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Feature
The Teening of America
It used to be we couldn’t wait to grow up. Now we strive for permanent adolescence.
(Page 2 of 2)
Then, too, there’s the entire Alien genre of gory horror movies and vampire films (indeed best-selling novels), once the province of drive-in spook shows. The rage for sequels, which began with Star Wars, is a version of the old cliffhanger Saturday matinee serial (“Next week at this theater: Part 16—Batman Meets the Monster!). It’s rare to find a genuinely scary adult suspense film not splattered with guts, calculated to thrill pop-eyed teens. Ninety percent of all comedies—all movies, really—appear to be aimed at teenagers. “Adult” films equal hardcore raunch and “adult content” is code for graphic sex. The very word “adult” is now thoroughly corrupted, passé, almost quaint.
Staid old Broadway, once the last bastion of civilized pop culture, is attracting crowds to its comic book extravaganza, Spider-Man; Avenue Q, a hit show about naughty Muppets from Sesame Street, won a Tony. We’ve hopscotched a long way from Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Rodgers & Hammerstein, and Lerner & Loewe. No wonder Stephen Sondheim’s shows, which dare to deal in adult feelings, are so revered going up against musicals like Hairspray, Mary Poppins, and Wicked, or countless “jukebox musicals” that rerun teen classics of the '50s and '60s in shows that enshrine ABBA, Frankie Valli, Elvis, Little Richard, et al. Was our pop culture permanently stunted at 16?
Network television has long been notorious for catering to the 12-year-old mind, so nothing new there. I suspect one reason Mad Men made such an impact is that it’s about actual grownups (however messed up), with real jobs and serious problems, all dressed in business clothes, who inhabit a seemingly long-ago adult world; the series is light years from giddy sitcoms about 20-somethings still stuck in teenage love lives. There’s a lot of buzz over an upcoming TV show, Extreme Musical Chairs. I can’t wait for survival show versions of Spin the Bottle and Extreme Kick the Can.
Comedians who used to dress up like maitre d’s, in tuxes, bow ties, and French cuffs, now look like delivery boys on stage, wearing rumpled T-shirts and torn jeans, sporting a three-day stubble, toting the obligatory water bottle and liberally sprinkling monologues with sixth-grade “potty mouth” jokes that were already pretty lame in the fifth grade.
AND LET’S NOT leave out the two major pop figures of our day—Michael Jackson, a troubled Peter Pan of pop who never grew up and even called his ranch “Neverland,” and Lady Gaga, who looks like a bad little girl playing dress up in mommy’s party clothes—again, a long downhill road from former adult pop idols: Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Nat King Cole, et al. The biggest pop phenomenon of the last few years? Justin Bieber, a national icon at 14.
Everyone’s favorite childhood holiday, Halloween, has got sort of taken over by gays, at least in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, where it’s celebrated like St. Patrick’s Day in drag, an excuse for grownup guys to dress in goofy outfits, strut through the streets, and get roaring drunk. Speaking of which, pro football and baseball games are excuses for aging frat boy beer parties, even gang fights, and every televised game reveals alleged adults with garishly painted faces garbed in trick-or-treat getups. Tattoos, formerly found only on young sailors, are suddenly plastered all over sagging bodies—some sort of bizarre “branding” exercise? Graying women now routinely go blonde at 50, trying for 25, if not 15, a clear signal that they’ve hit middle age.
And so the teening of America proceeds apace, part of the nation’s post–World War II youth fetish that gets increasingly adolescent every year. It’s almost as if much of the country’s grownup population can’t wait to grow down.
About the Author
Gerald Nachman is a writer in San Francisco and most recently the author of Right Here on Our Stage Tonight!: Ed Sullivan’s America (University of California Press).
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Walking Horse | 12.12.11 @ 11:47AM
The music was at best a symptom. The underlying poison was the ascendancy of government-run education. Public education systematically reduced teenagers and young adults to child wards of the State.
We started out as a nation with no public school system, enjoying widespread literacy and individual achievement. The government run school system was instituted in the latter 19th century, an import of the Prussian model of hierarchical training controlled exclusively by the State, for the purpose of instituting and maintaining social control.
