Written by Linnea Hopfenbeck
Since the 90s ‘coming of age’ films have been one of the most dominant genres in populist cinema. So what are coming of age films and why are they still relevant?
What are coming of age films?
According to Medium.com, coming of age films show “teenagers or young adults learning how to navigate the world” in a way that is “lively and bright, filled with the woes of adolescence and the growing pains of entering adulthood”. The aesthetics are usually accompanied by a “heartwarming growing up story, indie music, and tragic nostalgia”.
Compared to other art forms and particularly other forms of visual arts (such as dance, painting, photography or sculpture) film is unique in its combination of playing with the senses. It combines sound through dialogue and music, colour and shape through setting and cinematography and, with the average running time of 80 to 120 minutes, films are able to create a complex narrative. In this way films uniquely form a wider story, an ‘ubiquitous art’.
What is the history of coming of age films?
Though the first motion picture is attributed to Louis Le Prince’s ‘Roundhay Garden Scene’ in 1888, it took more than half a century for movies to become similar to the colourful, complex narratives of modern cinema. Significantly, early classic films often omitted the stories of teenagers, instead predominantly focusing on middle-aged men (the likes of Citizen Kane [1941] and Casablanca [1942], for example). Following the growth of several important cinematic genres and sub-genres (spaghetti western, gangster and dystopian to name a few), coming of age films took off in the 1950s in a post-war era of a changing, more nonchalant relationship to the arts and an audience with the time and money to indulge in it. With a backdrop of disrupted life during the war, coming of age films provided a nostalgic release from everyday life.
What are coming of age films like now?
Coming of age films often focused on the same tropes: first love, friendships, school and family. Given the limited representation of films in general, these films usually focused on white, heterosexual, cisgender protagonists in middle class, suburban households. Indeed, for medium.com, this ‘very apparent lack of diversity’ in coming of age films is in fact the ‘one common denominator’. Following protests and liberation movements in the past 50 years (including, but not limited to, the civil rights movement, the gay liberation movement, #metoo and Black Lives Matter), coming of age films have slowly become more diverse. The Queen’s Journal noted this slow shift in representation as movie studios have finally “noticed what their audiences are asking for”.
Why are coming of age films are still important?
With the exponential growth of social media in recent years, one might assume that people would rather be stuck to their phones than their TV screens or perhaps even that the deceptively real ‘connection’ of social media would be a better promoter of empathy and entertainment. If Netflix was ever an example of global social standing, one would only need to look at their exponential growth (the number of paying subscribers surpassing 200 million last year) to see that interest in films and TV is still growing. The interest in coming of age films is similar to that of most movies, in that it allows the viewer to engage in a story that offers release from their own troubles without the risks associated with being in your own reality. Coming of age films are perhaps so popular in that they fit perfectly into the fundamental cinematic experience of relaxed engagement. This phenomenon is described by Harper’s Baazar: ‘The appetite for the genre is ever-growing, since it allows viewers to relive their teens with all the retrospective wisdom and none of the existential angst”.
Given this premise, despite the simple origins of coming of age films, the genre offers the perfect opportunity to introduce more complex ideas (such as sexism, racism, transphobia, poverty and mental health) that are more honest to the lives of the teenagers coming of age films are trying to show. Perhaps more pessimistically, the growing diversity in the genre is perhaps a response to the growing power of the younger generation. In a society where billionaire companies are dependent on the likes of their Instagram posts and where elections can be swayed by Twitter and Facebook, every member of society is relied upon to feel sufficiently comforted by their apparent power that they do not bother to ask for change.
Regardless of the reason, which may actually stem from the desire to change representation in film, diversity in coming of age films is increasing. Despite the fiction we see on screen, representation can change the perceptions of its viewers and its viewers are those young people in society who can make a difference. Coming of age films can change the world: ‘Representation in the media affects the way society thinks’ (thecovenmag.com).
Examples
If you want to watch a critically acclaimed coming of age film that challenges the ‘tired tropes’ of its originators, these are a few of my favourites:
Booksmart (2019): ‘the most recent coming-of-age movie to thoughtfully portray the teenage experience.’ Queen’s Journal
Ladybird (2017): ‘arguably one of the first to capture the essence of teenagedom.’ Queen’s Journal
Rocks (2019): ‘Everything about these teenagers’ lives rings true,’ Mark Kermode, The Guardian
Moonlight (2016): ‘a visually ravishing portrait of masculinity’ Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
Mid90s: ‘Mid90s is so real the characters practically fall off the screen’ Eric Kohn, IndieWire
