The “Smart” Teen Film 1990–2005: Identity Crisis, Nostalgia, and the Teenage Viewpoint

Abstract

Canning explores previously unconsidered thematic and structural generic links between teen film and the “Smart film” (Sconce in Screen 43: 349–369, 2002)—characterized by blank, ironic, or distanced “sensibility” or tone, and preoccupied with questions of identity—which emerged in the intersection of independent and mainstream cinema in the 1990s. The “Smart teen film” examines issues of personal identity, class, sexuality, and (often) masculinity, rebellion against adulthood, and disillusionment with hierarchical social structures including the family, discussed here in relation to Rushmore (Wes Anderson 1998), Brick (Rian Johnson 2005), and Election (Alexander Payne 1999). The chapter concludes firstly, that the Smart teen film investigates these issues in ways that reflect American public and institutional discourses of the period which alienated and materially disadvantaged young people, rendering youth itself a “problem” to be solved; and, secondly, that it displaces the teenage audience in favour of an adult audience mobilizing discourses of nostalgia.