Aimless afternoons spent walking around, meaningless violence, decisions that seemingly bear no consequences… Even if you do not relate to this idea of teenagehood, the media and film industry have made us all familiar with it. The depiction of the reckless angsty teen is not precisely a new concept.

When entering our teenage years we are all encountered our own sets of struggles. Many of them are unique, and others bizarrely universal. It is a time during which many of us begin to ask questions about the world, about the people around us, but also about ourselves and about our identity.

We begin to understand who we are, or at the very least try to. And in the midst of this existential crisis coined under the name adolescence, we are met with confusion, awkwardness, and rage. Angry because we are confused and confused as to why we are angry.

“It’s an age where nothing fits,” as Rochelle Hudson put it in Rebel Without a Cause (1955).

Probably one of the first “teen angst” movies, Rebel Without a Cause attempted to explore the reasoning troubled youth at the time. We follow Jim (James Dean), Plato (Sal Mineo), and Judy (Natalie Wood) as they venture into life in high school. Their reactions derive from a lack of affection and understanding from their older counterparts, embarking on a voyage full of chaos, death, and generational conflicts.

Rebel Without a Cause is an answer to the question: why do teens act the way that they do?

In an especially tense scene, Dean asks Buzz (Corey Allen), Wood’s friend who he is about to have a chickie run against, “Why do we do this?”. In response, Allen says, “You got to do something, don’t you?”.

Almost seventy years later, teenage-hood is obviously not what it used to be. Yet, the depiction of the impetuous and reckless teen this movie sets the stage for has not ceased to be a prevalent topic of discussion.

Plenty of movies and tv shows alike have since tried to grasp the logic behind the teenage nihilist, including Thirteen (2003), Skins (2007), and Fight Club (1999) just to name a few.

We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives.

- FIGHT CLUB

The movie that inspired me to write this article in the first place is, in my opinion, a masterpiece within the realm of this category: Kids (1995).

When I first watched it - which was sometime during my sophomore year of high school,- I allowed myself to be seduced by the aesthetic of the 90s New York counter-culture, a raw depiction of the same streets I walked on every day to go home from school. At the time, this movie blew. my. mind.

Written by Harmony Korine and directed by Larry Clark, the movie follows the lives of a group of skaters in New York. They roam the streets carelessly, doing drugs for the fun of it, and craving sex and violence just as something to make themselves busy throughout the day. One of these teens is Telly (Leo Fitzpatrick), a boy with a mission: to fuck as many virgins as possible.

When describing this character Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert said Telly’s life had given him nothing that interests him, except for sex, drugs, and skateboards. His life is a kind of hell, briefly interrupted by orgasms.

There are two parallel stories, Telly and his friends hanging out, and a girl named Jennie (Chloë Sevigny) who just found out she contracted HIV from Telly and is trying to find him before he continues to spread the virus. Kids was unconventional since its release for many different reasons, for one it was one of the first movies of the 90s that tackled the AIDS epidemic “casually” (for lack of a better word) at a time when AIDS was still mainly perceived as an immoral disease, dubbed as the “gay plague” and a punishment from God.

In the movie, HIV served as a silent reaper. In an interview with Rolling Stone Korine said “the AIDS thing was like Jaws. It was a device that propelled it. We didn’t know anything about this disease other than that we didn’t want to get it.”

As the plot continues to unravel the movie manages to hint at different aspects of growing up, exploring the dichotomy between female and male sexuality and a conflicting depiction of innocence and immorality.

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The teenagers in Kids seem comparatively oblivious of the allure of the image. They are seen participating in especially the seamy side of a capitalist economy – that of the drugs which hold out the promise of pleasurable, if temporary oblivion.

There is an almost primitive characterization of teenagers makes the film resemble a documentary rather than a fictional plot.

And perhaps what makes the story feel even more realistic is the fact that Korine was just 18 when Clark approached him to write the screenplay, drawing from his own experiences and casting his own friends for the parts.

Rewatching this movie after all of these years was an interesting experience. Hard to get through, I think is the way I would describe it. This probably has to do with the fact that I’m no longer fifteen years old, and no longer feel a sense of relatability when comparing my life to the ones on the screen.

