Examining how the discourses of youth, race, poverty and identity take shape when Push is adapted to the big screen, this book brings together valuable research to delve into representations of African-American girlhood. The book draws attention to how Black girlhood takes shape in the film under the dominant White discourses that racialise non-White bodies, and examines how these discourses inform a critical reception of the film and Precious, as a Black girl. Through a consideration of Black culture and heritage, it questions what narratives of girlhood, growth and development are afforded to the main character, in a film that is informed by neoliberal and colour-blind discourses. Highlighting the social context in which Precious was received, the book draws attention to how a discussion of Precious in the critical press gives insight into the racial politics that were dominant at the time of the film’s release. It considers whether race impacts how the film engages with, reflects and moves beyond conventions within the genre of youth film. Concise and engaging, this vital book sheds light on underrepresented areas of film studies that make it an invaluable resource for students and scholars of film, race and youth cultures.

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.

The Breakfast Club is a quintessential teen film. This book analyzes how multiple factors coalesced to solidify the status of The Breakfast Club as one of the most emblematic films of the 1980s and one of the most definitive teen films of the genre. The film brings together genre-defining elements - the conflicts between generations and peer pressure, archetypical characters and breaking down stereotypes, the celebration and survival of adolescence, and the importance of this time in life on the coming-of-age process - and became a significant moment for John Hughes as an auteur and for teen films in the 1980s. More than just embodying these elements of the genre, filmmaker Hughes and the Brat Pack stars helped introduce and popularize multiple generic features that would come to be expected with the teen film formula. The content of the film combined with its context of production in the middle of a boom in teen filmmaking in Hollywood. Meanwhile, the marketing that focused on contemporary music, peer group dynamics, and oppositions between Generation X and baby boomers, merged with an enthusiastic reception by youth audiences. Its endurance speaks to the way the film's level of importance as a critical, commercial, and influential film with tremendous impact has grown since its initial debut.

The 2012 film The Hunger Games and its three sequels, appearing quickly over the following three years, represent one of the most successful examples of the contemporary popularity of youth-oriented speculative film and television series. This book considers "The Hunger Games" as an intertextual field centred on this blockbuster film franchise but also encompassing the successful novels that preceded them and the merchandised imagery and the critical and fan discourse that surrounds them. It explores the place of The Hunger Games in the history of youth-oriented cinema; in the history of speculative fiction centred on adolescents; in a network of continually evolving and tightly connected popular genres; and in the popular history of changing ideas about girlhood from which a successful action hero like Katniss Everdeen could emerge.

Clueless: American Youth in the 1990s is a timely contribution to the increasingly prominent academic field of youth film studies. The book draws on the social context to the film's release, a range of film industry perspectives including marketing, audience reception and franchising, as well as postmodern theory and feminist film theory to assert the cultural and historical significance of Amy Heckerling's film and reaffirm its reputation as one of the defining teen films of the 1990s. Lesley Speed examines how the film channels aspects of Anita Loos' 1925 novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the 1960s television series Gidget and Jane Austen's Emma, to present a heightened, optimistic view of contemporary American teenage life. Although seemingly apolitical, Speed makes the case for Clueless as a feminist exploration of relationships between gender, comedy and consumer culture, centring on a contemporary version of the 'dumb blonde' type. The film is also proved to embrace diversity in its depiction of African American characters and contributing to an increase in gay teenagers on screen. Lesley Speed concludes her analysis by tracking the rise of the Clueless franchise and cult following. Both helped to cement the film in popular consciousness, inviting fans to inhabit its fantasy world through spinoff narratives on television and in print, public viewing rituals, revivalism and vintage fashion.

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.

This book traces the development of Richard Linklater's Boyhood from its audacious concept through its tenacious production to its celebrated reception, placing it within the context of cinematic parables about children to demonstrate its distinctive vision. Timothy Shary, author of numerous studies on the history of teen cinema, evaluates the film's many messages about youth and adolescence within the context of early twenty-first century American culture, illuminating how Linklater's singular vision of the otherwise ordinary life of a boy reveals potent universal truths about all people.

