The Week Ending September 3

ENLARGE

Credit: Corbis

1956 Teenage America - Hotrods, tonsil hockey and . . .(gasp) stealing hubcaps!!

Further evidence the youth in America have been in a perpetual state of going straight to hell ever since the first one landed on Plymouth Rock with a cracking voice and case of acne.

In 1956 the big crime wave was all about stealing hubcaps, and kids as young as 11 were doing it. Naturally, the hotbed of this festering inferno of hooliganism was Southern California. And KNX, the CBS Radio outlet in Los Angeles was all over it. With 1940's football great Tom Harmon narrating this sordid tale of misspent youth and the dangers of falling in with the wrong crowd.

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THE EMERGENCE OF TEEN CINEMA

The output of teen films into the early 1950s was rather meager, although America's fascination with juvenile delinquency (JD) never disappeared altogether. In 1949 two significant JD films began to renew interest in the cinematic subgenre: City Across the River intended to shock its audience by directly addressing the problem of teen crime, and Knock on Any Door further explored the connected elements of society that breed delinquency. Yet these films were tame compared to the ephebiphobia (fear of teenagers) that swept the country in the mid-1950s, in the midst of the appearance of rock 'n' roll music and the booming postwar economy.

The Wild One (1953), despite featuring characters past their teens, was the first in a torrent of JD films, which became ubiquitous by the end of the 1950s. In 1955 two of the most powerful JD films appeared: Rebel Without a Cause and Blackboard Jungle . Rebel spoke about current teen tensions in sincere tones rather than didactic monologues, and, with the death of its star, James Dean (1931–1955), just days before its release, it had an automatically profound marketing campaign. The ensuing veneration of Dean as an icon of young coolness—and his performance as Jim Stark, which embodied that image—made the film an indelible symbol of youth in the agonizing process of self-discovery and the forging of identity. Blackboard Jungle used the more typical scenario of an inspiring teacher who tries to gain authority over his delinquent charges, although some of them are beyond reform. The film was significant not only for its use of rock music, but for its integration of nonwhite teens into the story, which enabled it to make a searing statement about uniting against tyranny.

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What About Juvenile Delinquency? (1955)

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 Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Film (1964)

A Cycle of Outrage: America's Reaction to the Juvenile Delinquent in the 1950's

by James Gilbert

This Entire book is available to read free online and can be found HERE

Teenage Dating in the 1950s

Windy Sombat

Teenagers in the 1950's are so iconic that, for some, they represent the last generation of innocence before it is "lost" in the sixties. When asked to imagine this lost group, images of bobbysoxers, letterman jackets, malt shops and sock hops come instantly to mind. Images like these are so classic, they, for a number of people, are "as American as apple pie." They are produced and perpetuated by the media, through films like Grease and Pleasantville and television shows like Happy Days, The Donna Reed Show, and Leave It to Beaver. Because of these entertainment forums, these images will continue to be a pop cultural symbol of the 1950's. After the second World War, teenagers became much more noticeable in America (Bailey 47). Their presence and existence became readily more apparent because they were granted more freedom than previous generations ever were.

Teenagers like these were unique. They were given a chance to redefine the ways things were done in America. One of the conventions they put a new spin on, and consequently revolutionize, is the idea and practice of dating. The 1950's set up precedents in dating that led to what many consider "normal" dating today.

Teenagers and Teenpics: The Juvenilization of American Movies in the 1950s By Thomas Doherty

Teenagers and Teenpics tells the story of two signature developments in the 1950s: the decline of the classical Hollywood cinema and the emergence of that strange new creature, the American teenager. Hollywood's discovery of the teenage moviegoer initiated a progressive "juvenilization" of film content that is today the operative reality of the American motion picture industry.

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