SOC ∙ Wiley ∙ Teenage Documentary, D___ Name:

Background from the Teenage official website: Teenagers didn't always exist. They had to be invented. As the cultural landscape around the world was thrown into turmoil during the industrial revolution, and with a chasm erupting between adults and youth, the concept of a new generation took shape. Whether in America, England, or Germany, whether party-crazed Flappers or hip Swing Kids, zealous Nazi Youth or frenzied Sub-Debs, it didn't matter - this was a new idea of youth. They were all "Teenagers."

A hypnotic rumination on the genesis of youth culture from the end of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th, TEENAGE is a living collage of rare archival material, filmed portraits, and diary entries read by Jena Malone, Ben Whishaw, and others. Set to a shimmering contemporary score by Bradford Cox (Deerhunter / Atlas Sound), TEENAGE is a mesmerizing trip into the past and a riveting look at the very idea of “coming-of-age.”

Viewing Questions:

  1. What about teens from the video seem similar from you? Different? [fill this answer in throughout the entire film]
  2. The documentary opens with a discussion of what life was like for young people at the beginning of the twentieth century. Describe this period below with a focus on how young people were treated/thought of:
  3. What factors led to the concept of a “second stage of life” (adolescence)?
  4. How were young people in the cities viewed by adults?
  5. According to the documentary, why were the Boy Scouts created? What values did they aim to instill in young people?
  6. Describe how young Europeans were impacted by World War I (1914-1918) and its aftermath:
  1. Describe 1920s youth culture [this is the post-war period up until the Great Depression]:
  1. How were young people impacted by the global Great Depression (1929-1941)?
  2. Describe how the Hitler Youth operated and appealed to young people in the years before World War II (1939-1945):
  3. How were young people impacted by FDR’s New Deal (1933-1941)?
  4. Describe the swing fever that swept America in the 1930s:
  5. When war broke out in 1939, how did things change for young people in Germany? How did the Nazis feel about the British and American teen culture that had come to Germany?
  6. Despite “fighting a war for democracy” in Europe, in what ways was America struggling to promote freedom, democracy and fairness at home?
  7. Describe how young Americans were impacted by World War II and how adults felt about them:
  8. What were the [American] teen canteens?
  9. How did some young Germans respond to World War II?
  10. Describe female youth culture throughout the war years:
  11. What connection did the film make between teens and “big business”?
  1. What were some of the ideas contained in the “Teen Age Bill of Rights,” published by TheNew York Times in 1945? [Note: this is the first time the worlds “Teen Age” were used in print!]

Additional Historical Context: (notes to be added after viewing documentary)

Information Excerpted from Stanford School of Medicine:Date: 1929 | Brand: Lucky Strike | Manufacturer: American Tobacco Company | Campaign: Mass Marketing Begins | Theme: Targeting Young Women
Comment: Pretty, sweet and young, Rosalie Adele Nelson was the original poster girl for Lucky Strike. She is the all-American girl - "the girl next door" . . . . Every young woman looks at Rosalie and desires to be just as sweet and pretty, and the advertisement provides them with the impetus to smoke Lucky Strikes. This advertisement also speaks to the "Reach for a Lucky instead of a Sweet" campaign which began the prior year. Rosalie explains that she smokes a Lucky Strike whenever she is tempted by a sweet in order to keep her "figure trim."

Context: As the threat of tobacco prohibition from temperance unions settled down in the late 1920s, tobacco companies became bolder with their approach to targeting women (both young and old) through advertisements, openly targeting women in an attempt to broaden their market and increase sales. The late 1920s saw the beginnings of major mass marketing campaigns designed specifically to target women. "Cigarette manufacturers have for a long time subtly suggested in some of their advertising that women smoked," a New York Times article from 1927 reveals. But Chesterfield's 1927 "Blow some my way" campaign was transparent to the public even at the time of printing, and soon after, the campaigns became less and less subtle. In 1928, Lucky Strike introduced its "Cream of the Crop" campaign, featuring celebrity testimonials from female smokers, and then followed with "Reach for a Lucky Instead of a Sweet" in 1929, designed to prey on female insecurities about weight and diet. As the decade turned, many cigarette brands came out of the woodwork and joined in on unabashedly targeting women by illustrating women smoking, rather than hinting at it.

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