Some people disdain private schools because they suggest that, say, a parochial school run by the Catholic church will turn out graduates programmed to love Catholicism. So a 'public' school run by government will turn out graduates programmed to love .... precisely what?
Read it and weep:
Taylor, John Gatto, _The Underground History of American Education_
Taylor, John Gatto, _Dumbing Us Down_
Tina B| 12.14.11 @ 8:34AM
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Walking Horse, I have researched John Taylor Gatto and he is wonderful. Where has he been all my life? Underground?
One can read "The Underground History of American Education" at His website and I am almost half finished. It's a deep read, but I can't put it down. And I will order it used, for $35, so I have a copy to show people.
Please, America, read this book. He taught for 30 years and quit, while I retired the first day I could, September 30th. I was beatenby the system. But I had no idea the true history of American Ed. I learned the propaganda at U of Central Florida College of Ed, and bought it all, hook, line and sinker.
Now I just want my colleagues who are still teaching to know the truth. Wish me luck with that. Thanks again, Walking Horse, God bless you.
Radioman777| 12.13.11 @ 9:51AM
This article was a waste of bits. The "good old days" the author longs for never really existed. Socialism, marxism, communism and every other ism existed then as now, only then the purveyors thereof wore suits and ties, or dresses, if they were women, thereby lending an air of respectability to said "isms". Who cares what someone wears? Clothes make the man? Not really. Back then men didn't exercise, unless they were pro athletes or in the military; neither did women. But, hook-ups were common, if only more discreet. People knew their neighbors too, mainly because of the party line telephone and lots of back fence gossip. People read more, but most of it was the same sort of trash read today; there was no epidemic of people reading the classics and discussing Shakespeare over lunch. The world the author alludes to never really existed, as it doesn't today.
Tina B| 12.14.11 @ 9:24AM
Read Mr. Gatto's books, you are wrong. America exists today because of such men who definitely existed then.
You don't know about them because of the propaganda machine in use for the past 100 years in American education. I am startled to learn that what I believed in, compulsory public education and its monopoly in America, is not how heroes are grown and raised.
I could see it happening before my eyes, and I was a non-traditional teacher, a loving person who just happened to be an expert in algebra, and who just wanted to share my expertise, to the benefit of my students.
In the end, that was not what the powers that be wanted from me. I was not in lockstep. It got so bad last year, I felt I was compromising my own values to perform like they asked me to. I knew what they wanted me to do, to teach to the text, to the FCAT test, to the word wall, to the LFS learning map, to the Lesson Plan, to the templates, to the manipulative driven directions, to the paper folding techniques, not to the needs of the individual child. You can't expect fine results in a room full of children who don't want to be there to learn.
However, I understood that they wanted to learn from me. They wanted to communicate with me, and hear from each other. They wanted to ask questions about life, about people and even about religion and God. They never got to hear about that stuff and wanted answers from me and to hear what their friends thought about this.
After we talked about their needs, they would work like little beavers for me. Our math got done and my students were usually the highest scorers in standardized tests as well.
But that's not "how we do it now." We follow curriculum maps and timelines and rubrics and design graphic organizers for every subject in myriad ways. Our students, every one of them, had 3 inch binders with plastic inserts and 5 dividers and on and on. Imagine a 6th grade girl, all 4 feet 9 inches of her, with a 3 inch binder full of paper, 5 composition notebooks, a few HUGE textbooks, and more. All in her bookbag, and she has to manipulate all of this twice, 7 times a day, 5 days a week. This was her world, and when the time came, in March every year, she had to pass 3 huge subject tests, to make the school look good and her future as bright as possible. Everything ultimately depended on those 3 huge tests. For all of us.
I'm out, like trout.
