Review of Teenage (Perspectives on History)

This review appeared in Perspectives on History, September 2014.

"Teenage incorporates historical dramatizations with newsreels and early film footage so seamlessly that the viewer can easily mistake the staged scenes for documentary content. The film uses voice-over actors and reenactors to represent American and Western European youth culture. Each actor performs a vignette of early teenage culture, ranging from the turn-of the-century crusade to ban child labor to the explosion of rock-and-roll and teen representations of popular culture in the 1950s. Although Teenage spans three nations and about half a century of history, a common, and astute, theme resonates throughout: the teenager is a product of both peril and prosperity. The film argues this forcefully in its focus on the role of the world wars and how they created a desire for emotional escape and fueled a psychological predisposition toward youthfulness. Fighting wars, as well as maintaining hope in wartime and during postwar economic revitalization, strengthened teenagers’ resolve to recapture and exemplify an innocence that was too fragile to ever lose again."