PSU Magazine Fall 1998

its logical extreme in the violent anti-social lyrics of current music and movies like Natural Born Killers, where the heroes acknowledge no standards or morals whatsoever except their own. Media glamorization of the rebel coincided with two other trends in American culture during the '50s. As long as young people lived on farms or in the cities, they had to begin work- "You can drive when you're 16, go into the army at 18, but you can't drink till you're 21 ... Act your age becomes meaningless ..." 8 PSU MAGAZINE FALL 1998 ing to support the family as soon as they were old enough. "You went from being a child to accepting the respon– sibilities of an adult," says Blazak. But with rising affluence and the move to the suburbs, with all the time– sav ing appliances and abundant leisure time, there came a whole new phase of growing up in America-extended adolescence. Taking out the garbage or cleaning your room replaced bucking hay or working in the family business. It's an easier life, but makes for a vaguer sense of purpose. That same theme is seen in contemporary literature, as well, says Ray Mariels, professor of English. "There are hundreds of novels by dozens of writers over the past 15 years that portray teenagers who have a deep sense of alienation from society and from the world," he says. Referred to as the "donut school" of contempo– rary fiction-because they grew up in suburbs that circle the cities-these writers mine the experiences of their own middle-class youth. Their characters are "often cynical, bitter, angry and sullen. They're bored with their schools and their baby boomer parents who started out as flower children and are now miserable, despite their successful careers and all their material goods," he says. And how their baby boomer parents grew up has everything to do with youth today. It was a generation with wheels. All of a sudden, kids were transporting themselves around in powerful, seductive vehicles that gave them unprecedented freedom to go where they pleased and do what they wanted, without the supervision of adults. "Before the '50s, you never see kids driving cars in the movies," Blazak says. "After that, it's practically all you see." eenagehood was hatched, and along with it that bizarre, self– contained, artificial universe, the modem high school. Where daily dramas-of who's in and who's out, who's cool and who's a nerd, who's going out with whom and who's broken up with whom-reign supreme. Where the standards of adults and society don't necessarily apply. Where what your friends think means practically every– thing. And where corporate market– ing-fashions, movies, sports idols, the latest music-holds powerful sway. Teenagers, moreover, are getting no consistent message about the responsi– bilities of adulthood. In America, when do you become an adult and what does it mean? Blazak asks. "You can drive when you're 16, go into the Army at 18, but you can't drink till you're 21 or rent a car till you're 25." In such a context, "Act your age," becomes meaningless, and it isn't surprising that youth often set their own boundaries and standards, sepa– rate from those of society.