As for coming-of-age movies, they have their own unique ground in the cinematic world rather than being just a genre of ed film. While these films are all about the travel of adolescents while growing up, it is not the only thing that they portray.
As rooted in culture coming of age movies can be seen as a product of youth culture and cultural change. All in all the depicted movies reflect all kind of emotional states, circumstances and social transformations one may face during teenage years.
In this blog, I plan to discuss the concept of the coming-of-age movie, the cultural references it derives from, the topics it associates with, and their meanings.
The works coming of age are characterized as films where the main premise is the subject’s movement from youth to youthadulthood, as depicted in the feature. These movies explore problems, perplexities and revelations that come with subscribing to the age of puberty.
Primarily, these films depict the process of personal developing which is an inherent part of everyone’s life, so the films are most likely to be comprehensible for everyone. But the focus is not just attached to the story, but also towards the fact of how the coming-of-age movies represent the new phase norms.
Here are the examples of genre movies which started from John Hughes’ movies The Breakfast Club and updated with coming-of-age Lady Bird.
Perhaps, one of the reasons why coming-of-age movies are wittingly cinematic culture markers is because these movies reflect the youth culture of their making. Such movies are quite revealing of youths’ beliefs and experiences in different ages. For instance, movies like American Graffiti, and the Graduate can be said to represent the liberated, free spirited and yearning to grow stage of youth culture of the 1960s and 1970s.
In the same way, some-amalgamated movies in the nineties such as Clueless and 10 Things I Hate About You were good striking the true balance of the life of high school with reference to some aspects such as relationships, hierarchies besides social pressure in school.
Thus, it is possible to get closer to the evaluation of certain generational concerns and identify how the coming-of-age films have changed over time. In this respect, such motion pictures consider cultural products that record the lives of youths and the manner in which they influence and are influenced by society.
On the face of it, coming-of-age movies may be seen as comprised in a single set of rules – the view of teenagers grappling with relationships, identity crises and burgeoning bodies, only for the rudiments of realization.
However, a closer look at films in the coming-soon-age genre offers a paradigm to reconsider the sheer historical and geographical versatility and richness of the coming-of-age kind. The majority of these movies follow the typical story arc, which will be discussed later, but the subject matter of the films themselves is incredibly diverse, from the first romance and friendship to reflection on the meaning of life.
It is the acteristic of the coming-of-age genre that it can always focus on the matters that are important for students and adults, in contrast to most films classified as youth films, which are deemed to be entertaining or to provide an escape from ordinary life, coming-of-age films may touch on issues such as mental health, family, race, and sexuality. The versatility of a tonal approach enables the story’s recognition of the problems of growing up for different generations, as each film presents a new vision.
Staging and performing personal identity: How coming-of-age films inform identity during adolescent years. These movies teach society the general outlook on coming-of-age movies because the characters experience personal development. That is where, often, a person learns what they are, and their place in the world is determined. Their experiences are represented through friendships, family, and love interests, all of which play a role in their development.
On the other hand, it is vital to find that coming-of age films are also mirror images of society in the adolescent period. It is often possible to connect the events of the characters to the social phenomena that occur at the time of the show’s/shoes’ settings.
For example, themes in youth movies such as mental health, trauma, and sexual orientation are still subjects that are rather new to being openly discussed at the cinema, as is seen in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Thus, young people’s films do not only embody personal development but also social development in accepting and solving vital problems.
There is an interconnection between coming-of-age films and societal transformation processes, characteristic of the period in which such films are produced. In particular, these films have a function of social realism pointing to new social paradigms, priorities, and challenges of youth.
Having addressed the powerful trends of their time like the sexual revolution in the 1960s, the women’s liberation movement in the 1970s, and the acceptance of gay rights in the 2000s coming-of-age films have always reflected the change.
For instance, The Breakfast Club (1985) explores high school cliques, hierarchy, and conformity, power relations, and stereotyping. It is a portrayal of conflicts between various social groups that were typical for the 1980s and the show brings new generations closer to understanding some difficulties of growth of the youth culture.
In the same manner, modern films, for example, Moonlight address the questions of race and sexual orientation and the manner in which the coming-of-age phenomena change throughout the different movements.
While many of the coming-of-age films are developed in specific cultures, the detailed depth of the concept is similar to the majority of the films. These topics include individuation, camaraderie, affection, grief, and the pursuit of the meaning of life, all of which are universal experiences of life regardless of time and space frames.
This is because as young people search for their own identities, they meet the rather menacious questions of their place within the world. From this perspective, the coming-of-age films are instruments that provide deep reflections regarding the world and being human, studies of growing up.
In essence, what we have in these films are markers of rites of passage for the audiences also. Having traced a process of deriving the personal sense and meaning of the protagonist’s character, the viewers can be reminded of their own fulfilled teenage years and the achievements each of them made on the way to becoming an adult.
Follow-up movies carry lessons that could be understood way beyond the time of their making for the coming-of-age genre, which is rich in cultural and educational values.
These films remain important in shaping the societies’ perception of adolescence on film and in the larger society. They have enthralled generations of film directors, painters, and writers who use the different feelings and topics coming from the conflicts within the given coming of age stories.
While in some cases, it is possible to directly identify the later popular genres in modern movies that outrageous teens’ performances drew inspiration from those movies based on youth culture, the individual search for identity and personal change has not lost its relevance in today’s cinematography.
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