30 Years Ago, Dazed and Confused Set the Template for Coming-of-Age Comedy
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The post 30 Years Ago, Dazed and Confused Set the Template for Coming-of-Age Comedy appeared first on Consequence.
The depiction of youths dealing with the present while wrestling with the future has been a staple of American cinema for decades. In particular, the ‘70s and ‘80s generated plenty of seminal and influential coming-of-age movies – including American Graffiti, Animal House, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and various John Hughes essentials – that reflected the unique feelings and habits of the generation they examined.
In many ways, Richard Linklater’s 1993 ode to 1976 – Dazed and Confused – accomplishes the same feat. Despite owing a clear debt to those classics, it popularized an emphatically fresh take on the style. Thirty years later, it’s clear to see that many of our favorite genre films and TV shows from around the turn of the millennium wouldn’t be what they are without his distinctive perspective and methodology.
“If We’re All Going To Die Anyway, Shouldn’t We Enjoy Ourselves Now?”
One of Linklater’s central objectives with Dazed and Confused was to scale back the seriousness and fantasticalness of the coming-of-age flick. As he told The Guardian in 2019: “I wanted to do a realistic teen movie – most of them had too much drama and plot but teenage life is more like you’re looking for the party, looking for something cool, the endless pursuit of something you never find, and even if you do, you never quite appreciate it.”
Sure, many of the titles that preceded it featured understated glimpses of everyday life. However, they were frequently framed around ample narratives, improbable circumstances/coincidences, and serious issues (teen pregnancy, parental abuse, unrequited love, societal pressures, social exclusions, etc.).
For example, in talking to The New Yorker back in March 2023, Linklater acknowledged how his film’s most recognizable forerunner – American Graffiti – ultimately has “big statements” (regarding the Vietnam War, death, drunk driving, and starting college) that he wasn’t “comfortable making.”
In contrast, and as Empire put it earlier this year, Dazed and Confused is “primarily about the immediacy of the moment” in a nothing-really-happens-and-that’s-the-point kind of way. By exploring “what it felt like just to be alive experientially” as he expanded various characteristics of 1990’s Slacker (discussed below), Linklater doubled down on distinguishing techniques that’d influence his next endeavors (SubUrbia, Boyhood, Everybody Wants Some!!, the Before trilogy) and numerous other 1990s projects.
“Wipe That Face Off Your Head”
The cast alone foreshadows coming-of-age cinema over the subsequent 10 years. Namely, there’s Ben Affleck and Joey Lauren Adams, both of whom would soon appear in Mallrats and Chasing Amy. (Main man Jason London’s identical twin brother, Jeremy, also showed up in Mallrats, so that sort of counts.) Additionally, Rory Cochrane and Renée Zellweger grace Empire Records, and Parker Posey was cast in SubUrbia and Kicking and Screaming.
Likewise, although Dazed and Confused didn’t invent the “takes place within 24 hours” plot device (American Graffiti, Slacker, The Breakfast Club, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – among other movies – did it first), the fact that it unfolds during the last day/night of school is still notable.
After all, Clerks, Mallrats, Wet Hot American Summer, and Empire Records do, too. Granted, all but 2001’s Wet Hot American Summer may’ve been in production before Linklater’s film was released, but there’s no denying that Dazed and Confused helped normalize that structure and prepare audiences for those later experiences. (Empire Records even shows a Dazed and Confused sticker on a cash register, paying homage to its precursor.)
“I Wanna Dance!”
Then there’s the notion of a 1990s coming-of-age entertainment looking back fondly on the 1970s not only visually but musically.
Since Dazed and Confused takes place in 1976, Linklater’s soundtrack logically showcases icons such as KISS, War, Aerosmith, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, Foghat, and Peter Frampton. Fast-forward a year and Reality Bites integrates Boston and Saturday Night Fever posters as well as The Knack’s “My Sharona” and Peter Frampton’s “Baby, I Love Your Way.” Plus, the teenagers in Empire Records celebrate AC/DC, The Buggles, and Dire Straits, much like Freaks and Geeks (whose storyline begins in 1980) incorporates Van Halen, Styx, Deep Purple, Santana, and The Who.
Dazed and Confused’s closest television sibling – That ‘70s Show – is full of timeless ‘70s tunes as well (among other clear connections to Linklater’s movie). In fact, Consequence’s own Michael Roffman likened it to “a made-for-TV remake” of Dazed and Confused. Aside from capturing the overall look and feel of the exact same year, it even borrows Dazed and Confused’s tendency to point the camera at a group of teens as they cruise around listening to music. (See the That ‘70s Show’s opening.)
“Say, Man. You Got A Joint?”
