Kids and the politics of demonization ofthe youth

Abstract

One of the most controversial films to appear about teenage sexuality and youlh in lhe 1995 was Kids, Floating on the surface of a dead-end cynicism, Clark 's film refuses to probe where lhe identity resides for lhe urban youth he represents. Clark's realism works too easily in lhe service of transforming lhe jolting experiences of lhe teenagers he represents from insightful historical and social considerations to those primarily defined through stylized evocations of shock and transgression. Clark's reliance on the verisimilitude of documentary-like narrative, playing on lhe audience's fears and anxieties and the positing of sexuality and hedonism as lhe driving forces of agency among urban youth reveals the ideological conservatism that undergrids Kids. Stripped of any criticai capacities, youth are defined primarily by a sexuality that is viewed as unmanageable and in need of control, surveillance, legal constraint, and other forms of disciplinary power.