Petronius| 12.13.11 @ 11:08AM
Dr. Price, who wrote The Great Roob Revolution, predicted the world we now live in: a monotonous monolithic mediocracy where the only ones left out are those of us who want the best things in life. The thing that scares me most is passing the 20 somethings in public who possess only blank stares when not using their iBinkies. It's a look of sullen angst reflecting the inability for any introspection or cognitive thought. Hollow minds sans narcotics once the byproducts of passivity are now connected on the net. Consider if you will a cyber-amoeba of lock-think impenetrable by other forms of outside communication. The medium has become not only the message but the command center of remote control conformity and comfort. It's unnerving to see a girl on the verge of tears because her battery is dead, since to her, the dead battery is death itself. That's the nature of it. Miss one thing and you might as well be dead because others know you missed it, and your screw up becomes the next tweet. in the words of the late Karl Maldon, "what will you do...?" For the time being, I stay off the streets.
Ryan| 12.13.11 @ 11:25AM
One note about comics and hollywood - they're almost the only original material left it seems.
TrueBlue| 12.13.11 @ 11:58AM
Are you kidding me? Comics and Hollywood have been rehashing the same ideas for the last 20+ years. Most major comic book heroes are 80 or so years old, and the "new" ones these days just use the figure of the character and then reshape what made them great to tell whatever social agenda story the author wants to spew.
Ryan| 12.14.11 @ 9:21AM
Except Hollywood hasn't used Comics as source material until really the first Batman movie, and not consistently until the first Blade.
Ryan| 12.14.11 @ 9:21AM
Make that the first Superman.
TrueBlue| 12.13.11 @ 12:03PM
I don't agree with a good portion of Mr Nachman's article when it comes to Pop music and Rock n' Roll. MJs earlier work was fantastic, and even a good portion of his more recent releases are good; he just had the misfortune of not having a childhood and so decided to live it out as an adult as soon as he got away from his father. Not a great role-model, but a good musician. I can't say I have any issues with Huey Lewis and the News either, can't think of a single curse word in any of their songs, and don't remember any lewd topics either. Not saying all Pop or Rock n' Roll are good, just pointing out that not everything is c%&*. I still listen to classical, but frankly a good portion of it puts me to sleep, and honestly what is so great about listening to old music? Are we supposed to have stayed in the past?
As for video games, I'm 30 and I still play them, but that doesn't mean I can't or don't act like an adult. I go to work every day in a button up shirt, khakis, a black belt, and black leather shoes. I work in customer service, and I maintain a professional attitude. What is so bad about going home and playing a game in my offtime?
Harry Potter by the way actually had several more grown-up references that kids wouldn't get, and the later books and movies contained more adult themes than the earlier ones; the series was good in the fact that it actually showed kids growing up, taking responsibility for their actions, and doing what had to be done even though it would obviously not be fun. A far cry from most of the garbage that comes out of Hollywood.
As far as a good portion of the population not growing up, I can agree with that, but I still run into a few holdouts here and there. Those wishing to accept responsibility for their actions and do what has to be done are definitely outnumbered, I won't argue there. It all goes back to the schools and Child Protective Services though, if you ask me. Free love libs took over public education (which should never be funded by government since it just twists a majority of the population to support their "benefactor") and CPS prevents parents from instituting a majority of the good old day discipline techniques. Don't get me wrong, CPS has a purpose in protecting kids from abuse, either physical or mental, but nowadays just about anything can get CPS called on you. So you have a generation that refuses to grow up being willingly held hostage by their own children, and an army of government paid lawyers.
Jeff Perren| 12.13.11 @ 3:09PM
Sadly, every point unassailable.
Thank heavens for Netflix and Amazon, where it's still possible to see good (though long gone) popular culture from pre-1968.
Al Adab| 12.13.11 @ 3:10PM
Oh it's like Duh ya know, like really I mean it's so like dude.
Seek| 12.13.11 @ 7:13PM
Regrettably, the spirit of Irving Kristol lives on in the body of Gerald Nachman. Having written earlier in these pages arguably one of the worst articles ever on cinema, Nachman now is expanding his sights on popular culture generally.
Westy| 12.13.11 @ 9:48PM
As I watch the 10th inch of snow falling in the 15-degree weather outside, I am thankful that fashion now allows me to wear pants and boots to work instead of a skirt or dress.
