Screening Generation X: The Politics and Popular Memory of Youth in Contemporary Cinema

This book investigates the representational politics of youth cinema. It cuts up linear cinematic narratives to develop a hop-scotched history of youth, Generation X and youth culture to reveal the archetypes and ideologies that punctuate the cinematic landscape, creating a dialogue between the chapters that crosses over text and time.Leaping between decades through time travel in cinema, the book argues that the nostalgic past and projections for the future evoke the preoccupations and anxieties of the present. Rather than proposing a smooth historical trajectory of youth cinema and Generation X, the book focuses upon the rifts and conflicts of diverse narratives and subjectivities.It provides an interdisciplinary perspective from Film and Cultural Studies. It updates current studies of cinematic portrayals of youth with its consideration of post-Generation X. While most books in the field tend to conclude discussions with the 1990s this book looks beyond this timeframe to the new millennium. Advancing on existing literature on teendom in the media, the project proposes the concept of post-youth where Generation X has not simply 'ended' but evolved.