Rethinking the Hollywood Teen Movie

Frances Smith is Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Sussex. She is the author of 'Rethinking the Hollywood Teen Movie' (Edinburgh University Press, 2017), which combines close textual analysis and critical theory to argue that the genre possesses a distinct narrative and aesthetic.

• List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction Rethinking the Teen Movie Acting Up: Performing Masculine Delinquency in the Teen Movie Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955) Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978) Heathers (Michael Lehmann, 1989) Making Over: Gender and Class at the High-School Prom Pretty in Pink (Howard Deutch, 1986) She’s All That (Robert Iscove, 1999) Mean Girls (Mark Waters, 2004) Looking Back: Nostalgia, Postfeminism and the Teen Movie American Graffiti (George Lucas, 1973) Dirty Dancing (Emile Ardolino, 1987) Easy A (Will Gluck, 2010) Becoming Other: The Posthuman and the Teen Movie Spider-Man (Sam Raimi, 2002) Twilight (Catherine Hardwicke, 2008) Chronicle (Josh Trank, 2012) Conclusion: Not Another Teen Movie? Bibliography Filmography

Smith’s work here is distinctively knowledgeable, and it will be highly valued among the evolving studies of youth cinema.　 The genre needs some rethinking, and Smith delivers in her analysis with cogent insights, solid research, and significant aesthetic perspectives that other surveys have elided.