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The characters in this story are almost caricatures of themselves – they’re a bunch of aimless suburban kids who think that having lots of free time to drink beer, take drugs and complain about their comfortable lives constitutes hardship. If anything, Dazed and Confused is less a coming of age film as it is a hilarious indictment of the offspring of middle class America. It’s the funny side of what can happen to an entire generation when they’re given more than they’ve earned and have never had to work hard, be challenged or set goals for themselves.

Considering all this, plus the timing of its release, it would be easy to consider Dazed and Confused a postcard to Generation X. But as with many teen films, the themes it explores are pretty universal because well, growing up is pretty universal. In fact, the whole film is itself much like the randy mind of an adolescent. It’s a very unstructured, chaotic, colorful and loud experience, set to the same jaunty classic rock soundtrack you can find on any FM dial between 99.1 and 106.5. The climax of the story takes place at an outdoor keg party where most of the subplots converge and then explode into nothingness, largely unresolved and unexplored. I have to say that it really is a fairly accurate representation of what was going on in my own head when I was 17 – lots of activity but very little resolution. But adolescence is an obligatory life experience, not a problem to be solved, because there really aren’t any answers.

Dazed and Confused is about exploring just one day of this transition in the lives of some pretty insignificant people, and if it weren’t a comedy it might be kind of sad. But a comedy it is, and its lack of direction is part of what makes feel so real for so many people. Despite its lack of box office success, it has managed to become a part of the culture it set out to lampoon and it has taken its place alongside such youth classics as American Graffiti and The Breakfast Club.

As I’ve already suggested, though, the primary difference between those movies and this one is that Dazed and Confused doesn’t attempt to teach us any lessons and it makes no effort to paint teenage angst as anything other than it is – just another phase of life. It’s not different, it’s not special and it certainly isn’t unique. In fact it’s quite possible that as a child, if I’d put more effort into doing something cool instead of wishing everyone thought I was cool, I might actually have been cool. It’s not that hard, all you need is a little guidance and a lot of love.

As teens, it’s natural for us to think that our lives are more complicated than they are and that we’re trapped inside our own heads with feelings that nobody can understand. And it’s normal to assume that the reason for it all is because our individuality is being suppressed by the adults around us, who can’t possibly understand how we feel because they’ve never been teenagers before. But when we’re that young what we – and often our parents – fail to understand is that those years seem so difficult only because we’re trying to reconcile emotion with intellect for the first time in our lives, and it always seems like the hardest thing in the world the first time you go through it. Believe me, if I could go back and tell my 16-year-old self that no, this is actually the easy part, I would. But that’s what the wisdom of age brings to the table. While being a teenager sometimes sucks, we all have to do it and if more of us adults were any good at channeling our own experiences as a teen when dealing with kids, there might be a lot fewer conflicted 16-year-olds in the world. And parents across America could take that European vacation secure in the knowledge that when they return, the Porsche will still be in the driveway and the Jackson Pollock will still be hanging over the fireplace. In the end, I think that’s all every parent wants.

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