Hannah Cohen

Revolting Youth

Revolting Youth explores the issue young people face today: feeling old prematurely. Through interviews, I talk to fellow young people about why they feel old and what actions of youth they partake in. I then engage in these actions of youth. This film understands that young people feeling old is comical and absurd while also acknowledging the anxieties of Gen Z. Revolting Youth takes viewers down the path of class, privilege, generational divide, and joy.

“The filming of this documentary opened up a lot of discourse and ideas related to youth that I never thought of. COVID 19 which affected the entire world also stole important years for many young people. The people of the documentary were mostly nineteen when the pandemic started and are now in their early twenties. According to the Canadian journal of psychiatry “. Over a sustained period, these losses may worsen depressive symptoms and may further entrench the social withdrawal, anhedonia, and hopelessness that are already part of these disorders.”. This additional stressor of COVID had led many young people into the uncertainty of adulthood and mourning of the time that was lost. We have not recovered from the pandemic as it has not ended yet. Georgia is immuno-compromised and missed out on social situations such as parties which she mentions in the documentary. She had to sit back and allow herself to withdraw from her social life while others had fun, she lost those years of joy.Taking on responsibilities such as being the breadwinner of your family also takes a toll on feeling young. Tiffany at the age of seventeen started financially supporting her family, specifically her mother who now is in her 60s. “The contemporary Western view of childhood has been called a “sentimental perspective” for its understanding of children as priceless, innocent, and in need of protection”. What happens to childhood when it is taken away too soon? Taking on adult roles prematurely does not “protect” childhood or youth, it diminishes it and leaves twenty year olds feeling like they are much older. Tiffany is happy to take care of her mother but mourns the years she lost. It is a privilege to have a childhood and to feel young, to have a western version of youth is a privilege many young people in the west and other parts of the world do not get to experience.Emily feels old since she has spent most of her life looking forward. There are large societal pressures on young people to consider the future instead of living in the moment. You have to graduate highschool, pursue higher education, get a well paying job, start a family, and then put the pressure of the world onto your own children. There is no time to be in the moment when the western capitalist society is telling you to make your time and yourself as profitable as possible to live a “good life”. How can young people enjoy life when they have to handle the stress of a part-time/ full-time job along with being in school or having other obligations in life. “Young people’s development has been conditioned by the ascendancy of highly competitive skills-based labour markets that demand new forms of embodied capital (e.g., education) for young people to succeed.”.There is joy still within all young people, there is still youth inside of us all. Making a documentary on a topic like youth has to show youth. I asked three people what they do to feel young and participated in the action as a performance of youth. I pierced my septum and now feel younger. I attempted to be a disc jockey and felt a part of youth culture, and then I met with a close friend and then went to a bar on King West. This film is full of jokes and humour because life is funny and feeling old at twenty-two is melodramatic and must be made fun of, which is why the film ends with Cece, a fourty nine year old saying the phrase “sucks to suck”. Cece does not take the concerns of the twenty year old’s seriously and compares them to 80 year olds, Cece does not feel old. A study conducted by The European Journal of Ageing did a study on people in their twenties, fourties, and sixties finding that age does not necessarily affect how people feel. “the results suggest that self-views are relatively independent of existing age stereotypes but also indicate that the “better-than-average effect” depends on age and whether the considered characteristics represent a relative strength or weakness of one’s own age group.”. Making a documentary on young people feeling beyond their years is important, it is important to document how people feel at this time. We are out of lockdown and are living in a pandemic, we are going through a recession, we are dealing with late stage capitalism all while trying to enjoy our lives. We do not have to be taken seriously, there is a need to have people hear us and watch us try to participate in youth culture. ”