Not sure I get the film

the movie shows that kids are the product of their environment and parents don't understand that. kids arent born 'scumbags'

If you get the DVD with commentary, there is a pretty good discussion about the themes of this movie (which is based on a true story, although the 'real' kids did not torch and vandalize the school at the meeting as they did in the movie, but instead verbally confronted the adults).

I think the original story made news at the time because the actions of the kids (many from good homes) didn't fit in nicely with the sociological view that pre-teen/teen criminal behavior must be borne out of poverty. Also, many of these kids were 'latchkey' kids, with many left unsupervised and ignored while both parents worked.

It's a story of 'disaffected youth' and I think that Kurt C. probably identified with that (along with his liking what he called the 'anarchy' portrayed and his personal identification with the character 'Claude' in the film).

It is also possible that some current new viewers of this film are affected differently than young people back in the day -- gang violence wasn't so prevalent back then, at least in smaller communities and towns, and people were not as desensitized to the levels and kinds of violence we hear so much about today. Also, many parents were absolutely clueless about drugs and the rampant drug use of many kids back then compared to parents of today. Remember, we did not have the internet back then (with its 'wealth' of information available at the speed of your fingertips), and so people relied on TV, which was very limited and censored more back then, the newspaper, the library, what you learned at school (and the vandalism film portrayed in the movie was an actual made-for-school film and YES, they WERE that dorky), and word-of-mouth (sans cellphones)-- therefore, information was more limited, both in scope and in speed of delivery. It WAS a different world not so long ago.

Also, the 'real' town, which had a proportionately high population of youth, reportedly was a newly constructed, adult-oriented community that wasn't much older in age than many of the kids who lived there, and one theory was that, in addition to the boredom experienced by the kids, the rampant drug use then, and the limited parental supervision, that the kids didn't value their community because they had no cultural/historical ties to the artificial, sterile new community they were being raised in. Thus, the 'mousepacks'.





"I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than..a rude remark or a vulgar action" Blanche DuBois

What's to get? It's a film about bored, reckless youth.

It is a coming of age movie.

The lesson is...EVERYONE IS WRONG.

Maybe you just don't "get" Kurt as well as you thought you did. This movie spoke to me more than a decade before I knew Kurt Cobain existed.