Part romantic comedy, part sitcom, part social drama, L'Auberge espagnole (The Spanish Apartment) recounts a familiar 'youth' ritual - the move from university to 'the real world', the often complicated personal, romantic and cultural encounters that ensue, and the moral uncertainties that characterize that key biological and physiological developmental stage between adolescence and adulthood. French director Cedric Klapisch showcases the extraordinary colour and beauty of Barcelona's architecture, and places his hero Xavier at the heart of this smartly written film, which makes a series of wry observations on educational exchange programmes, multi-culturalism, and the direction European youth might take in the twenty-first century. This book addresses the topic of Europe's youth generation, paying particular attention to the ways in which the film depicts the transition from adolescence to adulthood as allegory for the experiences of European society as it moves through periods of readjustment towards uncertain futures. It also looks into the ecosystem of contemporary French cinema, the Erasmus programme and its influence on youth experience, and identity politics in relation to 'nationhood' and 'European-ness'. The book also examines the two sequels to the film - Russian Dolls (2005) and Chinese Puzzle (2013) - and how the complications faced by the main characters across the trilogy suggest that the move to adulthood is a never-ending process of growing up and reaching a level of self-actualization.

The Breakfast Club is a quintessential teen film. This book analyzes how multiple factors coalesced to solidify the status of The Breakfast Club as one of the most emblematic films of the 1980s and one of the most definitive teen films of the genre. The film brings together genre-defining elements - the conflicts between generations and peer pressure, archetypical characters and breaking down stereotypes, the celebration and survival of adolescence, and the importance of this time in life on the coming-of-age process - and became a significant moment for John Hughes as an auteur and for teen films in the 1980s. More than just embodying these elements of the genre, filmmaker Hughes and the Brat Pack stars helped introduce and popularize multiple generic features that would come to be expected with the teen film formula. The content of the film combined with its context of production in the middle of a boom in teen filmmaking in Hollywood. Meanwhile, the marketing that focused on contemporary music, peer group dynamics, and oppositions between Generation X and baby boomers, merged with an enthusiastic reception by youth audiences. Its endurance speaks to the way the film's level of importance as a critical, commercial, and influential film with tremendous impact has grown since its initial debut.

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.

The 2012 film The Hunger Games and its three sequels, appearing quickly over the following three years, represent one of the most successful examples of the contemporary popularity of youth-oriented speculative film and television series. This book considers "The Hunger Games" as an intertextual field centred on this blockbuster film franchise but also encompassing the successful novels that preceded them and the merchandised imagery and the critical and fan discourse that surrounds them. It explores the place of The Hunger Games in the history of youth-oriented cinema; in the history of speculative fiction centred on adolescents; in a network of continually evolving and tightly connected popular genres; and in the popular history of changing ideas about girlhood from which a successful action hero like Katniss Everdeen could emerge.

This book offers the first in-depth look at the history, social context, and industrial practices behind this teen musical phenomenon to suggest that social change, especially in terms of gender and sexuality, comes to the surface despite the film's retro setting, blockbuster business model, and apparent nostalgic tone. The vast audience for this film over the last thirty-five years and the various "hopelessly devoted" fandoms indicate that Grease exceeds both the confines of its period and the limits of any one ideological message.

A low-budget independent film made by a now defunct video company in the late 1980s, Dirty Dancing became a sleeper hit with a huge, primarily young audience. Even twenty-five years on, the film has found millions of devoted fans around the world through TV, video, and DVD releases. In The Time of Our Lives: ""Dirty Dancing"" and Popular Culture editors Yannis Tzioumakis and Sian Lincoln bring together leading scholars of film, media, music, culture, theatre, dance and sociology to examine for the first time the global cultural phenomenon of Dirty Dancing. Tzioumakis and Lincoln begin by assessing Dirty Dancing's cultural impact in the decades since its release and introduce contributors in four sections. Essays in ""Dirty Dancing in Context"" look at the film from several perspectives, including its production and distribution history, its blending of genres, its treatment of race, and its place in the political and visual culture of the 1980s. In ""Questions of Reception,"" contributors examine the many ways that the film has been received since its release, while those in ""The Production of Nostalgia"" focus on the film's often critiqued production of an idealised past. Finally, contributors in ""Beyond the Film"" examine the celebrated synergies that the film achieved in the ""high concept"" film environment of the 1980s, and the final two essays deal with the successful adaptation of the film for the stage. With the enormous cultural impact it has made over the years, Dirty Dancing offers many opportunities for thought-provoking analysis. Fans of the movie and students and scholars of cultural, performance and film history will appreciate the insight in The Time of Our Lives.