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Hold On To That Feeling: ‘Glee’ and Don’t Stop Believin’ (Part Two)
By Rachel Malstrom | “With every ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ the show offers a hand to hold and anchor for the show’s ambitions. It never promised to offer solutions to all of the world’s problems, despite its obsession with acknowledging them.”
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1972, Revisited: Dick’s Feminist Reinterpretation of the Watergate Scandal
By Charlotte Turner | “Dick reimagines the national memory of Watergate through a feminist lens by making teenage girls the heroes of the story.”
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Opening Yourself Up to Joy: ‘Glee’ and Don’t Stop Believin’ (Part One)
By Rachel Malstrom | “[Glee] is a show with its own profound thesis statement … which is never more evident than in the song ‘Don’t Stop Believin’.’
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‘The Bling Ring’ Is All Too Familiar with Its Own Spectacle
By Claire Davidson | “Viewing The Bling Ring retrospectively, the girls’ belief in their own stardom is even more flimsy than it is depicted through the instantaneous nature of the film.”
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The Art of the Two-Person Dance Party
By Tiia Kelly | “[The two-person dance party] becomes a shorthand for the characters embracing comfort in one another’s presence.”
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The Liminal Space of the Remington Party in Heathers
By Sydney Bollinger | “In choosing adolescence, Veronica pushes back on a narrative that asks her to give up her formative years in favor of social capital.”
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We Were Here: An Ode to the Wannabe Dance in One Tree Hill
By Claire White | “I’ll always want to return to these early seasons in an effort to remember what it felt to be that young and together with everyone again. There’s nothing quite like the high school years.”
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Seize the Day, or Rewatching Empire Records in the Age of COVID
By Mahnaz Dar | “[Empire Records’] ability to carve out space for joy, despite knowing that tomorrow may bring just as much sorrow, is stirring.”
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Editors’ Letter: The Turning Point
By Claire White and Odalis Garcia Gorra | “One good party can shift everything you understood to be true. What once was is upturned by the possibility of what could be. There is nothing that showcases that possibility more than teen films and TV shows.”
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The Art of “The Look”
By Niamh Cullen | ““The look” captures everything that I want. Betrayal, tension and pain met with acceptance of the longing. This look says to audiences ‘do you see where this is all leading? Have you backed the right horse?’”
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In Defence of the Britney Spears movie ‘Crossroads’
By Claire White | “Through [Crossroads] audiences can learn something about the importance of control, not only for young girls, but for ourselves … Long before her conservatorship, this was Britney’s message that we failed to understand, but must not forget.”
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How Gossip Girl Reboot Sinks into Teen Idealism (And Misses the Point)
By McKinzie Smith | “In this attempt to make its characters relatable, the show obscures the original point. It’s creating something new, it’s just not doing it very well yet.”
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How Meadow Soprano Ended Up Just Like Her Mother
By Shea Vassar | “Young Meadow is mean to her mother because she wants to be everything Carmela isn’t. Ironically, in the end, she becomes just like her.”
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‘Everything’s Gonna Be Okay’ Celebrates the Continual Discovery of Identity
By Claire Davidson | “[Matilda represents] an understanding of autistic self-definition that is still cognizant of boundaries with others as much as any flawed teenager can be.”
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Growing Up (Or Not) in the Share-House on Screen
By Zoë Almeida Goodall | “Is share-housing a place where characters can grow up, or a place they have to leave in order to grow up – a transitional arrangement that must be abandoned once the characters are past a certain age?”
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The Unapologetic Queerness of ‘Generation’
By Arianne Binette | “Being queer in Generation is just part of life.”
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From Ugly Duckling to Swan: Limitations of the Teen Makeover Film
By Nuha Hassan | “These makeover films represent how female adolescents can become the embodiment of feminine beauty and desire. They work to conform to a reality that takes pleasure in viewing the female body as patriarchal objects, rather than accepting who they are before.”
