Conventions of Coming-Of-Age Drama

Coming of age is a sub-genre from Drama. Coming of age dramas are targeted at a teenage audience however usually they include explicit and controversial themes therefore many receive a strong age certification, however less strong content dramas including 2006, Now and Then Dir. Lesli Linka Glatter only gained a 12 certificate. This is possibly because it's a light humorous coming of age, which deals with the same conventional themes however very lightly. However, a coming of age such as Thirteen gained an 18 certificate due to the strong explicit scenes in which are seen throughout the film which are delivered a lot more explicitly to the audience.

A convention of coming of age is the main character being a teenager approaching sixteen or eighteen. Within all of these films the main character is reaching an important age, these seem whether they are reaching sixteen, eighteen or twenty-one determines on the issues and themes featured within the drama, hence why it's called 'coming of age.'

Another convention is the reoccurring themes within these specific dramas. These include virginity, pregnancy, drugs, home life, relationships and friendships. The films are all about encouragement and informing of experimenting as these are supposed to be the years of experimenting and learning therefore these are what these dramas reflect upon the audience, again how explicitly shown depends on the age certificate of the film. Within the film thirteen you see Tracey inhaling aerosols and asking her friend to repeatedly hit her as hard as she could across the face as she was convinced she couldn't physically feel it, hence why the film gained an eighteen as this could be seen as encouraging drug using however it is just explicitly reflecting teen culture upon itself.

Meanwhile, An Education, 2009 deals with the issues of virginity, schooling and relationships as she turns sixteen. The film is very implicit and deals on character performance rather than action, however this is perhaps what a younger audience crave to see, is a strong and raw performance whereas the older audience just crave to see explicit action.

Another convention is the large marketing audience are female. Many of coming of age dramas feature a female as their main character, perhaps this is due to the myth of 'girls maturing earlier than boys' therefore females have mature feeling at a younger age, then perhaps males do therefore females can identify and connect more with characters which reflect them.

However, the coming-of-age drama, Kids (1996) Dir. Larry Clarke main character is male and is sexually driven. This has used the male teenage stereotype of 'guys only wanting one thing' and done exactly what an aged eighteen coming of age drama does, which is explicitly reflect it upon its audience, however this is an extremely informing drama, with AIDS being a very strong theme and part of this film, with the use of mise-en-scene to signify which character has the infection, by wearing white socks.

Another convention of the drama is, it is clear to see the characters personal home life has affected them and see the link of cause and effect. Within the 1996 coming of age drama Kids, Telly's family are seen as uncaring as his single mother has all of her attention on her baby, Telly also sees to have no respect for his mother as we are able to see him stealing money for him and his friend, Casper out of her purse.

Another example of this is in the drama, An Education where we see Jenny come from a strongly repressed family, which is kept that way because of her father. Every so often we see her mother want to stand up for her daughter’s rights of having a life and wanting a life for herself however often cowards away due to the repressive aggressive tone of her father.

Within these two dramas, they're in contrast over their main characters home lives as one mother has no control over her child, whereas in the other drama her father has too much control over his daughter therefore coming of age dramas vary so much which is why they are always guaranteed to be a different story each time. It's clear they all feature the same themes which reflects teen drama, these themes are even seen within teen television drama, such as Shameless and Skins therefore the themes are globally known to attract that certain teen audience, however there is still that loose grip which makes you able to change something about the story, which entitles you to make your coming of age original and one of a kind.

Looking at these list of conventions, I hope to deal with these issues within my film however, not as explicitly within my three to five minute monologue, I want a monologue to provoke interest, as I am aiming to film the equilibrium, the opening to a film therefore I cannot just use all conventions within three to five minutes as I need to establish who the character is, I need to make the audience connect with the character. However, these are still important themes which I would include if I was filming the whole feature film as they are globally known and used within this specific genre.