‘Coming of Age: Codes and Conventions

‘Coming of Age: Codes and Conventions:

The coming of age genre is a young person’s transition from young to older. Sometimes it’s from when the child is young but usually it is from when they’re teenagers. The sub-genre is targeted at a teenage audience, which concentrates on the growth and maturity from youth to adulthood. These types of films tend to emphasis on dialogue and internal monologue where you can hear the characters thoughts.

The themes that are present included:

• Maturation
• Loss of innocence
• Wisdom
• Worldliness

Usual storylines include a teen who is childish and immature, then they have new experiences or something drastic happens where they then start to mature.

The characters in the coming of age genre need to have an age where they’re approaching sixteen or eighteen. This determines the issues and themes that are presented as some issues may not be acceptable for some ages to experiences.

The themes that coming of age films address can include virginity, pregnancy, home life, drugs and drinking, friendships and relationships. The films can have multiple storylines which some can include encouragement by peers (peer pressure), also experimenting, hence drinking.

The audience, which the film is aimed at includes teenagers however if there is any explicit scenes, the certificate can raise to 18 instead of 12 certificate or 15.

Examples of ‘Coming of Age’ films are:

• Juno
• The perks of being a wallflower
• 16 candles
• This is England
• Adventureland
• Kidulthood