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On Haircuts and Himbos
By Bailey Herdé | “This is the thing about Cappie that draws you in, more so than the charm, more so than the hair: he cares. And, unlike so many men his age — unlike so many men, period — he isn’t afraid to show it.”
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“They’re All Gonna Laugh at You”: The Cynicism of Adolescence in ‘Carrie’
By Samantha Vargas | “We know Carrie wants to fit in, but other than gain social acceptance, she doesn’t exist outside of the confines of her high school torment. In the realm of this film, Carrie simply exists to suffer, react, and then eventually burn out.”
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Teens, Dystopia, and the Art of Rebellion
By Georiga Davis | “If teenagers rebel, it is often against an older authority, whether it be their parents, their teachers or society itself … So, transferring this generational battle of power to the realm of dystopia – where these establishments reign supreme – only seems natural.”
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Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Drivers License’ and High-School Era Nostalgia
By Isabella Rosete | “The careful intimacy evident in these varied approaches serves to render the suburban experience at once universal, and incredibly personal.”
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On Watching White Girls
By Sara Hashemi | “When you aren’t white and you’re looking to see yourself in these movies, watching them is like staring into a broken mirror. I’m searching for a reflection, but it can never be accurate.”
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“The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all”: Why Princess Mia belongs in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
By Samantha Vargas | “Just like every other Marvel figurehead, Mia’s strength comes from her inherent desire to help people beyond herself.”
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“Because you saw me when I was invisible”: Clumsy Adolescent Love in ‘The Princess Diaries’
By Rebecca Rosén | “The film is a sweet depiction of the trembling first steps you take as you try to navigate your first feelings of love … [and to] find people who accept and love you as you are.”
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Finding Your Person: Platonic Soulmates in the Films of Greta Gerwig
By Claire White | “By bringing attention to these deep and meaningful relationships, Gerwig’s films show us that these close friendships [are] important and worthy of attention.”
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From Dream Houses to Razzles: An Ode to Matt Flamhaff from ’13 Going on 30′
By Katherine Clowater | “For her to share [Razzles] with him as an adult is not only self-acceptance for Jenna but an acceptance of Matt’s love, and a silent reciprocation of it too.”
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‘The Hunger Games’ and Compulsory Heterosexuality
By Jo Reid | “The first time she outwardly shows romantic affection to Peeta is when she needs medicine, and so she kisses him…Performing romantic love is established as a necessary tool for survival.”
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Our Lives Are Liminal: Queer Love in ‘We Are Who We Are’
By Josh Sorensen | “Queer teenagers are inherently liminal beings and must find their own way of measuring development, find their own way of growing up.”
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The Fearless Call To Youthful Love and Desire In Mexican Cinema By a Young Gael García Bernal
By Aaron Sánchez-Guerra | “We learn that love is superficial among the materialist elite, it is toxic and painful when pursued in secret and that a mania for sexual conquest can result in abuse, loss or separation.”
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The Hagiography of Lady Bird: Myth-Making, Growing Up, and Teenage Saints
By Anna Burnham | “Lady Bird is taking her place in a long line of impertinent, self-assured teenagers committed to carving out their own identities as they fervently seek purpose; that is to say, she is taking her place in a long line of saints.”
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Revisiting Marty From ‘Gilmore Girls,’ Rory’s Last Grasp at the Working Class
By Sarah Jae Leiber | “A closer look reveals that Rory and Marty’s relationship and subsequent friend break-up is a lot more complicated — and I think it has a lot more to do with class than it has to do with patriarchy.”
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To the Coolest Girl in the World: Archiving Adolescence in ‘Eighth Grade’
By Tiia Kelly | “These artefacts constitute a record: a small sphere of expression for Kayla to move around in, to stretch her limbs and hear her own self-assured voice played back to her. When social anxiety prevents her from publicly expressing herself, the vlogs become a means of asserting, at the very least, a…
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Gendered Rage and Self-Respect in ‘Thoroughbreds’
By Meagen Tajalle | “It is immensely refreshing to bear witness to a young woman’s rage that is not rooted in victimization. Instead, the root of Lily’s wrath lies in self-respect, a trait adolescent girls are rarely afforded in movies.”
