Post-war America was an exciting time. It was an age characterized by backyard barbecues and beach parties, mai-tai cocktails and Ford Mustangs, high school hops, Hawaiian shirts and Hugh Hefner's Playboy empire. This book charts middle-class America's move towards an ethos of conspicuous consumption and sexual license during the fifties and sixties. Focusing on two of the period'smost visible icons -- the swinging bachelor and the vibrant teenager -- this book looks at the interconnected changes that took place for American youth culture and masculinity as consumption and leisure established themselves as the dominant features of middle-class life. The author draws on a wide variety of popular examples--men's magazines, fashion and style, books, film and music--to argue that the bachelor and the teenager were complementary and interrelated stereotypes that shaped America's youth. Magazines such as Esquire and Playboy, and bands like the Beach Boys, framed and shaped a new meaning of the young American male that contrasted sharply with previous values of sobriety and moderation. This book discusses the images and icons that shaped masculinity in particular. By focusing on the changes both in masculine identity and in the form and representation of youth culture, American life is looked at from a fresh and innovative perspective.

This expansive, lively introduction charts the connections between international youth cultures and the development of global media and communication. From 1950s drive-ins and jukeboxes to contemporary social media, the book examines modern youth cultures in their social, economic, and political contexts. Exploring the rise of young people as a distinct media market, the book examines the relation of youth to modern consumerism, marketing, and digital technologies. The chapters are packed with analysis of media representations of youth, debates about the media's 'effects' on young audiences, and young people's use of the media to elaborate identities and negotiate social relationships. Drawing on a wealth of international examples, the book explores the impact of globalisation and new media technologies on youth cultures around the world. Assessing a profusion of worldwide research, the book shows how modern youth cultures can only be understood as part of an international web of connections, exchanges, and experiences. With an ideal balance between detailed examples and engaging analysis, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in youth cultures and the modern media.

This book assesses the legacy of Dick Hebdige and his work on subcultures in his seminal work, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979). The volume interrogates the concept of subculture put forward by Hebdige, and asks if this concept is still capable of helping us understand the subcultures of the twenty-first century. The contributors to this volume assess the main theoretical trends behind Hebdige's work, critically engaging with their value and how they orient a researcher or student of subculture, and also look at some absences in Hebdige's original account of subculture, such as gender and ethnicity. The book concludes with an interview with Hebdige himself, where he deals with questions about his concept of subculture and the gestation of his original work in a way that shows his seriousness and humour in equal measure. This volume is a vital contribution to the debate on subculture from some of the best researchers and academics working in the field in the twenty-first century.

American Pie represents the most commercially successful example of the vulgar teen comedy, and this book analyses the film's development, audience-appeal and cultural significance. American Pie (1999) is a film that exemplifies that most disparaged of movie genres - the vulgar teen comedy. Largely aimed at young audiences, the vulgar teen comedy is characterised by a brazenly over-the-top humour rooted in the salacious, the scatological and the squirmingly tasteless. In this book, consideration is given to the relationship between American Pie's success and broad shifts within both the youth market and the film business. Attention is also given to the film's representations of youth, gender and sexuality, together with the distinctive character of its comedy and the enduring place of such humour in contemporary popular culture. While chiefly focusing on the original American Pie movie, the book also considers the development of the franchise, with discussion of the movie's three sequels and four direct-to-DVD releases. The book also charts the history, nature and appeal of vulgar teen comedy as a whole, providing the first concerted analysis of this generally overlooked category of youth film. Clear, concise and comprehensive, the book is ideal for students, scholars and general readership worldwide.

This expansive, lively introduction charts the connections between international youth cultures and the development of global media and communication. From 1950s drive-ins and jukeboxes to contemporary social media, the book examines modern youth cultures in their social, economic, and political contexts. Exploring the rise of young people as a distinct media market, the book examines the relation of youth to modern consumerism, marketing, and digital technologies. The chapters are packed with analysis of media representations of youth, debates about the media's 'effects' on young audiences, and young people's use of the media to elaborate identities and negotiate social relationships. Drawing on a wealth of international examples, the book explores the impact of globalisation and new media technologies on youth cultures around the world. Assessing a profusion of worldwide research, the book shows how modern youth cultures can only be understood as part of an international web of connections, exchanges, and experiences. With an ideal balance between detailed examples and engaging analysis, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in youth cultures and the modern media.

This collection takes its inspiration from Paul Goodman's Growing Up Absurd, a landmark critique of American culture at the end of the 1950s. Goodman called for a revival of social investment in urban planning, public welfare, workplace democracy, free speech, racial harmony, sexual freedom, popular culture, and education to produce a society that could inspire young people, and an adult society worth joining. In postmodernity, Goodman's enlightenment-era vision of social progress has been judged obsolete. For many postmodern critics, subjectivity is formed and expressed not through social investment, but through consumption; the freedom to consume has replaced political empowerment. But the power to consume is distributed very unevenly, and even for the affluent it never fulfills the desire produced by the advertising industry. The contributors to this volume focus on adverse social conditions that confront young people in postmodernity, such as the relentless pressure to consume, social dis-investment in education, harsh responses to youth crime, and the continuing climate of intolerance that falls heavily on the young. In essays on education, youth crime, counseling, protest movements, fiction, identity-formation and popular culture, the contributors look for moments of resistance to the subsumption of youth culture under the logic of global capitalism.

