Swing Dance Sparknotes

The 20th century was the age of unrest and turmoil--WW1, great depression, WW2, Civil Rights Movement, etc, the whole world was changing drastically like no other eras before. I have seen many other documentaries about these events mentioned above, and desperate lingered throughout the scenes. All the faces showed no joy on them. However “Teenage” showed me a different aspect of those days. Unlike many other documentaries, negative emotions were not the only emotions been presented because young people during those “dark ages” in this documentary were also excited and laughing. It seems like young people could always find some ways to have fun despite how crazy that time was. Swing dance was brought to Britain by American soldiers during WW2 thus clubs in London were always filled with crowds. Furthermore, the massive army of young German soldiers marching towards the frontier in WW1 seemed like they were just going on a field trip, been unaware of how bad situation could be and death spiraling right above their heads.

Consequently, the previous generations had to grow up or become matured at a younger age. First of all, people didn’t have the concept of what teenage should be. Secondly, since there were so many turmoil going on, one had little time to transform from been an innocent child to an adult who can help supporting his/her family even the nation and take responsibility for living his/her own life. In the documentary, at the beginning of 20th century middle school age kids were already working in factories. After America claimed to enter WW2, many teenagers who didn’t join the army participated as labor force. During day time they were learning in schools and at night or weekends they worked in factories to produce war crafts. They strongly supported the