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‘Adam’s’ Confused Queer Adolescence
By Emma Ambrose | “Coming to grips with one’s sexuality does not come from staring longingly into a mirror and listening to the heart’s desire. It comes through interacting with other queer people who are just as flawed and confused and struggling to understand who they are.”
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Good or Bad, ‘Happiest Season’ is the Christmas Movie I Needed Growing Up (And Now)
By Nicole Watlington | “I’m confident two women can have a happy ending both in fiction and in real life especially in scenarios that include: Christmas lights, hot chocolate, gingerbread cookies, and coquito.”
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‘Eighth Grade’ and Puberty with a Divorced Single Dad
By Francesca Hughes | “Many teen films either depict fathers as absent, unfaithful, or grieving widowers struggling to parent. This trope felt alien to me as a girl raised by a divorced single dad.”
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‘Selena’ and the Nostalgia of Language
By Orlando Mendiola | “My first experience with grief was when I was around six years old and my parents had to tell me that Selena, the Tejano singer, was dead.”
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Why ‘Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging’ Is Still A UK Teen Cult Classic
By Emily Shepherd | “Cringy parents, embarrassing crush encounters and crazy best friends – the perfect recipe for an iconic romcom. Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008) is the Bridget Jones (2001) of teen romcoms.”
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‘Kajillionaire’ Is A Searing, but Hopeful, Portrait of Parental Neglect
By Kathy Li | “‘Kajillionaire’ makes the case that the scars of parental neglect, invisible as they may be, are no less formative, or less deeply felt, than any other kind of heartbreak.”
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How ‘When Marnie Was There’ Captures Adolescent Depression
By Megan Robinson | “Another person cannot cure depression, plain and simple. But in Marnie, Anna finds a listening ear, someone willing to ease her out of her comfort zone, and just talk with her.”
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Satanic Cannibal Witches: How The ‘Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’ creates its own brand of Satanism
By Elliott Ryan | “Witches in media are experiencing a renaissance. They kill, resurrect, eat flesh. And most importantly, they determine their own narratives.”
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“The Calls Are Coming From The House!”: A ‘Black Christmas Retrospective’
By Jamie Tram | “Black Christmas (1974) carved out its own niche by grounding the subgenre in the lives of young women beset by emerging adulthood.”
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The School of ‘Rocky Horror’
By Alexander Gonzalez | “The Halloween episode in season two of the Netflix teen drama ‘Elite’ depicts adolescent angst in the spirit of Rocky Horror.”
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Plug It Up: Menstruation As A Teen Horror Movie Monster
By Eliza Janssen | “Menstrual Horror in film seems to take adolescence and coming of age more seriously than the genre’s tendency to portray teens as disposable.”
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Editors’ Letter: The Horror Years
By Claire White and Odalis Garcia Gorra | “There is nothing more terrifying than being a teenager or young adult. And if scary movies have taught us anything is that the things that go bump in the night, love to horrify us to death (Final Girls, excluded).”
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Revisiting Tim Burton’s ‘Big Fish’ as an Adult
By Olly Smith | “I was eight years old when I saw Tim Burton’s Big Fish (2003) for the first time. Going into it, I yearned for the same exciting fairy tale adventures that I already knew his work to be.”
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“Where You Lead, I Will Follow”: Gilmore Girls and the Cyclical Project of Growing Up
By Bailey Herdé | “It is Gilmore Girls’ fanciful, gilded vision of the reality that makes it so mesmerizing, rather than any contrived attempt at realism.”
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We Are Who We Are and Unconditional Acceptance
By McKinzie Smith | “Do we always have to create lives for ourselves based on what others expect? Wouldn’t it be more freeing to figure it out on our own terms, with the people who grant us the grace to do so?”
