"Teen Noir" A Study of the Recent Film Noir Revival in the Teen Genre

Abstract

In the late 1990s I started to notice how tv-series and moviespicked up on common noir traits from the old classical noirmovies, such as rain, darkness and more dystopian plots. In2006 critics started paying attention to this particular trend inregards to teen movies and started to call them teen noirs. In mythesis I want to explore further what teen noir is, which moviesit includes and why it has appeared now. In my first chapter Iexplore not only today's zeitgeist that has led to teen noir, butalso the ones that influenced the classical noir period and neonoir. In my second chapter I will focus on the character type thegood-bad girl, and in doing so I will also be looking at thehomemaker, the femme fatale and the P.I. In my third chapter Iwill look more closely at what I consider the two main influenceson today's teen noir, namely suburbia and the growing classdifferences in American society. Since there is almost no criticalmaterial or an established canon of films I have chosen movies Ihave found suitable. However both Brick and Veronica Mars arewidely recognized as teen noirs. In my conclusion I willspeculate on where teen noir is headed and which direction itwill take.Since the first film noirs appeared and the first critics labeledthem there have been several ongoing debates concerning them.Most common are the debates concerning labeling, are they agenre, a style or a movement; what are the criteria for beingcalled film noir and which movies should be included; and wheredo the noirs made after the classical period ended belong. I havechosen to discuss these films as if film noir is a genre, as filmcritics Andrew Dickos and Foster Hirsch believe. That there hasalways been a debate concerning which films should beincluded as film noirs and which should not has made the genreharder to define and opened up for a wide range of movies to beincluded. In my thesis I have had a broad definition of the filmnoir criteria when it comes to the three periods that I discuss;the classical film noir period, the neo-noirs, and the teen noirs.I have also used Andrew Spicer's book Film Noir as my primaryresource for the classical film noirs concerning character typesand influences. I found this to be a good introductory book thatincluded all the characters, while most film noir books onlyfocused on one or two.