Free for educational use
The Youth Market
Year of production - 2005
Duration - 1min 14sec
Tags - audiences, entertainment, filmmaking, generations, music, popular culture, teenagers, television, youth, see all tags
How to Download the Video Clip
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This interview with Tim Bowden was recorded for the website From Wireless to Web, produced in 2005.
Tim Bowden is a broadcaster, radio and delivision documentary maker, oral historian and author. You can view his full biography at From Wireless to Web
The website is a selective history of broadcast media in Australia. Decade by decade, from radio and newsreels to TV and the internet, this history shows how the Australian broadcast media developed and shaped the way Australians see themselves.
From Wireless to Web is a Film Australia production in association with Roar Film.
In the 1953 Hollywood classic The Wild One, Marlon Brando plays a character called Johnny Strabler, a sexy, surly, self-centred young man who loves jazz and hates authority. At one point in the film he gets asked the question, “Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?” Famously he replies, “Whattya got?” The answer said it all. Johnny was against anything and everything. And with that, Johnny defined an attitude that young people took to heart.
During the post-war years and the economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s, youth became identified as a distinct social grouping, and 'teens’ were targeted as consumers with unique preferences.
Often teenagers defined themselves by rejecting the values, tastes and choices of their parents. Trends associated with the rebellion included the rejection of institutional marriage traditions, recreational drug use, and a general questioning of the supremacy of the monarchy, the church and the nuclear family. Demanding their individual rights, many grew their hair, and with compact transistor radios close to hand they embraced the rebellious sounds of rock’n'roll.
Making and Producing
- American films made in the 1950s such as The Wild One and Rebel Without a Cause were targeted at teenagers and young adults. They often explored issues of anti-authority, relationships and rebellion. Look up the posters used to advertise such films. How do they convey the sense of rebellion within the poster?
Design your own poster for an imaginary film that deals with youth issues.
Critical and Historical study
- Explain what is meant by the term ‘Youth Culture’.
- Look at the broadcaster interview. Why did film, radio and later television become interested in young people?
- Select a current television series that targets young people as its audience and provide a critical response in terms of how well the program connects with it audience.
- In 1961, how many people owned a radio in comparison to the total population of Australia? (Hint: view the fact sheet at the From Wireless to Web website)
Go to From Wireless to Web for more about the history of broadcast media in Australia.
Go to Long Way to the Top, Episode 1, Bed of a Thousand Struggles 1956— 1964, ABC TV
Go to Long Way to the Top, Episode 2, Ten Pound Rocker 1963 – 1968, ABC TV