Usually so stereotypically portrayed through film as happy-go-lucky party addicts or perhaps even the classic ‘geek’ or ‘dork’; a series of brave films by relatively low-profile American directors helped open people’s eyes to the reality of the modern American youth.
What is most harrowing about these films is that a number of them are based on real-life events. Controversial director Larry Clarke set the ball rolling. He himself grew up in 60’s America taking drugs and living a bohemian lifestyle, constantly taking pictures along the way – pictures which have received acclaim from observers for they’re uncensored nature of drug abuse in the US. Beside from his amateur photography, Clarke directed the gritty teenage drama Kids in 1995.
Clarke stated that he wanted to create the ‘Great American Teenage Movie’ to go alongside the ‘Great American Novel’. He cast ordinary New York ‘street kids’ who had never acted before in their lives, he wanted the ultimate reality of the era. Kids was released to significant negativity among critics who questioned it’s artistic value, with it’s consistent showing of underage sex and drug-abuse.
Perhaps America didn’t like this side of it’s youth, either they didn’t believe it existed or they simply didn’t want to see it in film; either way the film wasn’t appreciated until much later when reality had settled. It was an era of HIV, drug-addiction and gangland killings, and this film was too much too soon.
Clark followed this up with the 2001 independent drama Bully, based on the real-life killing of teenager Bobby Kent in 1993. More underage sex and drug-abuse, only this time murder and to top it off, it all actually happened.
Reality had struck by the time Alpha Dog was released in 2007, another film based on actual events, attracting bigger names like Justin Timberlake and Bruce Willis. It involved the killing of another relatively innocent teenager, another victim of this seemingly elusive subculture in social American history.
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