“Totally, Perfectly Normal”: Social Class in the Teen Film

• In Event: 4167 - Section on Children and Youth Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Children & Youth Roundtable 6: Adolescent Education

Abstract

In many contemporary teen films, an upper middle-class background is presented just as the main character in the 2018 film Love, Simon described his life, “totally, perfectly normal”. While Love, Simon is hardly the first teen film to display such a casual disregard of class realities in the United States, the film’s presentation of an upper middle-class lifestyle as “totally, perfectly normal” is still problematic. To more thoroughly assess the treatment of social class in teen films, I analyze the fifty highest rated high school films on the website rottentomatoes.org. Specifically, I examine the representations of social class on the following four dimensions. First, I briefly discuss the specific social classes and level of class heterogeneity in the films. Secondly, I analyze the depictions of class conflict and anxiety. Third, I examine the links between class and status in the school hierarchy. Lastly, I look at the broader significance of class and its role, or lack thereof, in the film’s central narrative. I argue that the cumulative effect of watching teen films is likely to contribute to a myopic view about social class that can have negative real world repercussions. As such, there is a serious need for teen films (and other media forms) that are more verisimilitudinous in their depictions of social class and class relations.

Author

• Evan Cooper, SUNY-Farmingdale