‘Youth is undervalued’ – and we’re to blame, says Jon Savage

For decades, teenagers have been used as a touchstone for “cool”. But they didn’t always exist.

It wasn’t until the 1940s and 50s that teenagers carved out their own definition, helped along by the birth of rock ‘n’ roll. And the emergence of adolescence in its own right, took years of agitation and frustration before it emerged, fully fledged, into society.

Cultural historian Jon Savage, author of England’s Dreaming, a history of the Sex Pistols, has charted the history of the teenager from the late 1800s to 1945 in his book Teenage: The Creation of Youth. And now it is being made into a documentary “living collage” film by Matt Wolf.

The film (see below) gives a voice to four young people of different eras and countries, and uses their stories to capture the teenage spirit of the time and the “pre-history” of youth: from party-addict flappers and swingers, to the Hitler youth.

Speaking to Channel 4 News ahead of the film release this weekend, Savage said that there has always been a conflict between adults or authority, and youth, with the former trying to control the latter.

If you undervalue youth, you’re not wishing to engage with the future or even to conceive that the future might exist – Jon Savage

But he said that teenagers no longer had as much economic value, and are now being disadvantaged as a result.

“Now the range of products that were aimed at teenagers in the 50s and 60s – they’re bought by everyone. And oldies like me have more money than teenagers,” he told Channel 4 News. “Because they have no economic value, they’re seen as having no social value.”

Video: Teens in Boston Spa tell Channel 4 News why they’re ‘too tired to protest’

He said the coalition government had made life harder for this generation of teenagers, with the introduction of tuition fees and austerity policies.

He added: “Youth is undervalued in our society… If you undervalue youth, you’re actually not wishing to engage with the future or even to conceive that the future might exist.”

‘Time for a new definition’

The abolishment of child labour at the end of the 1800s first gave birth to the idea of adolescence as a separate stage of life. It is now 70 years since the first mention of the term “teenager” in 1945. And Mr Savage said the concept may have had its day.

“We’ve had this particular way of conceiving of youth and in fact raising youth,” he said. “It may be that it will be time for a new definition. And what that is, I’m not sure.”

He added: “I think teenagers today are simultaneously catered for like never before, and also underrated and undervalued within our society. So you’ve got this weird, push me/pull you.”

The ‘Lindsay Lohan’ of the 1920s

One of the four characters that Teenage focuses on, is Brenda Dean Paul, who joined the bright young people elite party movement in England in the 1920s (see video clip above). Her life within the party scene was well documented by legendary photographer Cecil Beaton, but she went on to become a notorious drug addict and was in and out of prison until her death in 1959.

“The notion of the lost generation – scarred by the war, and totally reckless—comes from this era, and Brenda is a perfect example,” said filmmaker Matt Wolf. “Brenda reminds me of Lindsay Lohan. She wanted to be famous, and she was, but for what? For her endurance at partying? For her public demise? Her value system seems very contemporary.”