Do you ever wonder why our culture is so obsessed with teenage protagonists? Is it a longing-for-youth kind of thing? If so, why teenagers? Being a teenager sucks! You have almost no control over your environment, you have no perspective, you feel everything too strongly and haven't figured out yet what it means to be you. I understand a longing for youth, but why not your twenties, when you have the youth without all the drawbacks? What is so great about teenagers??
That isn't really the part that bothers me, though. Maybe most people have a different preference than I do; I can understand that easily. My problem with teenage protagonists is that they always, always have to fall in love. And because it's the movies, it has to be Love—the "let's spend the rest of our lives together" kind.
I saw Beautiful Creatures the other night, when I started this post, and I liked it a lot. It was an interesting plot, well-acted, beautifully filmed and scored, with strong and complex female characters who significantly outnumbered the (also great) male characters. The one thing that distracted me was the ages of the protagonists: fifteen and sixteen. Oh, how I tire of fifteen-year-olds in love.
Of all our lovely princesses, Cinderella and Tiana are the oldest, at nineteen. Snow White is the youngest—at fourteen. Jasmine is fifteen (until the end of the movie); Aurora, Ariel, and Mulan are sixteen; Belle is seventeen; and Rapunzel is eighteen. Pocahontas isn't specifically named but she's somewhere between fifteen and eighteen during the movie.
So... What is the deal? I mean, let's be honest: Most teenagers don't know what that kind of love is. Or, to be more accurate, they think everything is that kind of love. Only an extraordinarily unusual fifteen-year-old would have any idea what she was going to want twenty, forty, sixty years in the future. Why do we insist on idealizing those relationships?
I have to admit that I feel like my dislike of the teen romance tropes must be reflective of some unknown hangups I have, maybe leftover from my more Puritanical days? I think that I worry too much about how media affects teenagers. But then again, I think about movies like Miss Representation, and I think about what I was like as a teenager, and then I'm not sure that my suspicion is unfounded. I know I wasn't the most put-together teenager. I know several people who were a lot more confident than I was in high school, who were smart and knew things about life and had older siblings and long-term perspective and all kinds of things I didn't have. But I know there are teenagers like me, too. And I know that sometimes, teenagers are just naive enough to think that the things they see in movies are really what life is like. I know that the teen years are kind of scary ones, because the choices you make as a teenager can impact the whole rest of your life, even though you don't have enough perspective to know that. I'm the kind of person who thinks about her future children, and who worries about her nieces and nephews and, frankly, random teenagers she doesn't even know. So yeah, I read more into these movies than the average childless adult probably does. And I feel silly about it. But at the same time... Isn't that worry sort of justified?
ANYWAY. This post has been sitting in my drafts for a really long time now because I just can't ever get up the focus to make it actually sound good, and I'm going to finally just publish it because I'm going out of town tomorrow and it's probably going to be another long while before I do post anything. So please forgive the fact that I'm talking nonsense, and tell me what you think about it.
And let's not forget the classics of teen romance, the Disney princesses:
Of all our lovely princesses, Cinderella and Tiana are the oldest, at nineteen. Snow White is the youngest—at fourteen. Jasmine is fifteen (until the end of the movie); Aurora, Ariel, and Mulan are sixteen; Belle is seventeen; and Rapunzel is eighteen. Pocahontas isn't specifically named but she's somewhere between fifteen and eighteen during the movie.
So... What is the deal? I mean, let's be honest: Most teenagers don't know what that kind of love is. Or, to be more accurate, they think everything is that kind of love. Only an extraordinarily unusual fifteen-year-old would have any idea what she was going to want twenty, forty, sixty years in the future. Why do we insist on idealizing those relationships?
I have to admit that I feel like my dislike of the teen romance tropes must be reflective of some unknown hangups I have, maybe leftover from my more Puritanical days? I think that I worry too much about how media affects teenagers. But then again, I think about movies like Miss Representation, and I think about what I was like as a teenager, and then I'm not sure that my suspicion is unfounded. I know I wasn't the most put-together teenager. I know several people who were a lot more confident than I was in high school, who were smart and knew things about life and had older siblings and long-term perspective and all kinds of things I didn't have. But I know there are teenagers like me, too. And I know that sometimes, teenagers are just naive enough to think that the things they see in movies are really what life is like. I know that the teen years are kind of scary ones, because the choices you make as a teenager can impact the whole rest of your life, even though you don't have enough perspective to know that. I'm the kind of person who thinks about her future children, and who worries about her nieces and nephews and, frankly, random teenagers she doesn't even know. So yeah, I read more into these movies than the average childless adult probably does. And I feel silly about it. But at the same time... Isn't that worry sort of justified?
