Kidults, skonsumowana nostalgia i amerykańskie filmy dla młodzieży z lat 80. (oraz ich współczesne symulakra)
Kidults, Consumed Nostalgia, and American Teen Movies of the 1980s (and Their Contemporary Simulacra)

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses selected teen movies made in Ronald Reagan’s era of political and cultural neo-conservatism as a sociological phenomenon that problematizes the issue of the implied viewer. The main thesis is that teen movies based on the “Spielberg-Lucas-King formula” were, and to some extent still are, addressed not to teenagers but to kid- ults (a child-adult amalgam) – narcissistic perennial ado- lescents. The author uses elements of Benjamin Barber’s theory of modern consumerism based on the idea of “in- fantilist ethos” – an ethos of induced childishness that re- sults in the targeting of children and kidults as consumers. The films are analysed in the framework of Gary Cross’s concept of multisensory “consumed nostalgia” (defined as a longing for objects rooted in the consumers’ formative years) as a psychological answer to experiencing life under disquieting fast capitalism.

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