Happy-Go-Lucky Memes For Swell Kids

Emmy Pratt • Senior Editor

Jul 13, 2023 2:00 PM EDT

Last night, I watched the James Dean classic Rebel Without a Cause for the first time, and it was fantastic. I am so down for melodramas from the 1950s, and this movie fits the bill perfectly. So much modern media about teens in the 1950s has been influenced by the likes of Grease and Happy Days. Boomers romanticize the 50s as a happy and wholesome time, but their brains are ruined by nostalgia. Teenagers in the 50s were not all having a swell time drinking milkshakes and living in a haze of post-war glee. They were also juvenile delinquents who got into knife fights on field trips to the planetarium. They were indirectly responsible for the deaths of two classmates on their second night in a new town. They dated Natalie Wood! I'm so glad that this movie opened my eyes to the reality of being a teen during the 1950s.