Boy, One Day You'll Be a Man: Adolescent Masculinity in Post-War American Culture

Abstract

Since the introduction of the “teenager” as a defined stage in life, and the rapid emergence of youth culture in post-war America, adolescence has been represented as a dialectical developmental period that contains the potential for both conformity and rebellion to the hegemonic ideals that govern social intelligibility in the United States. This essay explores how adolescence is characterized as the temporal crucible wherein the performative behavioral traits of hegemonic masculinity are learned and reproduced in post-war American culture. Through exploring a range of American cultural texts that have been produced across the post-1945 period, this essay charts and analyses the shifting cultural conceptualizations of masculinity that have taught teenage boys how to perform their identities.