Always entertaining, the rants of people longing for "the good old days" instead of learning to see the beauty and good around them here and now. For every empty-headed young person you imagine, there is another one ready and willing to change the world. Yeah, music could be better, I'll give you that one - but then again, leave the beaten track of pop music and you find the passion of groups playing small music festivals, releasing their own music online, singers and songwriters who love what they do and make beautiful music. As for Harry Potter and the adults who love it - well, I'm one of those adults, because I grew up with Harry Potter. Give them a good critical read - there's more to them than a children's story (I would argue they are anything but). They're inventive, original, epic tales of courage, friendship, and devotion.
Finally: languages *change.* They do not *regress.* Read some Linguistics.
xman11stlouis| 12.15.11 @ 2:43PM
'give them...a 'read'...???...yes, westy dear, languages do 'regress...thanks to folks like you!...
Mister Grady| 12.14.11 @ 3:06AM
proly my bigest pet peeve is what pop culture is doin 2 the language its makin ppl sound stooped do you see how im writin this w/all the mispellins & lak of punctuation & lak of capitalization well this is pretty much how ppl are writing these days even one of my daughters teachrs cant b bothered to capitalize the beginings of sentences and ppl are using abbreviations nstead of just writin it out & it drives me cray Z & there layZness is disgusting...
lisafab| 12.14.11 @ 8:15AM
Great piece Mr. Nachman. Well written, and cogent; truly a 'grown-up' work!
Tina B| 12.14.11 @ 9:33AM
Yes, I am grateful to Mr. Nachman for his article, and Walking Horse for his leading me to John Taylor Gatto and his works. This has been an interesting thread as well, for the most part.
I, too, was a teen for way too long, 30 plus years. I will cop to that. I've had to grow up fast in the past 15 years, and it wasn't always easy, but I'm getting there.
elixelx| 12.14.11 @ 9:46AM
This stultifying race to be/do more of everything, is exactly where Spain was, where Don Quixote was, when Cervantes lampooned that whole culture and brought it crashing down--amid gales of common-man laughter at the foibles and infantilisation of the educated elite by a literary output that defied credence and nourished no maturity.
This is worse than pabulum...this is "the blood of the wig"!
bugle boy| 12.14.11 @ 4:58PM
Brilliant article Mr. Nachman.
To any critics who think Nachman is just pining for the "good old days," read the article again. All he is saying is that we have gone from a nation of Men, Women, and children- to a nation of teenagers.
EricTheRed_VM | 12.14.11 @ 8:41PM
At the risk of sounding like an fuddy duddy at the ripe old age of 41, I found myself agreeing with much of what you wrote. Teen fads are always going to look bad to their parents' generation, but why does the elder generation need to legitimize it as they (we) do? To be "pals" with our kids? To desperately fit in, as if we never emotionally and psychologically matured from those awkward high school days? I personally am proud NOT to fit in: You'd never catch me listening to Justin Beiber or Lady Gaga or watching Glee (although my wife does!). I'm a middle-aged guy whose favorite style of music is classical and jazz. And my kids have to listen to it when I drive!
I will admit, however, because I work with lots of young people and teens, to devolving into the teen slang and texting with all the cool emoticons and abbreviations. :) Those are probably here to stay.
Along the lines of NY Times video game reviews, you didn't mention something I noticed lately, the phenomenon expressed by the term "gaming." You're not GAMING, a'ight? Whether you're 14 or you're 40, if your hobby is playing video games every day, you're PLAYING. You're an adult playing a kids' game. Look yourself in the mirror and admit it. Calling it "gaming" doesn't mask or legitimize your perpetual immaturity!
Oh, and here's something else for the perpetual adolescents of our society -- because I see it everywhere from Facebook posts to fast food freaking marquees: PLURAL in English does not have an APOSTROPHE before the S. It's "Get 2 burgerS, get 1 free, not "Get 2 burger'S ..."
That's my rant. Nice article.
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nopaulina| 1.3.12 @ 7:45PM
May I add that the phrase is "couldn't care less," not "could care less:? It only takes a moment's thought to figure out why.
mzk1| 2.10.12 @ 5:29AM
Ads always had the incorrect apostrophe.
