Tentative Chapter List

“Does Barry Manilow Know You Raid His Wardrobe?”:
Themes of Authority and Rebellion
In American Movies About High School

Introduction – Lots of Whys and a Few Disclaimers

Vignette: Frederick Wiseman’s High School

The Teen Film Comes of Age – How The Breakfast Club Established a Genre

With Friends Like These – Authority and Rebellion Between Peers

“When You Grow Up Your Heart Dies” – Parents, Teachers, Principals and Other Full-Grown Bores

Truancy, Delinquency, and Dysfunction – Ferris Bueller and the Death of the Grownup

Over Your Dead Body – On Making Your Life Your Own

Vignette: Gus Van Sant’s Elephant and how today’s high school movies are missing the boat (aren’t school shootings the teen suicides of today?) Also: United States of Leland

Epilogue #1: From Porky’s to Superbad – The Present State of High School Movies, and the… um, Rise of the Teen Sex Comedy

Epilogue #2: Thumbsuckers, Chumscrubbers, and Bricks – The Proper Heirs to the High School Movie Legacy

Film List

One of the most difficult parts of this process is keeping the list of films that I intend to discuss under control. One of the easiest ways to do that is to have a very clear idea of exactly what a "High School Movie" is. For my intents and purposes, while "Teen Movies" and "High School Movies" may have some overlapping territory on the Venn diagram tip, teen movies occupy a much larger (and largely uninteresting) territory than I am willing to be responsible for. That being said high school movies are not just about kids who happen to be in high school. They should deal largely with complicated dynamic involved in being an inmate of the American high school. In that sense, the action in a high school movie doesn't necessarily have to take place in high school. For instance, Ferris Bueller's Day Off is, like, totally about high school, even though the main character never sets foot inside the place. On the other end of the spectrum, Rushmore is named after a high school, but doesn't represent any real world high school experience that I'm familiar with.

There are five movies that I originally intended to focus on in my thesis. They are:

The Breakfast Club
The Chocolate War
Dead Poets Society
Heathers
Pump Up the Volume

I have added a few others while putting together my chapter list (see next post):

Brick
The Chumscrubber
Elephant
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
High School (1968 documentary by Frederick Wiseman)
Porky's
Superbad
Thumbsucker
The United States of Leland

Here's the full list. Movies I haven't seen are in bold. If you have seen them and think that they are either not worth seeing, or won't fit the vague criteria I established above, please let me know so that I can save time and patience.

10 Things I Hate About You
187
All I Wanna Do
American Pie
Angel Rodriguez
Billy the Kid
Blackboard Jungle
Breakfast Club, The
Brick
Bring It On
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Bully
Can't Buy Me Love
Carrie
Charlie Bartlett
Cheaters
Chocolate War, The
Chumscrubber, The
Class
Class of 1984
Clueless
Coach Carter
Cooley High
Craft, The
Crime & Punishment in Suburbia
Dazed and Confused
Dead Poets Society
Disturbing Behavior
Donnie Darko
Edge of America
Election
Elephant
Encino Man
Faculty, The
Fame
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Ferris Bueler’s Day Off
Friday Night Lights
Freedom Writers
Ginger Snaps
Havoc
Heathers
High School Confidential
High School High
High School Musical
High School USA
How to Deal
Jawbreaker
Juno
Kids in America
Light It Up
Lucas
Mean Girls
Napoleon Dynamite
Nearing Grace
New Guy, The
Newport South
Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon, A
Not Another Teen Movie
O
Outsiders, The
Pretty in Pink
Pretty Persuasion
Pump Up the Volume
Rebel Without a Cause
Red Dawn
River’s Edge
Rock N’ Roll High School
Rumble Fish
Rushmore
Saved!
Say Anything
She's All That
Sixteen Candles
Some Kind of Wonderful
Squid and the Whale, The
Stand and Deliver
Summer School
SuperBad
Teachers
Teaching Mrs. Tingle
Thumbsucker
To Sir With Love
United States of Leland, The
Valley Girl
Varsity Blues
Virgin Suicides, The
Vision Quest
Voices From the High School
Weird Science
Welcome Home Roxy Carmichael
Welcome to the Dollhouse
Whassup Rockers