# The representation of youth in movies and TV. Who got it right? Who got it wrong? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 31, 2015, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397 "2015-01-31T02:04:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2015, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397/21 "2015-02-01T03:27:10Z")
> [@Grotonian](#): > > _Dazed and Confused_ got high school absolutely accurately. I dunno if 1976 was like that, but the mid-90’s were. They were? I like Dazed and Confused, but I always felt like it was depicting a time that didn’t exist anymore for teenagers because it didn’t feel real to my teenage self. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2015, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397/22 "2015-02-01T03:35:18Z")
Keep in mind that a movie or TV show targeted to a teenage audience is probably going to show teenage characters that resemble the way the viewers want to imagine they are rather than the way they actually are. ---
**Author:** ![typoink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2015, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397/23 "2015-02-01T03:51:37Z")
> [@Lemmytheseal2](#): > > The TV show **Salute Your Shorts** is stylized, but weirdly accurate in some ways, as I recall. I like Zee-Zee. > > \ > > Now **Daria** , despite the inevitable stylization that comes with animation, is beloved because of how true-to-life it is. When my nephew asks his parents about growing up at that time, I hope they show him the DVDs I got for them. A show about straight-A students (among others) can be funny! See, I think Daria is beloved because it’s fantastic, but I always thought it seemed like a movie written about college students set in a high school. It always felt like every character was written to be 3-4 years older than they were supposed to be. Absolutely agree about Salute Your Shorts, though. I was roughly of age with the kids in it, and it felt very, very familiar. ---
**Author:** ![zoogirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b9bd4f/32.png) [@zoogirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoogirl)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2015, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397/24 "2015-02-01T03:53:59Z")
American Grafitti was pretty much what I was up to fifteen years later. Driving around and watching the boys drink, fight and show off., ---
**Author:** ![Grotonian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c2a13f/32.png) [@Grotonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grotonian)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2015, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397/25 "2015-02-01T04:38:39Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > They were? I like Dazed and Confused, but I always felt like it was depicting a time that didn’t exist anymore for teenagers because it didn’t feel real to my teenage self. The middle-class, suburban white kids running wild? Parents totally clueless to what the kids were doing? The hazing of freshman girls? The high school being the jocks’ private fiefdom? Middle school make-out parties? The townie(s) still clinging to high school glory? Booze and pot (but nothing harder) being the norm? Watching that movie was like looking in a mirror. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2015, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397/26 "2015-02-01T05:05:34Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > Wild in the Streets got it right. 😉 I remember that one. I thought _The Wonder Years_ was realistic for that time and the ages of the characters, once you take into account the story is the filtered memories of Kevin Arnold some 20 years after they occurred. I also enjoy_That 70s Show_. Hanging out with your clique and getting high was a part of teen life then. They lacked some extreme long hairs, though. But I think it stands up considering it’s a sit com, not drama. ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2015, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397/27 "2015-02-01T16:28:07Z")
Oliver from the Brady Bunch and Ricky Seagull from the Partridge Family jumped some serious shark. ---
**Author:** ![justmeetee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@justmeetee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justmeetee)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2015, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397/28 "2015-02-01T17:23:52Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > They were? I like Dazed and Confused, but I always felt like it was depicting a time that didn’t exist anymore for teenagers because it didn’t feel real to my teenage self. > [@Grotonian](#): > > The middle-class, suburban white kids running wild? Parents totally clueless to what the kids were doing? The hazing of freshman girls? The high school being the jocks’ private fiefdom? Middle school make-out parties? The townie(s) still clinging to high school glory? Booze and pot (but nothing harder) being the norm? > > Watching that movie was like looking in a mirror. Except for the hazing, that WAS most weekends in 1973-1974. My senior year of high school. I WAS the jock/hippie/motorhead. The hero of the town folk after the Friday night wrestling meet and the life of the party around the firepit on Saturday night. And after high school? Just another farmhand/factory worker until getting behind the wheel of a big truck for five million miles. I put that in the DVD player every few months when feeling old and nostalgic. ETA That 70’s Show as well. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2015, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397/29 "2015-02-01T17:29:33Z")
“Fast Times at Ridgemont High” seemed pretty spot on, give that the writer went to high school “undercover” for research. When I first saw “Animal House”, I would have sworn I knew half those guys. Both, of course, were comedies with much exaggeration for comedic effect but seemed quite authentic once that exaggeration was filtered out. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2015, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397/30 "2015-02-01T17:30:20Z")
I completely agree with **Lakai**. “My So-Called Life” got it right; I think it caught so well how little adults listen to “kids”, even when those kids are young adults with real problems. I loved that show. ---