This book brings together historians, sociologists and social scientists to examine aspects of youth culture. The book's themes are riots, music and gangs, connecting spectacular expression of youthful disaffection with everyday practices. By so doing, Youth Culture and Social Change maps out new ways of historicizing responses to economic and social change: public unrest and popular culture.

From re-runs of 'TV classics' like The Avengers or Starsky and Hutch, to soundtracks, club nights and film remakes such as Mission Impossible II, the action series is enjoying a popular revival. Yet little attention has been paid to the history, nature and enduring appeal of the action series, and its place in popular culture, past and present.
Action TV traces the development of the action series from its genesis in the 1950s. From The Saint to Knight Rider, contributors explore the key shows which defined the genre, addressing issues of audiences and consumption,gender and sexuality, fashion and popular culture. They examine the institutional and cultural factors influencing the action series, and relate shifts in the genre to other forms of popular culture including film, pop music, fashion and popular literature.
Articles include:
* Of Leather Suits and Kinky Boots: The Avengers, Style and Popular Culture
* 'Who Loves Ya, Baby?': Kojak, Action and the Great Society
* 'A Lone Crusader in a Dangerous World': Heroics of Science and Technology in Knight Rider
* Angels in Chains? Feminism, Femininity and Consumer Culture in Charlie's Angels
* 'Who's the Cat that Won't Cop Out?' Black Masculinity in American Action Shows of the Sixties and Seventies

From re-runs of 'TV classics' like The Avengers or Starsky and Hutch, to soundtracks, club nights and film remakes such as Mission Impossible II, the action series is enjoying a popular revival. Yet little attention has been paid to the history, nature and enduring appeal of the action series, and its place in popular culture, past and present.
Action TV traces the development of the action series from its genesis in the 1950s. From The Saint to Knight Rider, contributors explore the key shows which defined the genre, addressing issues of audiences and consumption, gender and sexuality, fashion and popular culture. They examine the institutional and cultural factors influencing the action series, and relate shifts in the genre to other forms of popular culture including film, pop music, fashion and popular literature.
Articles include:
* Of Leather Suits and Kinky Boots: The Avengers, Style and Popular Culture
* 'Who Loves Ya, Baby?': Kojak, Action and the Great Society
* 'A Lone Crusader in a Dangerous World': Heroics of Science and Technology in Knight Rider
* Angels in Chains? Feminism, Femininity and Consumer Culture in Charlie's Angels
* 'Who's the Cat that Won't Cop Out?' Black Masculinity in American Action Shows of the Sixties and Seventies

American Pie represents the most commercially successful example of the vulgar teen comedy, and this book analyses the film's development, audience-appeal and cultural significance. American Pie (1999) is a film that exemplifies that most disparaged of movie genres - the vulgar teen comedy. Largely aimed at young audiences, the vulgar teen comedy is characterised by a brazenly over-the-top humour rooted in the salacious, the scatological and the squirmingly tasteless. In this book, consideration is given to the relationship between American Pie's success and broad shifts within both the youth market and the film business. Attention is also given to the film's representations of youth, gender and sexuality, together with the distinctive character of its comedy and the enduring place of such humour in contemporary popular culture. While chiefly focusing on the original American Pie movie, the book also considers the development of the franchise, with discussion of the movie's three sequels and four direct-to-DVD releases. The book also charts the history, nature and appeal of vulgar teen comedy as a whole, providing the first concerted analysis of this generally overlooked category of youth film. Clear, concise and comprehensive, the book is ideal for students, scholars and general readership worldwide.

Post-war America was an exciting time. It was an age characterized by backyard barbecues and beach parties, mai-tai cocktails and Ford Mustangs, high school hops, Hawaiian shirts and Hugh Hefner's Playboy empire. This book charts middle-class America's move towards an ethos of conspicuous consumption and sexual license during the fifties and sixties.
Focusing on two of the period'smost visible icons--the swinging bachelor and the vibrant teenager--this book looks at the interconnected changes that took place for American youth culture and masculinity as consumption and leisure established themselves as the dominant features of middle-class life. The author draws on a wide variety of popular examples--men's magazines, fashion and style, books, film and music--to argue that the bachelor and the teenager were complementary and interrelated stereotypes that shaped America's youth. Magazines such as Esquire and Playboy, and bands like the Beach Boys, framed and shaped a new meaning of the young American male that contrasted sharply with previous values of sobriety and moderation. This book discusses the images and icons that shaped masculinity in particular. By focusing on the changes both in masculine identity and in the form and representation of youth culture, American life is looked at from a fresh and innovative perspective.