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Sing Street: Much More than a Nostalgia Trip
By Jasmine Li | “This film is like a Cure song: a melancholic tune you can’t help but dance to. Growing up is a happy-sad experience, and ‘Sing Street’ gets it.”
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One Day At A Time and Ashley Garcia: Genius in Love Get Quinces Right
By Odalis Garcia Gorra | “As seen through these two shows, for both Elena and Ashley, a quinces means welcoming an era they were preparing all their life for.”
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Coming of Age Quietly: Eliza Hittman’s Introverted Teens
By Hannah Benson | “[Eliza Hittman’s films are] hyperrealistic portraits of working class adolescence where coming of age is less like a discovery of the self and more an entryway into the systemic and cultural violence that plagues American life.”
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Disney’s Descendants and the Power of Unlearning
By Alex Dewing | “As I’ve returned for rewatches over the years, the fundamental theme of unlearning explored in the film became more prominent and resonated with me.”
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Sorry Folks, but Twilight is Actually Good
By Bailey Herdé | “Twilight’s blue-filtered emotional intensity does not indicate a failure of artistry or filmmaking; instead, it shows an acute understanding of what made the series such a resounding success in the first place.”
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Growing Up with “Scream”: A Closer Look at High School Musical 3’s Most Dramatic Song
By Katherine Clowater | “‘Scream’ is loud, dramatic, and even downright Shakespearean in its portrayal of doubt, anxiety, and the growing responsibilities of adulthood — but that’s how it feels to be a teenager.”
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Me and Jo March: Locating Queerness at Orchard House
By Anna Burnham | “When I began asserting to others that Jo March was deeply, obviously queer, I was trying to tell the people around me — I was trying to tell myself — that I was, too.”
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Analog Love in a Digital World: Re-watching ‘Before Sunrise’ 25 Years On
By Sam Nicholls | “‘Before Sunrise’ isn’t so much a celebration of the ‘analog’ generation, but of the same existence every generation faces at some point: being young, being your own person, and being in love.”
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‘Never Been Kissed,’ and Why We Still Watch High School Movies In Adulthood
By Claire White | “There is comfort in all the familiar beats and characters in a high school film, a predictability we can depend on and take in easily when adulthood is so confusing and unknowable.”
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The Roads to Maturity and Self-Discovery in ‘Whisper of the Heart’
By Miguel Galang | “There is something euphoric to finally knowing yourself a little better, especially when you’re young and growing up can feel like a race.”
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Exploring the Missing Legacy of ‘All I Wanna Do’ and other All-Girls School Movies
By Remy Solomon | “Where previous male filmmakers saw all-girls school as hotbeds for unhemmed sexuality and conniving feminine wiles, [All I Wanna Do] sees them as the key to the revolution.”
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Booksmart and the Importance of Casual Queer Representation
By Maggie Hill | “[Amy] is a reflection of a fully rounded, queer person with goals, ideas, and actions determined outside of her sexuality. [She] provides an idea for young LGBTQ+ people of who they can be and how this piece of themselves can fit into their puzzle.”
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The Class Character of Teen Rom-Coms
By Max Tassell | “[Not] to say that the bourgeois nature of [teen rom-coms] destroys their quality or renders them insulting, but without characters who have these “real life” experiences, the films risk alienating their audience.”
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Music, Freedom, and the Anti-Capitalism of ‘Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist’
By Isabel Crabtree | “In a world where it suddenly became clear that the rich were stealing from the livelihoods of everyday people and happiness from our parents, teenagers decided to steal a little something back.”
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Spider-Man: The Ultimate Teenage Superhero
By Alejandro Martinez | “I have probably seen Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man (2002) half a million times. The more I watch the movie, the greater my appreciation for it. Not only as a superhero film, but also as a true teenage coming-of-age film.”
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The Magic of Pre-Teen Realism in ‘The Baby-Sitters Club’
By Robyn Matuto | “[The Baby-Sitters Club reflects] experiences as they actually happen, instead of bringing them to impossible heights. It’s relatable. It offers role models rather than runaway models.”
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Grow Up 