**Author:** ![Lemmytheseal2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/82dd89/32.png) [@Lemmytheseal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemmytheseal2)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2015, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397/31 "2015-02-01T17:35:39Z")
I think it’s interesting to see the divergent reactions here. I thought _Dazed and Confused_ was very strange in how unrealistic it was. I’m 33, so it takes place before I was born, but it seemed bizarre for any era. Also, I know that _Kids_ was based on Harmony Korinne’s own observations/experiences in the early 90s, and I know that sort of thing was happening around me as I grew up, but that level of delinquency has decreased quite a bit in the US since then. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2015, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397/32 "2015-02-01T18:23:47Z")
I thought **Crooklyn** did an excellent job at capturing the gestalt of 1970s black urban childhood. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2015, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397/33 "2015-02-01T18:52:00Z")
[Over The Edge](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079688/) also got it right IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Chicken\_Fingers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Chicken\_Fingers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chicken_Fingers)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2015, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397/34 "2015-02-01T19:01:15Z")
_Fast Times at Ridgemont High_ captured teens and my era pretty well. The girls were obsessively engaged in self-grooming, everyone acted like experts about everything, the ways they tried to act cool and handle serious problems (in stupid ways) themselves, the brother and sister reluctantly leaning on each other rather than involve parents, the sense that adults didn’t really exist except as annoyances/obstacles lurking around the edges of the teens’ life. I tried watching this recently with one of my teens, and had to spend so much time explaining dittos, mall jobs, ticket scalping, and a bunch of other old-timey things, that he lost interest. ---
**Author:** ![Tara57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Tara57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tara57)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2015, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397/35 "2015-02-01T20:33:51Z")
Say Anything ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2015, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397/36 "2015-02-01T21:01:17Z")
> [@justmeetee](#): > > Except for the hazing, that WAS most weekends in 1973-1974. My senior year of high school. I WAS the jock/hippie/motorhead. The hero of the town folk after the Friday night wrestling meet and the life of the party around the firepit on Saturday night. And after high school? Just another farmhand/factory worker until getting behind the wheel of a big truck for five million miles. That’s what I was getting at. For a 70s kid, Dazed and Confused was probably very real. But **Grotonian** was saying the 90s were like that, which was not my experience at all. The way that practically the whole school mingled at the party was like nothing I ever saw in high school. And hazing was so frowned upon that upperclassmen were threatened with expulsion if they did anything even off school grounds. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2015, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397/37 "2015-02-01T21:13:39Z")
That 70s Show got it right. That might as well have been my group of friends on the show. Well, we didn’t smoke quite so much weed, but other than that, it pretty much was my experience as a teen in the 1970s. ---
**Author:** ![boozilu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4da419/32.png) [@boozilu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boozilu)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2015, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397/38 "2015-02-01T22:55:43Z")
> [@GrumpyBunny](#): > > I completely agree with **Lakai**. “My So-Called Life” got it right; I think it caught so well how little adults listen to “kids”, even when those kids are young adults with real problems. > > I loved that show. I recently watched a few episodes and now that I’m a mom I was surprised to identify with the mom, because when I first watched it I identified with Angela. I’d say it gets it right for both kids and their parents. ---
**Author:** ![Grotonian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c2a13f/32.png) [@Grotonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grotonian)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397/39 "2015-02-02T00:51:07Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > That’s what I was getting at. For a 70s kid, Dazed and Confused was probably very real. But **Grotonian** was saying the 90s were like that, which was not my experience at all. The way that practically the whole school mingled at the party was like nothing I ever saw in high school. And hazing was so frowned upon that upperclassmen were threatened with expulsion if they did anything even off school grounds. I dunno what to tell ya, I don’t think my veracity is being challenged, but I can assure you I’m not romanticizing or misremembering anything. The hazing wasn’t explained in the movie, but at my high school, we had 4 sororities that were over 50 years old in the 90’s. Public humiliation of the “pledges” was common. (They still exist at my Alma Mater.) We had a tradition of “Breakfast with the Dead” where students of all cliques would meet in a cemetery on Friday mornings in the Spring to drink before school. The Deadheads would blast Grateful Dead music, naturally. I had a toga party before senior year that the police report estimated had 200 kids at it. The prosecutor let me off with a $25 fine for an “Open House Party.” We had fake IDs we ordered out of the back of Guitar Magazine (it was a little kit you stuck a picture in and typed up, the card read “International Identification”) that worked at liquor stores. **Dazed and Confused** we were. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397/40 "2015-02-02T19:47:45Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > That’s what I was getting at. For a 70s kid, Dazed and Confused was probably very real. But **Grotonian** was saying the 90s were like that, which was not my experience at all. The way that practically the whole school mingled at the party was like nothing I ever saw in high school. And hazing was so frowned upon that upperclassmen were threatened with expulsion if they did anything even off school grounds. Same here (class of 1997)… maybe that reflected some very small town life, but as an AVERAGE experience in the 90s?, I call BS on that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-representation-of-youth-in-movies-and-tv-who-got-it-right-who-got-it-wrong/711397.md?page=3)