Whereas genre depictions of and/or from the 1980s rarely, if ever, found their leads looking back on the culture of the prior generation, those of the 1990s clearly did (with Dazed and Confused kicking it off).
Speaking of protagonists, the film also features a few future archetypes. Chiefly, stoner Ron Slater (Cochrane) helped solidify Dazed and Confused as “the first of the [‘70s nostalgia] movies or television shows that gave weed its proper place in the social structure” (as Esquire observed). In popular culture, Ron was succeeded by Marc from Empire Records, Travis Birkenstock from Clueless, multiple individuals in That ‘70s Show, and of course, Jay and Silent Bob from nearly every movie in Kevin Smith’s “ View Askewniverse”
Beyond that, cynical intellectual Mike Newhouse arguably paved the way for Reality Bites’ Troy Dyer, Mallrats’ Brodie Bruce, Chasing Amy’s Banky Edwards, and Clueless’ Josh Lucas. Similarly, the defiant and morally conflicted Randall “Pink” Floyd foreshadowed Reality Bites’ Lelaina Pierce, Mallrats’ T.S. Quint, and Freaks and Geeks’ Lindsay Weir in a few ways (such as that all of them grapple with a major decision by the end).
As The New Yorker noted, just as Floyd refuses to sign Coach Conrad’s anti-drug pledge in favor of getting Aerosmith tickets, Weir “strikes a similar ‘fuck it’ chord… [by] blowing off an academic conference and getting on a bus to go see the Grateful Dead in Colorado.”
Thus, they demonstrate what Matthew McConaughey’s iconic David Wooderson tells Floyd on the football field: “If it ain’t that piece of paper, there’s some other choice they’re gonna try and make for you. . . . Let me tell you this: the older you do get, the more rules they’re gonna try to get you to follow. You just gotta keep livin’, man. L-i-v-i-n.”
“OK, Girlies. It’s Really Hot out Here, and I’m Really Sick of Looking at You.”
There are also parallels in how different age groups interact with each other. For example, the mistreatment of incoming freshmen by incoming seniors in Dazed and Confused is echoed (to a softer degree) in how the counsellors mistreat the campers in Wet Hot American Summer.
Furthermore, there’s the “laissez-faire vibe — the way parents and other authority figures . . . seemed checked out,” leaving the kids “to stumble through adolescence on their own.” Dazed and Confused represents this best through Mr. Payne, whereas Wet Hot American Summer symbolizes it via the aforementioned situation; Reality Bites embodies it through Pierce’s parents; and Clueless does it via Cher’s main teacher and parent. (It’s also interesting how Floyd’s rebellion against Coach Conrad mirrors Quint’s rebellion against girlfriend Brandi Svenning’s father, Jared, in Mallrats).
Linklater’s emphasis on nuanced interactions and quippy dialogue – first displayed in Slacker – is also apparent in Clerks, Mallrats, Empire Record, Clueless, and Reality Bites. For the most part, all of those films consist mainly of people hanging out, talking about ordinary yet emblematic topics, and partaking in random shenanigans (driving around, going to the gas station, playing pool, shopping, drinking, etc.) Superficially, there’s not much going on, but beneath the surface, they offer anthropological dissections of what The Manual deemed “serious mediation[s] on the fleeting nature of youth” by “portraying . . . very specific time[s], place[s], and perspective[s].”
That said, the characters also have genuine – if comical and somewhat insignificant – discussions about gender roles, politics, existentialism, generational strife, and other serious subjects.
For instance, the Dazed and Confused gang reflects on the Watergate scandal, the Warren Commission, sexism in Gilligan’s Island, and being pigeonholed into stereotypical personas and interests. Rather than employ these elements as narratively essential platforms for his own lessons or agenda (thereby successfully avoiding making any “big statements”), Linklater uses them simply to authenticate and develop these teenagers as believably existing in their era.
Likewise, Clueless’ crew repeatedly talk about misogyny, social cliques, defying stereotypes, and fulfilling parental/societal expectations; Clerks’ two leads – Dante and Randal – bicker about their stations in life; and the college graduates of Reality Bites immediately voice their optimism or pessimism regarding their next steps in life.
As The Manual aptly concluded, while still chronicling adolescent life from a day-in-the-life perspective, Dazed and Confused “perfectly captured and portrayed a particularly vulnerable experience that was common to all — the feeling of the past slipping away and uncertainty about the future to come.”
In uniting the templates of its ancestors with the techniques of Slacker, Linklater’s film charted a new path for coming-of-age cinema and TV shows. And thirty years later, it still shows us that it’s perfectly alright (alright, alright) to savor the little moments while confronting life’s monumental choices.
Dazed and Confused is currently streaming on Peacock.
30 Years Ago, Dazed and Confused Set the Template for Coming-of-Age Comedy
Jordan Blum
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