The Archetypal Adolescent
What does it mean to be an adolescent? Raging hormones, unsightly acne, the "my parent's just don't understand" mentality? Many teenagers feel the pressures that accompany the stressful and sometimes awkward phase of growth known as adolescence. However, few stop to realize that many of the understood concepts of perceived adolescent experience result from cultural constructions of youth. The notion that adolescence is a socially constructed concept may sound dubious. However, in Nancy Lesko's critical text, Act Your Age! A Cultural Construction of Adolescence, she presents clear evidence to support the notion that adolescence indeed was a construct of a society looking to strengthen a nation and thrive economically.
As a result of the United States' will to "establish a sense of societal order," as well as produce hard working and disciplined citizens, youth have been viewed as products to be molded and shaped into proper, upright individuals. They are looked upon as fragile and innocent minds, crying out for guidance. Thus, the notion of adolescence, roughly between the ages of thirteen to seventeen came to signify many things. Lesko's text delves deeply into these notions discussing concepts such as the four "confident characteristics" ascribed to the period of adolescence, the idea of "expectant time," the belief that adolescents are "always becoming," and the notion that youth must follow a proper "age chronology."
The media has capitalized on this notion of the oversimplified and typecast teenage experience, providing society with numerous archetypal models of the typical teenager, some of which include the popular cheerleader, the dumb jock, the math nerd, and the defiant outcast. Various films, television shows, and media advertisements reinforce these notions of adolescence as being reckless and irresponsible, immature and naive, and emotional and fragile. Not only does this draw attention to the perceived "adolescent problem," it internalizes the adult perception of the adolescent experience in the minds of youth. Through media depictions of the defiant, angst ridden teenager, adolescents are presented with stereotyped views of themselves, and unwittingly adopt the gaze of their onlookers. Not only does this perpetuate the cycle of the misrepresentation of youth, it makes this interpretation acceptable in society. The socially constructed phenomenon known as adolescence has become so commonplace in American culture that most people don't even realize its presense or recognize its impact on youth.
Movies such as Mean Girls, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Freaky Friday explore topics of typical adolescent behaviors that are widely adopted by society. These films all contain commonly understood themes about high school teenagers and reinforce broad stereotypes usually associated with adolescent development. Whether through their blatant conformity to these imposed standards, or there flagrant disregard for them, the characters in these films represent many of society's archetypical constructions of youth culture today.
