Hollywood Goes to High School: Cinema, Schools, and American Culture

Hollywood Goes to High School: Cinema, Schools, and American Culture. Robert C. Bulman. New York: Worth Publishers. 2005. 191 pages. $24.95.

As someone who teaches youth culture and often uses teen-oriented films to illustrate sociological concepts in that course and others, I was very pleased when I read about the publication of Robert C. Bulman's Hollywood Goes to High School. With a sample of 144 domestic and 41 foreign movies, Bulman offers up a compelling analysis of the high school film genre.

Bulman divides this genre into three subgenres: the urban public school film, the suburban public school film, and the elite private school film. Devoting a chapter to each of the subgenres and one to the foreign high school film genre, Bulman convincingly argues that American high school films affirm an ideology of individualism. The particular kind of individualism, however, differs depending on the genre. Urban high school films embrace a utilitarian individualism as the middle-class "teacher-hero" motivates inner-city students with the requisite encouragement and skills needed to escape their impoverished backgrounds, but only if they are willing to devote themselves to their studies. In contrast, suburban high school films pay little attention to academic matters. Rather, these films celebrate expressive individualism as the middle-class student protagonist rejects the trappings of status and popularity and discovers her or his "true identity." Utilitarian and expressive individualism are both present in the elite private school films as the working class or middle-class student-hero triumphs over the morally corrupt elite of the school by virtue of his or her personal integrity, but still manages to put her- or himself in a position to achieve more conventional academic...