Coming of Age: An On-Screen Guide to Growing Up

Written by Katerina Plescia

(From left) Tracy Letts, Saoirse Ronan, and Laurie Metcalf in Ladybird (2017) Photo Credit: IAC Films and Scott Rudin Productions

The mere thought of aging has the ability to send any individual into a downward spiral of overthinking and anxiety. As the years tick by, a person’s experiences will morph and shape their personality and their viewpoint on the surrounding world. Young adolescents and teens seek comfort in the early years of becoming an adult, figuring out where they may fit into society and how society may take to them. The classic coming of age film has provided a security blanket to a handful of generations, allowing impressionable viewers to connect with the fictional characters and lose themselves in a story paralleling aspects of their own life. 

When I was in middle school, the majority of my Friday nights were spent at home sitting in the living room with my dad and our two dogs. At the end of every grueling school week, I had Friday nights to look forward to, a living room picnic dinner and a “new” 80’s movie. My dad, being a film enthusiast, introduced me to the paradigmatic films of the decade, from Footloose, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, to Back to the Future, Weird Science, and The Breakfast Club. Being on the cusp of teenhood, I soaked up every ounce of these films, setting my expectations for aging around a life written by John Hughes. 

Now let’s take a time jump into a new decade, one engulfed in fast-paced technology, national terrorism, and a global pandemic. As the world that teens live in is vastly changed from that of their parents, their experiences in it differ wildly as well. Rather than shy away from these modern situations, coming of age films continue to evolve and provide comfort to a new generation.

This cinematic shift began to take place towards the late 2010’s, with the release of multiple indie films. The most popular, Greta Gerwig’s honest portrayal of a young girl’s trials and tribulations of becoming her own person, was Ladybird (2017). Saoirse Ronan delivers an authentic performance as Christine “Ladybird” MacPherson, concentrating on the hardships teens experience in their senior year of high school. While Ladybird falls in love a few times, Gerwig chooses to focus on the young woman’s heartache, high expectations for life, and tense relationship with her parents. 

Streaming services quickly jumped on the coming of age bandwagon, producing countless teen rom-coms, dramas, and comedies, all attempting to strike a chord the way Gerwig had done. In the midst of endless titles, a small handful proved to resonate with their adolescent viewers. The most popular films determined that audiences preferred candid coming of age stories, seamlessly disregarding those with the overused plot line of boy meets girl.

Jenna Ortega (left) and Maddie Ziegler (right) in The Fallout (2021) Photo Credit: New Line Cinema

Following its premiere at South by Southwest and early 2022 release date on HBO Max, The Fallout (2021) sent chills up the audience’s spine and took critics’ breath away. Writer and director, Megan Park, sought out a similar outcome as Gerwig, by relaying a truthful narrative that today’s generation can relate to. Park introduces viewers to Vada (Jenna Ortega), a high schooler swimming in a sea littered with cliques, popularity, and social media. Vada’s world crashes around her as she finds herself huddled in a bathroom stall with popular girl, Mia (Maddie Ziegler), during a school shooting. In the year of the film’s release, there were 34 school shootings across the United States as tracked by Education Week. Ortega delivers an outstanding and genuine portrayal of post-traumatic stress while continuing to deal with the struggles of teenhood in the 21st century. National terrorism and school shootings have plagued the country heavily for the past decade, Parker’s film discloses students’ raw reactions and coping mechanisms in these brutal times.

(From left) Teala Dunn, Rowan Blanchard, and Tyler Alvarez in Crush (2022) Photo Credit: Animal Pictures

The Hulu original, Crush (2022), made its way onto the streaming service in late April of 2022. In her directorial debut, Sammi Cohen, alongside writers Kirsten King and Casey Rackham, put a twist on the classic coming-of-age film. Odd-ball artist, Paige Evans (Rowan Blanchard), composes a master plan to clear her name as the anonymous school graffiti artist and get her crush, Gabriela Campos (Isabella Ferreira), to notice her by joining the varsity track team. Cohen’s story demonstrates how life never follows a single path, especially as a teenager. Paige battles with her own self-image as an artist while realizing she may be falling for Gabriela’s sister, AJ (Auli’i Cravalho). Crush’s vibrant color scheme and witty writing grasps the attention of young audiences and broadens the genre of teenage love stories amongst the LGBTQ+ community. 

