Normal Abnormality: Coming to Terms with Teen Violence and the Undecidability of Youth

Abstract

Following on from the last chapter’s concern with developing a way to more productively respond to issues of sexualisation and the representation of young female sexuality, this chapter explores why it is important that attempts to explain teen violence move beyond normative assumptions about youth. The particular focus of this chapter is the phenomenon of school shootings, specifically, the 1999 Columbine massacre. Columbine is not the most recent or the most deadly school massacre, but in the history of school shootings it represents a defining event in terms of the scale of the tragedy and the depth of its cultural impact. Few other cases have received the same degree of public, media and academic attention in efforts to understand the motivations of the shooters and comprehend the meaning and implications of the event. Searching questions have been asked about the perpetrators’ psychology, their upbringing and social environment, their media influences, and their school and peer culture to try and understand their intentions¹.