Executives at Walt Disney studios are asking Hollywood creatives for movies aimed at teenage boys, according to recent reporting in Variety. On one hand, this is hilarious. Since at least the 1980s, movie studios have been fixated on catering to an audience of teenage boys. This is not a new concept.
On the other hand, teen films as a genre — most of which were geared to all kids, regardless of gender — are a casualty of the changing business model brought on by streaming, as studios have abandoned mid-budget films to focus almost exclusively on blockbusters.
I can’t think of a single teen movie that’s played in theaters this year. Does “Freakier Friday” qualify?
Not really, according to Jacqueline Johnson, a teaching associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh. The 2003 version of “Freaky Friday,” starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan as a mother and daughter who switch bodies, is pretty close. But this new one? A stretch. “Teen movies aren’t just about teenagers, but they are catering to that audience. And ‘Freakier Friday’ is really for people like me, because the first one was a really big deal to me when I was younger. But I’m 32.”
Johnson is teaching a course this semester focused on teen films. By default, it is also a history course, because while there are plenty of TV shows aimed at teens — from HBO’s “Euphoria” to Amazon’s “The Summer I Turned Pretty” — when it comes to movies getting a theatrical release, the cupboard is bare. Why does that matter? Because these movies tackled all kinds of worthwhile themes and were made specifically with teenagers in mind to see together.
“I have such a visceral memory of going to the midnight premiere of ‘Twilight’ when I was in high school,” said Johnson. “So it wasn’t just that these movies existed, there was also a social thing around going to movies as teens.” It was a way to get out of the house, and you could do without an adult.
The moviegoing habit has diminished, but according to Johnson, “the social aspects have migrated to online platforms. I went to Reddit to see what people were saying about the final season of ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ and it was on fire with the weekly discussions and memes. So I feel like the social aspect of going to the movies has migrated to digital spaces.”
Arguably, one of the earliest teen movies dates from 1920. The silent film “The Flapper” follows the antics of a happily rebellious 16-year-old sent to boarding school to reform her ways, only to see her thwart those efforts at every turn.
But the idea of teenagers as their own demographic — as people with experiences unique to their stage of life, with unique consumer interests to match — didn’t take root until after World War II. An analysis in the Saturday Evening Post calls it “one of the more unusual inventions of the 20th century.” And you’d better believe that Hollywood took notice.
The films Johnson has selected for her class span the decades, including 1986’s “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
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