Foxfier | 12.14.11 @ 10:23PM
Oh, good grief....
As much as I agree that current culture is greatly lacking, could you have at least skipped the shallow stereotypes and proud ignorance? (On a side note, my mind is rolling at the idea of complaining about pop stars of today and aiming for the youth audience...and praising Sinatra, the bobby-socks singer who had several divorces, at least one big affair, helped idolize criminal thugs, etc.)
I'm a big believer in Sturgeon's Law-- 90% of everything is crud-- so of course the past is going to look better: the best of the best is what is passed down.
If you don't like pop culture, find something better and promote it. If you get your nose in a knot because of the format of a story, well, sucks to be you. I know that animation can be an outstanding format for telling a story, and I don't miss out on that just because someone told me that "cartoons" are for "children." That's what they said about Disney's Folly, I seem to remember from my high school film class-- you may have heard of that "flop" that was -- highest grossing film for a year, until "Gone With The Wind" surpassed it? Leading lady has a star on the walk of fame? Yeah, no adults in the 30s would go see "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." The same goes for graphic novels-- which have been around since at least 1897, when the first collection of "The Yellow Kid" strips was published.
I can only imagine people complained when the NYT (people still read that?) started reviewing films... just so you know, there are more women over the age of 18 playing video games than boys under the age of 18. A quarter of folks over 50 play video games- I know of several who play them with the grand kids because they enjoy games as a story telling format. Some of the best music I've heard of late was in video games, and heaven knows that the storylines tend to be better... You just have to keep Sturgeon's Law in mind.
xman11stlouis| 12.15.11 @ 3:06PM
sinatra's contributions to american culture are outstanding, in spite of his horrid (hollywood typical, actually) love life and penchant for bad behavior, if you follow only the press accounts...
but let's examine his gifts to the big band, pop, blues and jazz singing songbooks that are, even today, essentially owned by him and his legacy...
beginning in the late 1930's and continuing until as late as the nineties, frank crafted many songwriters' seemingly bland and corny compositions into world classics...not to mention that about half the arrangers, musicians and other collaborators in the country worked for him at one time or another, and sure seemed to enjoy their prosperity!...
whether releasing another pop hit, touring the nation for perpetually sold-out concerts, highlining yet another hollywood film or minting his latest lp 'theme album', sinatra was - and still is - the penultimate american entertainer...
for your penance, then, i want you to say the act of contrition, 3 hail marys, and listen this evening to the following c/d's: songs for swinging lovers (1956), close to you (1957) and my all time favorite - nice n' easy (1960)...now, go and sin no more...and don't ever say mean things about sinatra again...
Foxfier | 12.15.11 @ 6:33PM
*laughs* See? Don't have to be a great role model to be an artist!
scott | 12.29.11 @ 8:13PM
No one remembers the biblical verse, 1 Corinthians 13:11. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, and reasoned like a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
toyotabedzrock| 1.15.12 @ 7:58PM
Someone didn't fit in during high school.
Alexa| 1.15.12 @ 11:31PM
could you please define "adult" and explain how you think more of them would make this country a better place? isn't exuberance and innocence something that we should keep hold of as we grow wiser and more mature?
mzk1| 2.10.12 @ 5:17AM
What is even more disturbing is how teenagers have been (sice the 50's) permitted to completely define their own culture.
For example, the idea of the "Baby T". Some high school girls decided it would be nice to wear clothes way too small for them, so they could look overqualified to be hookers. (Or did I misunderstand?) One immediately thinks - why didn't their parents say something? Do they have any?
mzk1| 2.10.12 @ 5:26AM
While I agree with your premise, some corrections:
Smileys (:-)) are from early email, mostly hacker (old meaning of the term) stuff - college age.
Jews have always spoken with questions. The Talmud is written this way. I notice that te Romanias I work with also have no problem with the style.
Israel is a bit the other way. Although there is still no concept of business dress, unfortunately, ties are starting to appear among politicians and wedding parties. Not like the old days when Ben-Gurion, coming to a cabinet meeting in a suit after meetign iwth foreign visitors, apologized for coming in his "working clothes".