Kids: A Concept of Subculture and its Application

The 1995 film "Kids" by Larry Clark poses itself as a drama in which an in-depth look into the urban life of street youth is taken to the extremes as substance abuse, physical violence, and sex creep their way into the lives of a group of adolescent teenagers. Is this image of really all these kids are up to these days or are we just exaggerating? Youth cultures of the 1990's are not so different than the youth cultures of today. The awkward stages of growing up, rough childhoods, outcasted, and disposed of all count a factors toward youth taking to the streets where they find themselves together, where they form a unique bond functioning something like a family that accepts them and looks after them.

Milton Gordon's article: "The Concept of the Subculture and its Application," takes a look at the factors within the subculture that effect different individuals within the same grouping. Gordon's theory on sub-culture and its application suggests that individuals that are part of a culture can be studied more accurately by categorizing "small units of subject matter" that are attributed to the way a person acts and thinks. These units can be factorized by variables such as ethnic background, religion, social class, economic status, and region. These individuals then bend the way they act and think based on a combination of these external factors before presenting themselves to a subculture with a set way of living and behaving. These are what Gordon calls a "unit" which generates a distinction between separate subcultures and separate units in the same subculture.

Maybe, with the help of Gordon's theory, I can try to understand the reason behind what gave these kids the idea that they're invincible and that anything they do won't have negative effects at some point in the future. Well, like Telly said in the end, there isn't much to live for and when you're a kid, nothing else really matters. I'd like to ask why this is so. Is growing up as a middle class white kid in a small Canadian suburb not the same as growing up as a lower class black kid in New York City? I doubt it, but is that any reason for them to possibly enjoy the same activities, same values, and deal with similar problems? It is quite possible that the separate variables of region, social class, and ethnic background have interwoven to become something that is portrayed only through one's character. Whether this character emerges as being good or bad, moral or immoral, it all comes down to the small units of subject matter that depends on the environmental variables that surround an individual during their young life.

In a movie like Kids it is easy to suggest that the immoral standards and the everyday activity of sex and drug abuse among dozens of young children is due to the fact that none of these children has grown up with proper values put in place by positive family influence, role models, or some other form of positive reinforcement to make these kids feel like they don't want to do these sort of things at such a young age. At the same time, it is difficult to tell exactly how every character in the movie turned out the way they did. When you think of fifteen year old kids; dope fiend, sex addict, and date-rapist aren't the first things that come to mind. Times sure are changing.