How Hollywood finally got teenagers right this summer

A trio of films — The To Do List, G.B.F., and The Spectacular Now — capture the unique complexities of the coming-of-age story

I was a teenager during the '90s, and films like Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, and She's All That were the backbone of my teenage education. But while I always related to Cher, Bianca, and Laney on a character level, those films only offered a dramatically heightened version of the teenage experience — a version filled with electronic closets, synchronized dances, and curly-haired Australian boys who might serenade you in a stadium.

The coming-of-age genre isn't always taken seriously. In cinema, it's often written off precisely because of its heightened reality, and its focus on young people who don't know what they want. The worst iterations of the genre are corny and trite: The nerdy girl who is both misunderstood and scorching hot under her spectacles, the jock sensibro, or the rebel with a heart of gold. And the flaws don't stop there; these movies can also be blindingly white, misogynistic, and completely ignorant of anything that isn't middle class.

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Kerensa Cadenas is an editor for Snakkle, a pop culture throwback site. She has also written about TV, films, and music for Women and Hollywood, Bitch, Ms. Magazine, This Was TV, and Forever Young Adult.