90s Coming of Age

Lili’s Pick: Empire Records

Lanie’s Pick: Can’t Hardly Wait

As we’ve seen before, the era of the teenager is fraught with uncontrollable emotions and do-or-die scenarios. But the teenagers here have much different prerogatives than those of the existential, fatalistic teens of the “Teen Lit” category. Here, they’ve traded in their diaries for beers, and their sense of urgency is not so much centered around living life as much as you can before you die, but instead it is centered around a much more daunting task: getting laid. It is a theme that has been featured in countless stories, songs, tv shows, and of course movies, and yet the age-old societally-constructed problem of losing one’s virginity keeps coming up. Even more than that, it seems to be an essential element to nearly every coming of age tale. As ubiquitous as this may be, both Empire Records and Can’t Hardly Wait tackled this topic and others that consume teenagers with both humor and heart, which is really all you can ask for when it comes to adolescent narratives. And while both films created caricatures of teenagers that were over the top and at times, cringey as hell, I found myself believing in and rooting for all of them. The hurt and the confusion and the impatience of these characters resonated with this angsty ex-teen, and while I may not have been as bold as some of them back in my day, their plight for joy and survival against a world that has little mercy certainly resonated with me. The casts of both films did an excellent job of bringing these somewhat shallow characters (Robin Tunney’s character excluded) some humanity, and dated references aside, did well to make even the goofiest of plot lines viable and endlessly entertaining.