Although the classic coming of age films will always hold a special place in my heart, I believe that writers and directors should continue to blend their stories into the times. While films offer an escape from reality, impressionable viewers seek comfort from their favorite pictures, hoping that maybe it means they are a little less alone in this unpredictable world. As teens continue to subconsciously utilize these films as a template to outline their unforeseeable future, the human desire to belong will fuel coming of age narratives for generations to come.

Katerina is a senior at Pace University in Pleasantville, NY. After graduation, she aspires to work as an entertainment journalist, centering her writing around music, film, and the arts. She grew up in Bethel, NY, and is a dog mom to a Pitbull rescue, Maddie. Find more of her work on her website or Instagram.

Baring More Than the Soul

Written by Alyssa Cosme

Photo Credit: Jason Laveris via Getty Images

As she promoted her new Netflix film The Last Letter from Your Lover, actress Shailene Woodley discussed her most recent roles with The Hollywood Reporter. She talked about shooting sex scenes, by critisizing the way women are depicted on the screen. Most actors know the ways they must expose their bodies in intimate scenes, but most audience members are unaware, causing some scenes to go over the heads of viewers. It made me think about how sex scenes in television shows and movies have been portrayed over the past few years. Woodley goes on to say that “Oftentimes in movies, you see two people having sex and the woman has her bra on, and in real life, I don't think I ever did that, sex with a bra — or very, very rarely.” It was more important to capture whatever the director envisioned. Woodley described the type of relationship an actor could have to successfully hit the mark when it comes to filming intimate scenes. She shares:

“I always sit down and talk with the director, the other actor. We always have conversations of, ‘Is nudity necessary? Is it going to distract from the scene, add the scene?’ We know exactly what the boundaries are. And I’ve never been in a situation where those things haven’t been honored.”

It is very important for actors to be vocal and honest with their directors, not only because it will make everyone on set more comfortable, it will ultimately convey realistic and organic storytelling. Woodley is no stranger to filming intimate movies. She is well known for her dark projects such as Big Little Lies and White Bird in A Blizzard. Although, Big Little Lies contained sexual violence, the context was important for the narrative in this particular series. I think she is the perfect person to expand upon this topic because she is very open with intimacy in her work. This comes from an actress who had her big break starring as a pregnant teenager in the ABC family drama The Secret Life of the American Teenager, a groundbreaking show when it premiered in 2008.

Photo Credit: Normal People via IMDB

Moreover, I wondered how many other people thought about the ways sex scenes in the media have taken a toll on the overall arc of the narrative. So what purpose do these scenes serve? I realized that audiences enjoy shows on streaming services that leave little to the imagination in their sex scenes, such as Normal People which aired on Hulu and Bridgerton which appeared on Netflix. I found that it was the closeness of these stories that kept the shows engaging and overall fun to watch. And by that, I mean that this kind of content can be impactful for people. It may make them look at themselves differently by how sex is represented and affect them negatively or positively, depending on the subject matter and the person. Overall, it is the way we engage with intimacy. It was the perfect feeling that many people might have felt watching dramas back in the day. It could be the ones that had us at the edge of our seats, waiting to see what happened next week. It could be the reason so many people lined up to see movies like Fifty Shades of Grey. Whatever the reason, there is definitely something to expand upon.

Photo Credit via Netflix

The idea of including sex scenes can be tricky because you wonder if the filmmakers decided upon it because they want to advance the narrative and the potential character development or for the sake of shock factor. Woodley highlights “realism over modesty” when it comes to her roles. Perhaps she wanted to convey that she values how realistic and natural these scenes are and pointing out the fact that wearing bras is just an idea that society is holding back because she says so herself that it is not something that she has done. The fact that we are having these conversations is significant because it is important to mention how realistic intimate scenes can be for actual people. Also, being able to talk about topics like these can be more accepted for mainstream purposes. For so long women were silenced when it came to discussions on sexuality and nudity in the media. And as time has gone on, we have become accustomed to intimate scenes and possible comfort in the relationships we see on screen. In some instances, it seems as though modesty is not an issue. In recent times, baring more than one’s soul is nothing out of the ordinary. It is in fact, very typical in any kind of show or movie. I’ve noticed this level of intimacy in many genres across all media platforms more than ever before. This certain kind of content has continued to to be explored and keeps the conversations open and less restrictive, which I appreciate as an avid movie/tv show watcher. 

We can make up our own minds about how much intimacy we want to see, on the big or small screens. Perhaps this can make someone else think about the way they watch films or how they view people in general. 

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Alyssa is a recent Marymount Manhattan College graduate where she focused on script writing and media studies. She continues to write while residing in NYC.