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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3405754" data-attributes="member: 4937">The '50's' as we think of them as a culture probably lasted until almost the end of the 60's (certainly until 1966), and some of the culture and music that we think of as distinctly 1960's is actually from the first few years of the '70's.  I think 'Rebel Without a Cause' is a great movie to watch, as its probably the definitive period piece.  I should also in all fairness say that I despise it, and the following 'review' should be considered highly biased.  There are several things to note when watching the movie.  First, not a 'youth peice', meaning that its neither created by a 'youth culture' (such a thing doesn't exist yet in middle class America), nor ironically is its message targeted at members of the youth.  Instead, its part of a class of '50's movies targeted at the parents of youth as a warning of what 'bad parenting' might lead to.  Remember, the great overriding fear of this period is that they will fail thier children, and great overriding belief of the children is that thier parents are failing them.  So this movie sets out to first demonstrate to a presumably skeptical middle class parent that the troubles and tribilations that the youth are experiencing are (despite how silly they might seem to someone who grew up in the 1930's), quite real and serious, and secondly to provide advice on what a good parent should do to correct this situation should they percieve some delinquincy in thier children (namly, provide more traditional parental roles for thier children).  Of course, this is as completely silly of a theory as it comes off as at the ending of the movie, and is particularly silly considering that this same father figure supposedly suffering for lack of manliness is generationally speaking the same that stormed the beaches in Normandy and Iwo Jima.  Naturally, the movie's main impact was to convince the middle class youth of America that thier spoiled, bratty angstyness was completely legimate.If I could say a thing in the movies favor, it is that the other movies of this genera tend to blame the problems on the poor, and this one didn't flinch from suggesting that the real problems were developing in the middle class.</blockquote>

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