ANYWAY. This post has been sitting in my drafts for a really long time now because I just can't ever get up the focus to make it actually sound good, and I'm going to finally just publish it because I'm going out of town tomorrow and it's probably going to be another long while before I do post anything. So please forgive the fact that I'm talking nonsense, and tell me what you think about it.
I totally get where you're coming from! And, actually, aside from Jasmine, I somehow had no idea about the ages of the Disney princesses. I think I assumed they were all not teenagers because of how they're not awkward messes.
ReplyDeleteWhich brings me to my own problems about teenagers in movies: a lot of the time, they're either not sufficiently awkward (I hate movies where only one awkward not-cool kid has zits. Shut up, movie makers, good skin was the exception, not the rule, in high school, and we were all awkward and weird, even the cool kids, because we were teenagers.) or they're a little too teenager-y and I get annoyed with them quickly(newest Spider-Man movie, for example. I basically turned into an ornery old woman who hated teenagers over the course of the movie).
But at least every once in a while, we get movies like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, where the teenagers are believable but not unbearable. And no one in that movie got married to their prince, either!
Oh, 25-year-olds playing teenagers! Yes, exactly. That's the other thing that drives me crazy. You know, there's a reason it's so bizarre when we see celebrities' high school photos. And you're totally right about The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Those actors are actually all in their twenties, too, but somehow they just did a better job of making them seem real. Ezra Miller is the youngest one, and I think he was 19 when it came out. But that movie really is great.
ReplyDeleteI think lots of times people watch movies for pure entertainment, to get out of reality for a while. With youthful and beautiful people finding never-ending love and a happily ever after, it makes you a little happy, and hopeful that the same will happen to you. Or if you are passed that stage, it brings back happy feelings and memories of the good times that people like. Most people like a good ending, and so the producers give it.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about how odd it is that we buy into it in fantasy when it would repulse us in real life. Last night I read a romance novel (regency, so granted age differences were expected and encouraged in the 1810s. But still) and the hero was 28, while the heroine was 16. I enjoyed the book a lot. But I am 28. And I am the Laurels advisor and my younger girls are 16. So let's just picture guys my age with those girls. It makes me want to punch the pervy guy, not congratulate him! All fiction, but still!
ReplyDeletehow do you know the ages of the disney princesses? Some of them say ( "Daddy I'm sixteen! I'm not a child anymore!") but do they all? I don't remember.
That's totally true, but it doesn't explain why teenagers specifically, and not just any young people. I mean, the actors who are playing these teenagers are usually not even teenagers. This is probably at least partially because there are more actors in their twenties than there are actors in their teens, but to me it seems like a "best of both worlds" kind of thing—they get the mystique of the teenage protagonist with the more sophisticated visual appeal of people who've outgrown that teenage awkwardness. But I guess I don't get what that mystique is. For me, there's nothing especially compelling about the teen years.
ReplyDeleteMhana, I got their ages (aside from the ones whose ages are addressed in their movies) from Disney Wiki, which claims "canon remarks" by the films' makers as the source. Normally I'd look for more specific sources, but I decided this issue is not really important enough to warrant that much research. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I totally agree. Fourteen-year-old girls getting carried off on horses, thirteen-year-olds committing suicide, seventeen-year-olds sacrificing themselves to the beast that has imprisoned their father... These are very disturbing plot points. What is it about fiction that allows us to see them as romantic? I really don't know.
To be fair, you shouldn't blame Disney for the age of the princesses. These little ladies come from fairy tales/fairy tale lands, written at a time where the life expectancy was age 40 and people often married early into their teens. I am going to play the devils advocate here. While it is pretty disgusting to think about 15 year olds locking lips, in many of these instances, the intent of these stories is to show the power of first love or young love. I am going to quote an article written by a friend of mine (warning: it's a long one) on the subject of hormonal teenage romance vs practical adult love.
