Coming of Age
Since I’ve already covered the horror genre in my last post, the other route that I would like to take for my final project opening would be a coming of age genre.
Target audience:
Like the name suggests, this genre is typically centered around teens and young adults, so it makes sense that the target audience reflects that. Since these types of movies touch on relatable topics, young teens and adults can relate to the character’s experiences and appreciate the meaning behind the film.
While these are mainly aimed towards teens, older audiences also tend to gravitate towards them. The themes of growing-up, finding yourself, and overall personal growth are timeless themes that can be enjoyed by anyone, but seem to strike nostalgia in older audiences and connect them with younger viewers.
Genre conventions (content):
Coming of age films are typically centered around the main protagonist and their journey of finding themselves, and losing their innocence as they transition from adolescence to adulthood.
The common timeline for these movies are: The character’s introduction where they come off as innocent and immature, a problem occurs that sets the growth into motion, the character struggles to find a solution, an event takes place that marks a shift in the character (usually a big decision), and ends with the character as a whole new person since they have changed and matured due to their struggles.
These films are often portrayed in settings like: highschools, cars, parties, bedrooms, etc. And often feature themes of rebellion, sexuality, sense of self, identity, love, and substance abuse among other things. The coming of age genre usually includes some symbolic elements like tattoos, piercings, makeovers, anything that might suggest a turning point in the character’s development. Another fun aspect of this genre is that it commonly uses character types like the “trouble maker”,”popular girls”, and “outcasts”.
Genre conventions (techniques):
The coming of age genre, while not always displayed as upbeat, follows some common visual and auditory techniques to communicate tone, tell us more about the character, and invite us into the narrative world.
Things like music, costumes, and props can tell us a lot about the period the narrative world is set in, give us an idea of how the character fits into society, and set the tone. This genre also uses iconography and symbolism to deliver messages to the audience without directly stating them.
For these types of movies it’s expected to see montages that establish character arcs, color palettes that reflect the character's mood, close-ups and wide pan shots during chaotic moments, natural and soft lighting to convey innocence, jump cuts/ non-linear editing with an almost dream-like effect, and symbolic framing that represents the character’s situation.
Institutional conventions:
These films are often known for blending genres such as romance, comedy, and drama. And are known for featuring developments such as a “big event” like a dance, family conflict, or pregnancy, and a journey of self-discovery.
These plot points help in marketing these movies to teens and young adults through social media as it establishes intrigue, creates an emotional connection, and helps to promote themes of identity, love, and growth.
Moreover, coming of age heavily relies on symbolic codes to convey a deeper message to the audience. This is often seen through the use of mise-en-scene. For example, a big field could convey freedom or loneliness depending on the context, and lighting could be used to show innocence or distress.
Films:
Mean Girls (2004)
The film Mean Girls perfectly demonstrates the coming of age genre. The film follows Cady Heron through her first year at highschool, and her first year not being homeschooled. During the film Cady gets roped into the most popular group of girls in school and tries to ruin Regina George’s (Queen of the ‘plastics’) life per request of her friend Janice. Little does she know, this scheme will have a seriously negative impact on her life. This film perfectly captures the genre because at the beginning Cady is represented as an innocent girl and as the film progresses and she becomes a “plastic”, she starts to become someone else entirely, as she becomes shallow and self absorbed. It’s not until the end of the film that Cady finds herself and fixes all the cracks in her life by making up with Regina and apologizing to everyone she’s hurt. By the end of the movie she’s a completely different person because of everything she’s been through. This film also uses different visual and auditory techniques to develop the story. For example, the use of pink in this film is meant to represent femininity and tenderness, and while the ‘plastics’ may be feminine, they certainly are not kind. This use of color suggests that Cady’s friends are just pleasant on the surface and are not actually good people.
Clueless (1995)
This movie follows the life of Cher, a popular, rich, and self-centered teenage girl. When the film starts out Cher is noticeably immature and naive, she always expects to get what she wants and won’t stop trying until she does. In order to get her grade in debate up, Cher devises a plan to set up two teachers. After her matchmaking success she decides to take a new (not so popular) student under her wing (Tai). Once Cher realized that Tai had gotten more popular than her and things weren’t going her way anymore she felt lost, and began to realize that her ex-stepbrother, Josh was right about her. She realized that she really was shallow and only did good things to feel better about herself. With her new revelation, Cher decided to start doing good without having ulterior motives. By the end of the film Cher has a completely new way of looking at life and has become a completely different person from the start. This film also features all your typical conventions for a coming of age with it taking place in a high school, cars, parties, bedrooms, and even featuring a “dumb blonde” character type as the main protagonist. Furthermore, the film also features a genre blend with romance and comedy.
Sources:
V. Renée. (2023, September 1). What is a coming-of-age movie? Definition and examples. No Film School. https://nofilmschool.com/what-is-coming-of-age-movie
Hickey, S. (2014, October 16). Target audience research [Presentation]. Prezi. https://prezi.com/u-mzr7kqffc7/target-audience-research/
The Take. (2020, October 24). The Coming-of-Age Horror Trope, Explained [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/s9SG9fv0fqQ?si=ausa7qnu_Pgt3hYX
MasterClass. (2021, September 29). Coming-of-age movies: 9 common characteristics of coming-of-age films. https://www.masterclass.com/articles/coming-of-age-movies
SlideShare. (2014, December 16). Generic conventions: Coming of age films [Slide show]. https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/generic-conventions-coming-of-age-films/42795354
Elliott, B. (2015, July 14). Images in time: Expressing and manipulating time in cinema. Videomaker. https://www.videomaker.com/article/c18/17968-images-in-time-expressing-and-manipulating-time-in-cinema/
Leitch, T. M. (2014). Coming-of-age film as a genre: Attributes, evolution and functions. In Coming-of-Age Cinema in New Zealand. Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/comingofage-cinema-in-new-zealand/comingofage-film-as-a-genre-attributes-evolution-and-functions/A1E6458F2E412C85B1B65146AD382A67
Beverly Boy Productions. (2022, July 11). What is a coming-of-age film? https://beverlyboy.com/filmmaking/what-is-a-coming-of-age-film/
Luo, Y. (2022). Analysis of the growth of characters in coming-of-age films. Open Access Library Journal, 9(6), 1-8. https://www.scirp.org/pdf/oalibj_2022061011411523.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment