Masculinity In The Film Rebel Without A Cause

During the time that film’s been around, it has been an art form; in which is a representation of society and the culture that engenders it. One of the most popular and critically applauded films of its time: Rebel Without a Cause, challenged the ideas of masculinity in a society and that was a pure reflection of many teenagers growing up in that generation. How exactly did Rebel Without a Cause change the perception of masculinity in society and why is the film considered to be the movie “poster child” of the 1950s youth rebellion movement? Masculinity in the 1950s was in a state of doubt; half of the men were returning home from the world war and did not know how to readapt to a society that was going through a lot of changes. Many men were …show more content…
James Dean's character, a young rebellious teen in search for something new was created. One of the most iconic styles of all time is James Dean in his red jacket and jeans, who personifies this sense of rebellion. Delia Konzett wrote an article entitled "Rebel Without a Cause: Approaches to a Maverick Masterwork" about Rebel Without a Cause in which he explains the eternal qualities of the film over generations. She says "This legacy with its foregrounding of the radical potential of internal criticism or self is what has appealed to diverse audiences of the film in recent years, which" have not stopped seeing Rebel Without a Cause as touchstone to imagine anxieties about coming-of -age, the traditional values of family and community, external threats, and provocations of a mass consumer society” (20). The article explains how specific scenes show the everyday fight that teenagers go through to prove themselves and that it’s like a barbaric survival of the fittest test. One scene is analyzed as the most important of the film, the "chicky race scene" in which Konzett said "This scene centers on a career of dangerous competitive cars that can be interpreted constructively as a rite of existential and social union explained more negative as the Darwinian survival of the fittest in a time of late consumerism and capitalism with the absurd and chance as its main elements form. It also captures the typically

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