MovieChat Forums > The Explosive Generation Discussion > Wow, these ruffians sure are explosive

Wow, these ruffians sure are explosive


You know, when I watched this movie I thought, what's next? Learning about....DRUGS??????? I mean honestly! It's absolutely horrendus! those kids HELD HANDS!!!!! This movie has gone too far, and I can safely say that these are the most explosive beatnicks I've ever seen! BEING QUIET IN CLASS? STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF A ROAD? PLAYING MUSIC OUTSIDE??? And most importantly, LYING TO PARENTS! This is the most offencive film I've seen in my life. This isn't a school, it's a nuthouse! Please tell me others felt the same.

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I saw part of it a while back, I thought it was ridiculous.

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Extremely tame by today's standards, as it began I was enjoying the cheesy vibe. Actually, it turned out to be not tooooo bad of a movie.

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Cmon it does not take place in 2007. It was before all the sexual freedom of the mid sixties started. I'm sure if they got to make the film with the freedom of late sixties filmmaking, it would be an entirely different film.

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Yeah, it was pre-Beatles, pre-JFK assassination.

Technically speaking the 17 year old kids in the movie were just a little too old to be part of the big baby boom... Most boomers were still pre-pubescent, and more interested in "Howdy Doody" than playing doctor. This was the "Silent Generation" born in the 1930s...

Cribbed from Wikipedia:

"The name Silent Generation was coined in the November 5, 1951 cover story of Time to refer to the generation within the United States coming of age at the time. The phrase gained further currency after William Manchester's comment that the members of this generation were "withdrawn, cautious, unimaginative, indifferent, unadventurous and silent." "


To be fair, these kids also grew up during the Depression, so they had reason to be cautious. I'm just judging by my dad and a few other "Depression babies" I know, but I thought the kids' characterizations and the overreaction of the parents were spot on.

If a teenage girl got pregnant out of wedlock, the next stop would be a "home for unwed mothers" or a ticket out of town. Check out "Outrage" for how rape victims got treated. As they say, this is a time when the panelists on game shows still dressed up in black tie and ballgowns.

It's interesting to compare it to films like "To Sir with Love" and "The Strawberry Statement" both of which came out less than ten years later.


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I agree with the original poster. I am a Boomer (born after WWII ended), and I was a highschool sophomore in 1961 when this movie was made. It was five years after Elvis and the "juvenile delinquency" panic-- remember all those mid-50s movies with the switchblade and motorcycle-chain "rumbles" between gangs of black-leather-jacketed "juvenile delinquents?" "West Side Story" came out the same year as this movie, and "Blue Denim" 2 years earlier. That was supposed to be a daring, cutting-edge movie, but I remember laughing about how hokey it was when it came out. Then, as now, movie execs sat around a table and scratched their heads about "today's young people" and tried to come up with movies that were hip, relevant and a bit shocking.

They didn't even come close, and "The Explosive Generation" is a prominent example of how wide of the mark they were. Maybe it was just the crowd I ran with-- no, I think we were the ones they were trying to make movies about. I found this one ridiculously tame and unreal, and highschool in 1961 was not history to me-- I was there in person.

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The movie IS pretty tame and unrealistic, even by 1961 standards. I mean, high school students rebelling by staging a SILENT PROTEST? Just try getting a teenager to shut up for five minutes!


All the universe . . . or nothingness. Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be?

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Just put them in front of a video game!

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They're explosive - not exploding.

They were pent up and ready to blow and they eventually did a few years later.

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