Not another fake teen movie.

• Author: Ashenmacher, Will
• Position: Voices - Stereotyping teenagers in the big screen - Brief Article

KNIFE RIVER, MINN.--The recent Not Another Teen Movie spoofs films aimed at teenagers like me. It mocks such hits as She's All That, Bring It On, and Can't Hardly Wait. The premise is clever, taking on rehashed plots and melodramatic love triangles. But the real material for mockery of teen movies would be Hollywood's image of teenagers themselves.

Movies have always mirrored society's notions of physical perfection, and teenagers are no exception. Teens on the silver screen look flawless: styled hair, unblemished skin, great bodies--the works.

Other than some token Goths, druggies, and assorted losers (all there for simple-minded laughs), high school is presented as a shining Utopia of Tommy Hilfiger models, Victoria's Secret pinups, and other celebrity could-bes.

Is it just my high school, or does this have little relation to the real world? The aesthetic has spiraled out of control.

Casting agents are turning away from actual, biological adolescents and employing older actors and actresses to fit this physically perfect bill. The chances of 25-year-old Freddy Prinze Jr. being mistaken for a teenager are as slim as his chances of winning an Oscar. At 28, Shannon Elizabeth of American Pie hasn't been a teenager for nine years.

In addition to being gleamingly perfect and mature, Hollywood high school students are all neatly organized into distinct...