What Makes High School Movies So Enduring?
The Scoop features personal essays on movie-centric topics.
By Steve Hotopp
Ahh, high school. A time of boundless potential and acute struggle. Movies have captured these important years as well as any art form, offering plenty to connect with across generations. But what exactly is it about high school movies that makes them so great? So undeniable? So enduring? Let’s explore a few hunches.
Identity Spotting
Because high schools offer a wide range of characters, it can be fun to pick the person you identify with most. At a more wishful age, I might have likened myself to Ferris Bueller, able to outwit the principal en route to a fabulous day off in Chicago. As a more realistic oldster, though, I realize I probably would have been one of the extras in a cafeteria scene—a witness to the unfolding drama; one whose jaw drops on cue.
Optimism
Cinephiles of all ages frown on anything they deem sappy. But the more organically grown optimism we see in high school movies is not usually saccharine or twee. Younger viewers appreciate a world where so little is set in stone, where it’s natural to try on different identities and market-test them across classmates. For viewers further on in years, who are ground down by millstones of routine, seeing movies with so much future ahead can be great escapism and even inspire them to keep evolving.
Relatable Conflict
In teenage years, conflict is easy to come by. Angst, casual brush-offs, brutal break-ups, authoritarian grown-ups—these conflicts span generations and are understood by all. I find it interesting, though, how my own reactions across the age divide may have morphed. Would I smile as much now seeing Joel from Risky Business turn a suburban home into a brothel, or Ferris and his friends taking the 1961 Ferrari GT California out for a spin? Probably not.
Hormones
Of course, no discussion of high school movies would be complete without mentioning the role of hormones—those new, intense little compounds that often dominate. That’s a language we all understand. But I think it’s fair to say that in movie taxonomy, the “pursuit of the hottie” sub-genre is usually helped when appeals to the organs in the chest and the skull are also a part. Superbad, by all accounts, has a bit of warmth to it, as an example.
Time Travel
Films set in different eras can be enlightening time capsules. High school movies are no exception. Depending on the movie of choice, it’s fun to bear witness to what the average 18-year-olds did for fun at the time. Was it cruising, making out, and going to the malt shop as in American Graffiti? Or maybe it was cruising, abusing freshmen, and getting stoned out of their gourds like in Dazed and Confused. Of course, what may seem like ancient history to one viewer may seem contemporary to another. I won’t divulge my own age, but I will say that I’m a lot closer to the Dazed and Confused vintage than to American Graffiti’s. Don’t laugh, Gen Booksmart, your era will seem dated soon enough.
Big Themes
Many of the best movies depicting high school life take on themes far bigger than the classroom walls. Films like The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Dead Poets Society bravely depict depression and suicide. Mean Girls and Booksmart dissect the social strata. And classics like The Last Picture Show, shot evocatively in black and white, set big ambition against the backdrop of a dying town.
Ultimately, I think what makes high school movies so enduring is that they represent all of us. No matter where our trajectories lead, we’re all connected in the awkward and formative trials of young adulthood. A time when growth is a given and not much seems pigeonholed. A time when someone like Lady Bird can leave home and, in the process, learn to appreciate her family, friends, and upbringing. A time when Cher can become less clueless as the modern Jane Austen construct and complete her “soul makeover.” This rang true when I first watched these movies, and it will ring true in whatever classics are sure to come.