Kidults, Consumed Nostalgia, and American Teen Movies of the 1980s (and Their Contemporary Simulacra)

Natasza Korczarowska

natasza.korczarowska@uni.lodz.pl
University of Lodz (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3130-128X

Abstract

The article discusses selected teen movies made in Ronald Reagan’s era of political and cultural neo-conservatism as a sociological phenomenon that problematizes the issue of the implied viewer. The main thesis is that teen movies based on the “Spielberg-Lucas-King formula” were, and to some extent still are, addressed not to teenagers but to kidults (a child-adult amalgam) – narcissistic perennial adolescents. The author uses elements of Benjamin Barber’s theory of modern consumerism based on the idea of “infantilist ethos” – an ethos of induced childishness that results in the targeting of children and kidults as consumers. The films are analysed in the framework of Gary Cross’s concept of multisensory “consumed nostalgia” (defined as a longing for objects rooted in the consumers’ formative years) as a psychological answer to experiencing life under disquieting fast capitalism.


Keywords:

kidults, consumed nostalgia, teen movies

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Published
2023-04-06

Cited by

Korczarowska, N. (2023) “Kidults, Consumed Nostalgia, and American Teen Movies of the 1980s (and Their Contemporary Simulacra)”, Kwartalnik Filmowy, (121), pp. 34–57. doi: 10.36744/kf.1435.

Authors

Natasza Korczarowska 
natasza.korczarowska@uni.lodz.pl
University of Lodz Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3130-128X

Professor at the Department of Film and Audiovisual Media, Institute of Contemporary Culture, University of Lodz. She specializes in the history of Polish film, contemporary European cinema, and the problems of historiophoty. She published the books Ojczyzny prywatne [Private Homelands] (2007) and Inne spojrzenie [Another Way] (2013) – the latter devoted to the images of history in the Polish feature film after 1965. Since 2008 she has cooperated with the Polish Film Institute and the National Film Archive – Audiovisual Institute on the educational project Academy of Polish Film.



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