I have selected the movie name: Justin Bieber Never say never. It is such a perfect representation of the world in which teenagers live in western countries like the U.S. However, because we—grown-ups—have lived long enough to know that this is just going to be a phase in their lives, we think that the solution to this phase of crisis is granted or is just a matter of time. What we don’t understand is that if this crisis during adolescence is not dealt with properly, it is going to escalate during adulthood into issues such as alcoholism, and other mental-like sickness. The growing percentage of mentally-challenge people in our society is an illustration of it.

During the movie, I was amazed by how crazy his fans would get at his appearances. They would scream, cry and sometimes even faint. His fans are made of teenagers of whom, I would say, 99% are girls and the remaining 1% are boys who they have not represented in the movie. Superstars like Justin Bieber create, in the world of teenagers, models of what everyone should look like. However, reality is in such a way that, I would say, only one out of twenty would look like these “models”. The resemblance with models does not only reside in physical appearance, words models use when speaking, beauty products or perfumes they use, cell phones they have, it is a whole package. The world in which teenagers live is made in such a way that if you do not “look cool”—look like superstars—you are not recognize by your peers. Most of time, it is very difficult to “look cool” because superstars change the trends every season which is not realistic to follow for most of the households. And it is such a hard feeling to deal with for teenagers because if you are not recognized by your peers, you are not going to have a date, you are going to be ignored etc. I earlier referred to the 1% of adolescent boy fans of Justin Bieber who were not represented in the movie probably because they are homosexuals, and homosexuality is not accepted in the teenagers’ world. C. J. Pascoe said in his book: “The school authorities didn’t protect the most vulnerable gay students, […], who was teased, taunted, and eventually threatened out of school. Indeed, I felt the homophobia so strongly that I took my gay pride sticker off my car while I researched at River High."

The world of teenagers and the world of adults are intertwined because they share the same physical territory. Due to the fact that adults are not taking children and adolescents seriously they create what I would call their own world where they feel like they are taken seriously, not just considered as “kids”. To illustrate this, we can consider Persepolis where the author, Marjane Satrapi, because she felt powerless in front of the inequalities that she was witnessing imagine she had conversations with God.

The world, in which teenagers live, is a very complex one. They need more attention between their transitions from childhood to adulthood because that is going to determine how well in their minds are they going to be as adults.

Sources:
Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. New York: Pantheon, 2003.
Pascoe, C. J. Dude You'Re A Fag. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.