Being a teenager to me is a fun time in life that was better than being a kid in some ways. All the fun of being young but with a few more freedoms. This is a physically superior time. No other time in life does one have more strength and is in a process of growing and having energy. (Though when I was five I probably had way more energy.) Though being a teenager gets confusing. I don't want to be cliche; which is my biggest fear in this article. I want to focus on specificities and how the experience may have changed over time.
I like to learn about the 1950s in America. The worst thing on a grand societal spectrum was the lack of a civil rights movement; by the way no small problem by any stretch of the imagination. Though civil rights changed America for the better, many other things about the 1960s and past it did not.
Teenagers have always been inclined to make poor decisions and do things that their parents and society did not condone. It wasn't until recently that society began to condone the very negative enigma that is teenage wisdom and motis operandi. Yes there have always been parents that fall somewhat short of Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver's commendable parenting and structure. It also wouldn't surprise me if the 1950s had their decade's "A Clockwork Orange". However there was an imaginary bar. A bar that set certain standards and anything less than the bar was rather shocking or would hypothetically be shocking to the greater portion of the society. Well back then swearing was not prominent in media and certainly not in the protagonist's script. Well they decided cussing was below the bar. Today the "F" word can be dropped like a hat by a girl the age of 12 and a room's eyebrows would stay level. Anyone can talk about sex and it doesn't even make an eleven-year-old squirm. A bad teenager was someone who called another guy a "bonehead" and didn't tuck his shirt in. Society even said that that was not a good thing. A funny teenager like Wally said cheesy things like "Gee Beav" and "Golly Wally" Now you can't get a laugh from a teenager until he or she says the most shocking thing they can think of..which isn't much anymore. Society feeds on new explorations into the disgusting for shock value. However less and less people are being shocked less and less. The margin for doing something that society says is inappropriate is well "bar-none". Take a look at this
| Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me (New Line Cinema / 1999) | $205,444,716 |
"Knocked up" totalling $219,076,518
"Freddy Got Fingered" grossed $14,333,252 domestically in 59 days in North American cinemas.
"SLC Punk" -first line of the film- "You know what, F*** America" was honored as a landmark film.
"John Q" starring Denzel Washington incorporated every socialist economic principal into the moral of the story. He holds up a hospital and demands free health care. He is later recognized as a hero.
"White Men Can't Jump" grossed $76,253,806 dollars just domestically.
"The World According to Garp" starring Robin Williams -final line of the movie- "You were right Mom, i never needed a father"
Sometimes I imagine what would happen if I showed an audience from 1950 these films, i mean the titles alone would make every mouth agape. We see exploited sexuality under the guise of humor, communist idealism, and glorified racism against white people and sexism against males. The sad fact is we have all been desentized. Class is a word that only means a room where children are taught these days. There is no character or tact or morality. We didn't fix things, we flip flopped them! Equality never quite made it mainstream. So that long winded point just to say: How are teenagers supposed to make good choices if the adults of society condone and laugh and or appreciate, racism, treason, profanity, drug legalization, domestic hatred, anti-patriotism, sexism, and above all and ultimately, shoving christianity into the closet.
The difference between then and now is that there was a christian mentality abroad, and now there isn't. Some people celebrate this change as a victory for freedom. When in reality we just changed a mindset of freedom of religion to freedom from religion.
So people ask what is so bad about atheism, vicious and sexual humor, communism and increased divorce rates? Well there are many reasons, but one reason is that it sets off a chain of bad family situations.
More than half of the teenagers today have to decide between spending the weekend at mom's house or dad's. Does anyone think broken families and domestic strife ever benefited a child? The fact is that the nasty society comes home. Our "bonafide" warped culture walks in the door with mom and dad when they walk in from work.
Now you say, whoa, Kel, come on, how does sexual humor break up families? Well i'll tell you. We can't laugh at something we are appalled exists and never knew it did. Something that stings our hearts when we hear it and burdens our minds when we see it. No one wants to admit that sometime in their life...they were a little girl or boy....a little girl or boy that saw for the first timea cuss word in a joke, or a sex joke or someone using drugs and we were shocked. We were disgusted. We felt dirty. Well we saw it over and over and over again until one day we woke up and it just wasn't shocking anymore. Well now that the topic of cheating and sex and hookers and encouraged condoned vanity for other people outside a marriage is no big deal abroad, well then it is 30 times easier to actually do. In 1950, i'm sure men and women still feared a red letter being awarded to them. Cheating has always happened but it was never deemed as "eh, happens" by society until these days. The demoralization that happened via all of those things society took on in media has contributed to broken families and broken hearts of children nationwide. Teenagers are hurt. They don't have life experience and they only know that life is harder then it had to be. So what is the motivation to not do the same thing? To indulge in self-preservation and do whatever the heck you want? "If the ten commandments should be taken off the White House lawn then maybe they should be taken out of life in general" thought the teenager. If a teenager is only nice to others because the biggest consequence is being called a female hygenic product "douchebag" or a five foot nine piece of genitalia, then we should hang our heads in shame. If people obey the law because they don't want to go to jail, we should collaps our head in our hands. Morality used to make laws, now laws make morality. The thinking these days is that it is never bad until you get caught. Everything one does in this realm revolves around the possibility of getting away with it or not. Which i'm sure has nothing to do with movies or television.
I and every other teenager has once been encouraged to do something wrong. The bad kid down the street with a bad reputation tried to tempt the 50s kids. Society and many many people in it tried to convince us.
At the end of the day, Iphones are great and everything, but I rather live in a time when most people had most of a clue. Being a teenager is tough; watching America go down the economic and social tubes with the upmost oblivious mindset, leaving only America's next adult generation this one and only example is tougher.
