Hollywood High
A Totally Epic, Way Opinionated History of Teen Movies
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
From a longtime Vanity Fair writer and editor, a delightfully entertaining, intelligent, and illuminating history and tribute to teen movies—from Rebel Without a Cause to Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and on to John Hughes, Mean Girls, The Hunger Games, and more.
What influence did Francis Ford Coppola have on George Lucas’s American Graffiti? And Lucas on John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood? How does teenage sexuality in Fast Times at Ridgemont High compare to Twilight? Which teen movies pass the Bechdel test? Why is Mean Girls actually the last great teen film of the 20th century?
In the same way that Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls connects the films of the 1970s to the period’s cultural upheaval, and David Hadju’s Positively 4th Street tells the story of the sixties through the emergence of folk music, Bruce Handy’s Hollywood High situates iconic teen movies within their times and reveals the intriguing stories, artists, and passions behind their creation. These films aren’t merely beloved stories; they reflect teens’ growing economic and cultural influence, societal panics, and shifting perceptions of youth in America.
Much more than a nostalgia trip, Hollywood High is a lively, provocative, and affectionate cultural history, spanning nearly one hundred years. Handy, an acclaimed journalist and critic who spent two decades at Vanity Fair, examines the defining films of each generation and builds connections between them. From the Andy Hardy classics (1937–1946) to the iconic Rebel Without a Cause (1955); Beach Party series (1963–1968); American Graffiti (1973); Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982); the John Hughes touchstones Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1984–1986); Boyz N the Hood (1991); Mean Girls (2004); the Twilight saga (2008–2012); and The Hunger Games series (2012–2015); this is a captivating deep dive into the world of teen movies that captures their sweeping history and influence. We’ll hear from icons James Dean, Annette Funicello, George Lucas, Amy Heckerling, John Hughes, Molly Ringwald, John Singleton, Tina Fey, and Kristen Stewart, and discover why the most timeless teen movies resonate across generations.
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This piercing analysis from journalist and humorist Handy (Wild Things) surveys how teen films throughout the decades have reflected adolescents' shifting concerns and place in society. He suggests that teens "were seen less as their own species than as not-quite adults" well into the 1930s and '40s, as exemplified by Mickey Rooney's Andy Hardy films, which followed the quaint tribulations of the teen protagonist but were aimed as much at parents as kids. The notion of the teenager as a distinct archetype with their own culture emerged alongside booming high school attendance rates spurred by New Deal–era compulsory education laws. This shift inspired such postwar movies as Rebel Without a Cause, which dramatized anxieties around the growing gulf between parents and their emboldened children. Handy also traces shifting attitudes around adolescent sexuality, discussing how the Beach Party movies of the 1960s showed "lots of flesh but no sex" and how Fast Times at Ridgemont High reflected growing levels of sex positivity across the 1970s. Elsewhere, Handy examines how Mean Girls arose out of a moral panic around female bullying and how the Hunger Games franchise dramatized teen defiance. The smart exegesis provides both a doting love letter to teen films and a fascinating history of the teen's place in society. This entertains.