I would rather do almost anything else before having to relive my high school years, and still, I can’t help but feel nostalgic when I dive into those memories full of forgotten friendships and wasted afternoons. There is a sort of romantic nature to being old enough to feel like you are in control of your own decisions but naively unaware of the consequences those may bring. You feel indestructible and free. And just as you begin to understand that the world is a confusing and complicated place, you begin to defy the notions you once held true amid these feelings of freedom and uncertainty.

One can’t help but be rebellious because at the time it truly seems like the only reasonable option. But at some point, this feeling wears off, and your world starts crumbling around you. The consequences of your actions: no longer just a scare tactic, but a dark reality.

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A sad realization that at some point in our transition to adulthood, we must leave behind this sense of invincibility that comes with being a teenager. There inevitably comes a time when we start taking things more seriously, and the weight of the world starts to slowly creep on our shoulders.

This is not necessarily bad, I personally think that the reason we stop feeling like we are on top of the world is that, well, to put it simply… we aren’t. Realizing that you are not the center of the universe is one of the most humbling yet necessary experiences that comes with getting older. Our stable system of adulthood successfully removes the freedom we once had as kids. Does this make you more boring? Possibly, but it also makes you more self-aware and empathetic, able to see things from a different point of view.

Thinking about the portrayal of the “teenage nihilist” from this new perspective, one more skeptical rather than simply curious, personally raised some concerns.

For one, the fact that this characterization of teen melodrama over the decades has predominantly come from the work of fifty-year-old men is more than worrying. To be depicted as a sex-crazed adolescent is only sort of okay if you ignore the already-problematic over-sexualization of teens in social media.

A kind reminder that we live in the same society that idolized Lolita to the point that it became its noun, meaning “a precociously seductive girl” according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. What kind of world do we live in that allows a book about the sexualization of a literal child to become a staple of our culture?

And while there is a certain feeling of satisfaction that comes with seeing characters struggle with the same things we struggle with, where do you draw the line between a realistic depiction and a complete sensationalization of the teenage experience?

There is an inherently problematic nature in the way that the teenage nihilist trope is utilized in the media. Even if an accurate portrayal, if the plot offers no solution to our rage, to our problem, if it only serves to tell a story: I question the purpose of the movie at all for anything other than to create shock value for adults and to romanticize the experience for teens.

The film's lack of thesis and use of realistic sex/rape scenes provides no medicine to the wound it gives the viewers, offering nothing interesting to declare about the problems it presents to us. Instead, it only sticks the knife in deeper.

Even in movies where the main character doesn’t have a dramatic life-changing event occur to them, it seems it is the only thing that they crave. To have something to overplay or exaggerate, as if progressing into an adult wasn’t hard enough on its own.

“I wish I could live through something… the only exciting thing about 2002 is that it is a palindrome,” (Lady Bird).

We are often told that our teen years will be the “peak” of our lives. Has this concept together with the overdramatized portrayals of adolescence we see on screens impelled us to be disappointed if our experiences are not nearly as startling?

Another issue I also feel is often left out of the narrative of the “teenage nihilist” plot is the privilege that is needed in order to explore these feelings of impulsiveness and error-prone nature apparently inherent in the process of growing up. We have all made mistakes, careless and incautious decisions that we (hopefully) get to laugh at looking back now. But what differentiates the consequences of my decisions from someone else’s? Luck? Privilege? Would things have gone the same way had I had a different skin color? A different support system?

Dawned as “the time to make mistakes,” being a teen is only the “perfect time” to be reckless under specific frameworks and circumstances. In essence, I still find these movies important to watch and talk about, but I find it more important that we make space for discussion and criticism of them.

I do have to mention that it feels kind of funky to reflect on teenagehood as I am still a “teen” of sorts as I write this, at least for the next few months. But alas, this analysis is as much of introspection as it is an extrospection of my teenage years, of my years now, and the ones to come.

Our life seems to pass us by so quickly, and reflecting on the ethereal nature of childhood only makes our memories appear all the more transient. How strange to feel nostalgia for our “fleeting youth” when many of us have barely entered the cusp of adulthood. It is so easy to get caught up in the passing of time that we forget to live our today.

There is an undeniable allure to teenage melancholy. The power that an old playlist or a song has to take me on a trip down memory lane is exceedingly compelling. But just like movies and tv shows our recollections of our past are probably not as accurate as we might be led to believe. And perhaps, this is why there are so many inaccurate portrayals of the teenage experience: by the time you are able to process your experiences coherently, you can no longer remember what is truly like to live through them.

