare the aspects to contemporary North American high school. Taking a closer look at the scene where Cady explains her observances of different cliques within the cafeteria, a sociologist could conclude that the movie perpetuates the unhealthy separation of youth into different subcultures. This separation creates norms such as that jocks are sexually aggressive and nerds are to be discriminated through bullying which carry into contemporary North American youth culture. Sociologists could use this movie to explore the actions of youth in high school today and better understand why bullying and mental illnesses are still highly prevalent in todays society although strides have been made to improve the number of individuals

Much like it’s cinematic contemporaries Rebel without a Cause is a product of postwar American society. The depiction of Jim Stark’s attempts to deal with the world around him provide a narrative rich with examples of both the relative economic prosperity and generational conflicts that came to characterize this period in American history, and while facts of life such as these are utilized by the filmmakers to a large extent they are not the film’s principal themes. Rather than prioritizing these aspects of American life, the focus of the film is shifted to examining the often overlooked issues of the era and the reactions that they had elicited from those who lived through them. In particular those of traditional gender roles, peer pressure,

The movie Rebel without a Cause presents the social issue that both teenagers and their parents in the time struggle for locating themselves into the right and appropriate social identities, yet they also have the difficulty of facing this issue. For the adults, they tend to dodge the fact that they should undertake the responsibilities of guiding their children during the awkward and confusing period of growing into adults. On the other hand, the adolescences often behave radically and dangerously in order to fight their places in the society and caught up parents' attentions. The film illustrates the conflicts on genders ideologies by presenting the constant argues between Jim's parents and even his grandmother. Additionally, the film questions about the correctness of the role model from the teenagers' perspectives.

Rebel Without A Cause is a very popular film from 1955. It depicts life in the 1950's from the viewpoint of three teenagers who live in Los Angeles, California. They live in a comfortable environment in middle-class America. However, they must deal with their own inabilities to "fit" into society. The teens try to fit in with their peers and find the love they so desperately need from their families and others like their peers. The biases presented in the film's are based on cultural values form the 1950s. Rebel Without A Cause also compares to some of the data presented in the text Nation of Nations. The film also compares to the general view America has of the period of the

Furthermore, the movie Pleasantville reflects some of the cultural conflicts of the 1950s. To begin, racial discrimination in the 1950s was extremely prominent in society. Whites discriminated against blacks because they were taught that anyone different than themselves was evil. Pleasantville portrays this when the citizens thereof begin changing color from black and white to color. These people represent an embrace of cultural change which goes against the normal, stable and secure status quo. The people of color are persecuted against by those of black and white color because they feel their existence is threatened by this symbol of change. For example, this persecution is seen in the scene when Betty Parker is persecuted by five black and white people while out in town. The five boys threaten her with verbal and physical attacks, as would blacks or “coloreds” would be by whites in the 1950s. Another cultural conflict exemplified by Pleasantville is changing teenage culture. Two ideas that challenged the cultural status quo in the ’50s were the idea that sex is ok, and Rock n Roll. Teenagers embraced these changes, and these changes are seen in Pleasantville. For example, a location called “lover’s lane” is where teens would go in this movie to participate in taboo, status quo-challenging sexual activity with the opposite sex. The idea of this in the 1950s was not even considered,

Teenagers are more than capable of achieving great tasks in the future as well as causing great destruction with every skill stapled in their mind as they grow. Good and evil will determine the effects of which path a young mind its taught so that’s why parents must educated well with good intensions for a better future. The age of a teenager shows history how it transformed the world including the United States by family values, the high school, and dangerous adolescences etc. What teenagers did was start a fashion changing the world and its rules, becoming rebellious toward their parents values for

A movie that defines many of the issues adolescents are faced with is Rebel Without a Cause. For example, when Jim Stark repeatedly asks his father “what do you do when you have to be a man?” we see how Jim is dealing with Erikson’s stage of identity versus role confusion. Still only in high school, Jim is trying to figure out what stage in his life defines him as a man by his family and culture. He finds that although he may be gaining more privileges year by year, he is still under the control of his parents. There are also examples of risky behavior in this movie when Buzz challenges some thugs to a knife fight and when the teenagers engage in a game that involved jumping out of a car as late as possible before it goes over a cliff. Part of their logic behind doing this, as explained in the previous paragraph is because their brains were not yet fully developed and they felt as if they were indestructible. Lastly, there is also an example of peer pressure in the movie when Jim decides to engage in the knife fight after the thugs call him a “chicken”. Jim wanted to show his friends and others around him that he was not afraid to turn down a challenge and would do anything to beat these thugs, even if he secretly had some doubt in his mind. There are also other examples of peer pressure such as when the teenagers