Family Issues in Rebel Without a Cause Essay

Family Issues in Rebel Without a Cause

The typical modern day teen movie is flooded with stereotypes, cliques, and clich storylines. Dating back to the 50s and earlier, teen movies have portrayed the same general idea. Whether they focus on the geek, the prom queen, or the outcast, every character is constantly included, and shown in the same light. Everyone has known or has been someone that one of those stereotypes. Therefore, nearly the entire teen population can relate. The experiences and traumas may even stick with one until the later years of life. David Denby, a staff writer and film critic for the New Yorker, suggests that teen movies reflect the secret wishes of those who make them.

Screenwriters use their movies as a way to express their feelings in art form, so naturally they would reflect their childhood experiences. Movies from the earlier days, such as Rebel Without a Cause, for example, reflected deeper issues than not being in the cool group or getting picked on because of looks or demeanor, though those factors were included. Movies from earlier eras reflect matters such as family issues and self-confliction that most likely occurred during the high school years to someone involved in the making of the movie. In Rebel Without A Cause, the character Plato harbored the most internal conflict.

All three of the main characters in Rebel Without a Cause experience intense family issues and confusion. Judy seeks attention, acceptance and love from her father, who is clearly fighting an unnatural attraction to her due to her resemblance to her mother. Jim has a false depiction of his father. He thinks he is feminine and needs to stand up and be a real man. However, of all of the main characters, Plato is the most conflicted. His parents had deserted him, and he looked wherever he could to find someone to love and take care of him. Plato latched onto his new friends, Judy and Jim, and hoped that they would act as parental figures in his life. Plato then became convinced that his friends had deserted him, just as everyone else had. Although Judy and Jim tried all they could, Plato was beyond help. He had had too many years of neglect. His mind wasnt right, and it eventually got him killed. Plato never meant any harm, but he went insane thinking about the love he never experienced and feeling abandoned by everyone he ever cared about.

This shows that the screenwriters and directors of this movie went through intense abandonment issues, or was close to someone with this issue, and felt that there was no way out at some point. They most likely kept it to themselves, but they had the same feelings as Plato did, wanting to risk it all to feel cared for, looking for love around every corner. Of course these people never went to such drastic measures as hiding out while getting chased by the cops and eventually getting shot, but the thought of running away could have crossed their minds. They needed acceptance and love and for the confusion of their everyday lives to be corrected.

One may argue that the screen writers never personally experienced these emotions, which could be true. However, in order for the audience to feel the emotions the screenwriters are trying to portray, there has to be a strong connection between movie and audience that only comes from utter honesty.

In the long run, teen genre movies really have not changed that much. They still include the same general characters, with the same clich portrayal of high school, and the same cheesy storylines. Screenwriters from earlier eras to today want to make a personal testament to others by recreating exaggerated forms of their high school experiences in an attempt to relate to others. Whether the issues are as serious as life-threatening internal conflicts, such as Platos, or simpler, teen movies portray issues that filmmakers may have experienced, but to which everyone can relate.