The Exploitation of the Teenage Nihilist

When entering our teenage years we are all encountered our own sets of struggles. Many of them are unique, and others bizarrely universal. It is a time during which many of us begin to ask questions about the world, about the people around us, but also about ourselves and about our identity.

We begin to understand who we are, or at the very least try to. And in the midst of this existential crisis coined under the name adolescence, we are met with confusion, awkwardness, and rage. Angry because we are confused and confused as to why we are angry.

“It’s an age where nothing fits,” as Rochelle Hudson put it in Rebel Without a Cause (1955).

Rebel Without a Cause is an answer to the question: why do teens act the way that they do?

In an especially tense scene, Dean asks Buzz (Corey Allen), Wood’s friend who he is about to have a chickie run against, “Why do we do this?”. In response, Allen says, “You got to do something, don’t you?”.

Almost seventy years later, teenage-hood is obviously not what it used to be. Yet, the depiction of the impetuous and reckless teen this movie sets the stage for has not ceased to be a prevalent topic of discussion.

Plenty of movies and tv shows alike have since tried to grasp the logic behind the teenage nihilist, including Thirteen (2003), Skins (2007), and Fight Club (1999) just to name a few.

We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives.

The movie that inspired me to write this article in the first place is, in my opinion, a masterpiece within the realm of this category: Kids (1995).

When I first watched it - which was sometime during my sophomore year of high school,- I allowed myself to be seduced by the aesthetic of the 90s New York counter-culture, a raw depiction of the same streets I walked on every day to go home from school. At the time, this movie blew. my. mind.

When describing this character Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert said Telly’s life had given him nothing that interests him, except for sex, drugs, and skateboards. His life is a kind of hell, briefly interrupted by orgasms.

In the movie, HIV served as a silent reaper. In an interview with Rolling Stone Korine said “the AIDS thing was like Jaws. It was a device that propelled it. We didn’t know anything about this disease other than that we didn’t want to get it.”

As the plot continues to unravel the movie manages to hint at different aspects of growing up, exploring the dichotomy between female and male sexuality and a conflicting depiction of innocence and immorality.

The teenagers in Kids seem comparatively oblivious of the allure of the image. They are seen participating in especially the seamy side of a capitalist economy – that of the drugs which hold out the promise of pleasurable, if temporary oblivion.

There is an almost primitive characterization of teenagers makes the film resemble a documentary rather than a fictional plot.

And perhaps what makes the story feel even more realistic is the fact that Korine was just 18 when Clark approached him to write the screenplay, drawing from his own experiences and casting his own friends for the parts.

One can’t help but be rebellious because at the time it truly seems like the only reasonable option. But at some point, this feeling wears off, and your world starts crumbling around you. The consequences of your actions: no longer just a scare tactic, but a dark reality.

A sad realization that at some point in our transition to adulthood, we must leave behind this sense of invincibility that comes with being a teenager. There inevitably comes a time when we start taking things more seriously, and the weight of the world starts to slowly creep on our shoulders.

Thinking about the portrayal of the “teenage nihilist” from this new perspective, one more skeptical rather than simply curious, personally raised some concerns.

And while there is a certain feeling of satisfaction that comes with seeing characters struggle with the same things we struggle with, where do you draw the line between a realistic depiction and a complete sensationalization of the teenage experience?

The film's lack of thesis and use of realistic sex/rape scenes provides no medicine to the wound it gives the viewers, offering nothing interesting to declare about the problems it presents to us. Instead, it only sticks the knife in deeper.

Even in movies where the main character doesn’t have a dramatic life-changing event occur to them, it seems it is the only thing that they crave. To have something to overplay or exaggerate, as if progressing into an adult wasn’t hard enough on its own.

“I wish I could live through something… the only exciting thing about 2002 is that it is a palindrome,” (Lady Bird).

We are often told that our teen years will be the “peak” of our lives. Has this concept together with the overdramatized portrayals of adolescence we see on screens impelled us to be disappointed if our experiences are not nearly as startling?

I do have to mention that it feels kind of funky to reflect on teenagehood as I am still a “teen” of sorts as I write this, at least for the next few months. But alas, this analysis is as much of introspection as it is an extrospection of my teenage years, of my years now, and the ones to come.