American Teen Analysis

“I saw it in a movie once!” Everyone has heard these words at least sometime in their lives and everyone knows that whatever came before it is most likely not true. Most movies are meant to entertain with various fantastical events that one way or another couldn’t really happen in reality. However, movies like this don’t present themselves as informational. But what about those that do? Documentaries by definition are movies that contain factual information. The documentary genre has, in recent years, grown in its popularity. As a consequence of this, documentaries which are widely believed as bulwarks of unfiltered, unvarnished facts, have been adulterated by the hands of greed and aren’t as factual as they claim to be. Since documentaries …show more content…
When Nanette Burstein’s award winning documentary “American Teen” was shown to a class of current american teens, myself included, the movie was ridiculed for its lack of accuracy. While this may be due the differences in year, location and diversity, some of the aspects presented were felt very exaggerated and that key parts in their lives were omitted. Jake Tusing, the gamer or geek of the film, spent most of the film searching for a girlfriend. Although this is an almost accurate representation of many high school band geeks, it doesn’t give the complete image of him rather highlights the stereotypes. Burstein fails to include any of his school-work related stress rather she focuses on his search for love. Burstein’s portrayal of Tusing and reality have become manipulated to make one of the film’s more entertaining segments. Burstein focused on this aspect of his life because it was the most interesting to watch because let’s face it reality can be boring. However, this skewed view of the characters provides a false totality of the truth which the documentary is claiming to