High-School Confidential: Notes On Teen Movies

How does pop culture reflect society’s values? “Pop culture is a term that once characterized mass-produced or low-brown culture: pop music, potboilers and page-turners, movies…” (Shea 707). Pop culture affects everyone differently. “Pop culture moves through our world at warp speed” (Shea 707). Pop culture can change rapidly without people even knowing. Certain movies, body images, and people reflect society’s values. First, certain movies can influence how teenagers act and think. In the article, “High-School Confidential: Notes on Teen Movies,” David Denby, staff writer and film critic for the New Yorker, wrote, “But no movie teenager now revolts against adult authority, for the simple reason that adults have no authority.” He states teens, nowadays, do not respect or listen to adult authority because the movies do not show the actors respecting the adults. The movies that teenagers watch show that the teenagers hold all of the authority. “Lost in the eternal swoon of late adolescence, they’re thinking about

In high school, there remain several different cliques. “And often the movies, too, revel in the arcana of high-school cliques” (Denby). He states that almost all high schools have different cliques. Also, people tend to follow other people’s styles or trends. When people start a trend, style, or opinion many people start to pick up the trend, style, or opinion. “Six months later everybody is reconcile…” (Twain). He states that the trend, style, or opinion can take time to affect other people. People usually do not form their own opinions because they feel like they need to fit in with everyone else. “...a man’s self-approval in the large concerns of life has its source in the approval of the people's about him…” (Twain). He states that people do create their own opinions, but they feel like they need other people to approve of their