ReplyDelete"Anyhow, there are things that we adults — so practical and full of perspective — can learn from these torrid, unabashed adorers. Of course, we would never admit that to these little heathens, but it’s true.
For instance, sometimes the most important thing in the world is telling the person you love how great they are. High-schoolers are so good at this. The little couples cling together like two sheets of Saran Wrap, complimenting each other for hours (“no, you’re cuter”).
They also don’t care that their hands are sweaty.
They don’t think that a box of chocolates is trite or meaningless.
They don’t make it more than one class period without writing a flirty note for each other.
They sit together for hours and share one pair of headphones, nodding and smiling at music we could never understand, because we are old.
Of course, they don’t have the perspective we do. Seasoned adults like us know that everyone in the world has broken up with everyone they’ve ever been with, except for the person they’re with right now (and even then, maybe not).
We know that our old high school boyfriend/girlfriend is now on his/her third spouse, struggles with a job at the credit union, and is trying to get everyone they know into some Ponzi scheme involving time-shares.
We know that no one actually stands outside of a another person’s window, holding up a boom box that wails Phil Collins or Bonnie Raitt, without getting the cops called on them.
We know that Nicholas Sparks’ novels are emotionally manipulative.
We know that Marilyn Monroe was probably mentally ill, and Clark Gable was an alcoholic, and Brad Pitt probably did cheat on Jennifer Aniston.
And we know that Mr. Darcy, Stargirl, Han Solo, Jane Eyre, and Edward-and-Jacob aren’t real people.
The warmth of our youth has been sitting in a Tupperware at the back of the fridge for years. Who knows what it would smell like if we tried to open it and throw it out?
But my advice to you would be this: Open the Tupperware. Carpe a little diem, as it were. And, most importantly on this Valentine’s Day, try and learn a little bit from these high school kids who are hopelessly, ignorantly and utterly in love. Yes, they’re disgusting. Yes, they spend too much on Axe body spray. And yes, they become even worse drivers when they have someone to stare longingly at in the shotgun seat.
But they are happy, and not embarrassed by it. That’s how they can stand, unaffected, in the middle of a crowded hall, just staring at each other."
Sorry to leave your comment hanging for so long, Melissa! I just got back from out of town and it was a busy, busy week that I was gone.
ReplyDeleteI don't "blame" Disney for the ages of the princesses (I'm not actually blaming anyone for anything here). But is their choice to tell those stories, of all the stories in the world, much different than if they'd written the stories themselves? They changed plenty of other things about each of those fairy tales—why not the ages of their protagonists, given that we no longer have 40-year life expectancies and do find it creepy to think about fifteen-year-olds getting married? Would changing their ages have affected the story?
I see what you mean about focusing on the power of first love, but I have to admit, I just don't find anything all that admirable in it. Maybe it's just me, I really don't know—I've always had the personality of an old person anyway. But I read that quote from your friend's article and I kind of rolled my eyes. What is so great about loving ignorantly and hopelessly? Is involving your brain in your romantic relationships really something we adults should chalk up to our moldy disillusionment? Sure, it's true that some people lose their "warmth" as they get older and experience pain and heartbreak. I don't think it's good to ignore your heart and use only your brain. But what is this implication that growing out of the whirlwind crushes of high school signifies some kind of decay? That doesn't work for me at all.
We can also talk about the fact that if they're not in the same grade in high school, it's almost guaranteed that the male half of the couple is older than the female half (often by several years, meaning that she is a teenager and he is an adult). Look at the Disney movies—I don't think most of their ages are specifically mentioned, but most of them are obviously young adult men. The Beast is twenty-one; there's no official age for Flynn Rider, but all the speculations I saw place him in his mid-twenties; Eric is eighteen, supposedly according to the official novelization; Phillip is already at least six or seven when he visits Aurora at her birth. It's ridiculously common, and it's also just part of conventional wisdom (the part wherein my mom used to tell me that I should date someone six years older than me, and people always do a little eyebrow raise when I say I'm two years older than Mike). Why is this still so engrained in our culture?
ReplyDeleteCame across on Buzzfeed today, and it made me laugh because we JUST had this conversation: http://www.buzzfeed.com/louispeitzman/how-old-are-the-disney-princesses
ReplyDelete