fashion fades but she's all that is forever

I may have just graduated high school, but that doesn't mean that I can't pretend like my entire existence is playing out like a Kevin Williamson screenplay. 


Here's an essay I wrote and would eventually email to Charlie Lyne, the director of (perhaps one of my favorite movies of all time) Beyond Clueless. I hope this will inspire some of you to view high school through the same kaleidoscope lens that I did. 

Screenwriting, Secret Languages, and She's All That

I have always had a knack for translating my thoughts onto paper. Contriving delusions and ideas and pipe dreams into pedantic dialogue and actions became my primary mode of self-expression; nearly half of my entire high school career was spent sitting in my sunlit bedroom with a dog-eared copy of Screenwriting For Dummies in one hand and a blank Final Draft document in the other.

Although my burning passion for cinema and dramatic literature stems across all genres, I favor the art of storytelling in one specific genre of film—teen movies. Nothing strikes me as quite as fascinating as a fictional movie about the trials and tribulations of the most temperamental and interesting generation on Earth. By speaking a secret language of hushed tones, lewd colloquialism, acne remedies, plagiarized homework, and shrewd innuendos that is entirely indecipherable to adults, teenagers have the capacity to capture the subtleties of life that the older generation seems to be immune to and savor childish minutiae that adults render insignificant.

My passion for this specific form of filmmaking—where reality can be stretched like rubber and bent to fit any form of fiction that suits you—blossomed in the summer that bridged my junior year and my final year of high school. The obsession seemed to be a coping mechanism that helped me mentally adjust to the abrasion of adulthood; I longed to cling onto the novelty of teenagehood that was inevitably loosening from my grasp.

Movies directed towards an adolescent demographic did not acknowledge the intelligence level of teenagers at that time; they were written and directed by adults who neglected to research the normal behaviors of teenagers. They were entirely exploitative, absurdist, fueled by sexual imagery and insinuation, centered around male sexuality (and the exploration of heterosexuality), and usually relied on the gag of dry humor. Most of all, they were entirely unrealistic—besides the fact that the characters were played by twentysomething actors, unrealistic tropes (as seen in Charlie Lyne’s documentary Beyond Clueless, the party scene, the lurid pool/underwater scene, and the destruction montage) were exhausted within every still. Through this, however, filmmakers were able to explore topics that appeared to be arbitrary in media typically ushered towards a younger demographic. Each film became a walking allegory for the facets of human behavior unfathomable to teenagers (to quote Lyne: “The teen genre is basically one big Trojan horse for some of the most challenging ideas ever committed to celluloid.”). This desire to adhere as much implicit imagery to a plotline is what intrigued me.

I found value in these films. I learned about the inherent deviance of femininity and the subtleties of male sexuality through the implicit sexual undertones of Ginger Snaps and Idle Hands. I was forced to recognize the ugliness of puberty in The Virgin Suicides and the complexities of religion in The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys. My plastic imprisonment in suburbia—where I was left to rot in sweet, sticky boredom—was reflected in Bubble Boy. I was able to bring the strange lessons that I learned from these films into fruition; The Rules of Attraction taught me how to kiss, I Know What You Did Last Summer taught me the importance of Nash equilibrium, Josie and the Pussycats taught me about authenticity, and Swimfan taught me how to curtail obsession.

Everything became a teen movie to me. The walk from my seventh period class to the student parking lot transformed into an epic tracking-shot (usually set to the background of Helium or The Orwells) that led me to the fury and danger of the suburban wasteland of the outside world, my empty household became a hunting ground for masked serial killers to chase me around with the weapon of their choice, and the crowded student section of the football stadium bred my desire to feel a certain degree of Varsity Bluesian school pride that I never felt on my own.

Every waking moment felt like B-Roll. I danced to The Walters in my bedroom and let my imagination pretend that I was amidst the clamor and controversy of a high school party that I would never be invited to. I lived vicariously through Can’t Hardly Wait; I was the virgin and the fool and the scholar and every other archetype The Faculty.

I could not contain my love for them as a viewer. I wrote screenplays and one acts focused on the
livelihood of what I did and what I didn’t know as a learning experience; I sound-tracked my own dream movie to get closer to the feeling of being in one—of being a character that could be empathized with, idolized, and looked up to. I was able to direct a one act that I had written (titled Pity Party) at my school to exercise my love for storytelling; in the process of doing so, my passion blossomed right in front of me.

By pursuing the art of storytelling at a postsecondary level, I hope to preach the value of the teenage
subculture to a larger and more-forbearing audience. If a teenager’s undying desire for self-discovery and curiosity of understanding the world around them was glorified outside of the realm of fiction,
teenagehood would not be so impenetrable.

Although somewhat irrelevant, I couldn't conclude this article without including this: I don't know if any of you have read my overtly-narrative review of The Orwells's Terrible Human Beings, but my entire fascination with teen movies and the novelty of high school is cemented in that album. As I was walking out of school on my final day of high school ever, someone skateboarded right by me as I was listening to Fry (an excerpt from my review: "...Billy Loomis skateboards by him to the opening measures of Fry.")—a freak occurrence that brought my Dream Movie to life. That has to be a sign, right? Divine intervention.