New American Teenagers

Barbara Jane Brickman is an Associate Professor of English and Film Studies at the University of West Georgia, where she is developing a Film Studies program. She has previously published articles on the pathologization of female teens, fantasy and the teen spectator, and the queering of fandom. Her current project focuses on the depiction of adolescents in the films of the 1970s.

• Introduction: New American Teenagers; Chapter One: Darktown Strutters in Transsexual Transylvania: The Exploitation and Parody of "Teenpics" in the 1970s; Chapter Two: Coming of Age in the 1970s: Revision, Fantasy, and Rage in the Teen-Girl Badlands; Chapter Three: The Queer Kid and Women's Lib; Chapter Four: Bad News Jodie, or How the Disney Family Got Freaky; Chapter Five: Brothers, Sisters, and Chainsaws: The Slasher Film as Locus for Sibling Rivalry; Conclusion: The Legacy of the New American Teenagers, or Beware of Ferris.

Barbara Jane Brickman's smart and engaging reading of youth-oriented films of the 1970s charters new territory by uncovering their subversive potential in their treatment of issues of gender, generation, and sexuality. Her informative and insightful analysis of some of the decade's most popular films is a welcomed addition to the study of the American teen film. --Stephen Tropiano, author of Rebels & Chicks: A History of the Hollywood Teen Movie