JAMES DEAN CAUGHT IN THE GENERATION GAP IN REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE
According to actor Jim Backus, "We started out making a routineprogram picture in black and white (that) was going to be. . . aboutteenage kids that I thought was going to be a sort of Ozzie and Harrietwith venom. Then the reports started coming in on East of Eden, and they(the studio) knew they had a star on their hands" (Alexander, 56). SinceBackus was signed by Warner Brothers to star in Rebel Without A Cause asthe father to James Dean, his comment on the film as being somethingsimilar to Ozzie and Harriet "with venom" should be viewed as highlyaccurate, for in Nicholas Ray's American masterpiece, the presence of"venom" is easily sensed, due to the various cultural/societal conflictsthat erupt between the two opposing sides, being the teenagers and theirolder superiors. James Dean, in the role of Jim, the non-conformist "rebel"son of Backus, seems to provide most of the conflict through what is nowgenerally described as the "generation gap" which was linked to many socialproblems in the 1950's when Rebel Without a Cause was in production. Set in the city of Los Angeles, Rebel Without a Cause, considered bymany critics as a classic example of American cinema, explores the lives of
As Chris Woodpoints out in "Finding the Father: A Psychoanalytic Study of Rebel Withouta Cause," director Nicholas Ray "seems to be saying that in order for theirchildren to 4move from the imaginary to the symbolic, fathers must be up to thechallenge of offering guidance" (Internet, 2000), a trait that certainlydoes not apply to Jim's father, for he constantly attempts to find outexactly what is causing his son's problems in regard to his friends andschool life but fails miserably as a result of the "generation gap" whichdivides Jim and his father into two opposing camps, one in the past and theother in the harsh realities of everyday living. I'm gonna hit somebody!" which turns out to be atruthful statement when he tries to strangle his father in a later scene. Thus, in the mind of youngJim, the world in which he is forced to live is ridiculous and unbending,and his own personal place in this chaos has little importance whencompared to the overall scheme of the universe. In this regard alone,the film was tragically prophetic for the next two generations of Americanteens, many of whom 2slipped from mild rebellion in the 1950's to utopian optimism in the 1960'sto a frightening pessimism by the 1990's when the third-most frequent causeof adolescent deaths would be suicide. As previously mentioned, the conflict between Jim and his father,played admirably by Jim Backus, provides the most interesting example ofhow the "generation gap" manifested itself in their lives. More to the point, hisvulnerability and his desperate need to belong, to have one day withoutconfusion, struck resonant chords all over America. Susceptibleto adulation and fearful of rejection, he rebelled not just against hisparents and the law but a kind of universal situation in life, bestexpressed by the scenes in Griffith Park with its planetarium. He also appears to be under the control of his domineering wife, Jim'scaring but distant mother who finds it entertaining to have her husbandwear an apron over his business clothes to carry out his household dutiesas a doting and loving child. Theultimate pathos of Dean's character is that his parents have unwittinglypushed him far away from them, due to their patronizing and somewhatpuritanical attitudes toward Jim's problems. Cinematically, Dean'sperformance in Rebel Without a Cause forever established the new image ofthe young, middle-class loner/non-conformist whose search for love andunderstanding created "a new canonized saint, simply by being misunderstoodand under-appreciated" (Alexander, 245). Jim's father also standsas the patriarchal symbol that "typifies the ineptitude of fathers to actas responsible adults" (Wood, Internet, 2000) which, in the long run,causes generational strife, the alienation of sons and fathers and variousaspects of social dysfunction. Hisreaction to the slashing of his car tires by Buzz ("You know something' Youread too many comic books!") indicates that Jim is extremely disillusionedand confused when it comes to his place in life, for he 3is "the last great apostle of rugged individualism in a world of outmodedideas. Rebel Without aCause is also about the need and desire to belong and the generalimpossibility of truly belonging to any societal group which helped thefilm to become very popular for succeeding groups of young persons.
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Acceptance Essays
