By Lisette Toledo
Photo by Lisette Toledo
Imagine going to a high school party. The typical kids are all there. Choices are made. Mistakes happen and have to be overcome. This scene plays out over and over for our peers here at Willow in 2026.
Dazed and Confused is a movie made in the ‘90s but set in the ‘70s. It defined a generation and continues to resonate for teens today. Director Richard Linklater is known for his unique, wandering plot style, and this film certainly has it down. The film is basically a series of vignettes that follows events from the last day of school before summer in the rad time of the late 70’s.
Today, teens still seem to watch the movie.
“It made me feel like high school times really aren’t too serious,” said eleventh grader Juliette Vidrine. “Having fun is important and overlooked a lot.”
Then, as now, there was anxiety brought on by fear of the unknown. Dazed and Confused depicts a day in the life of high schoolers. Everyone has a different experience, but, more often than not, Willow teens interviewed in 2026 agreed that it’s still accurate despite being set nearly five decades ago.
“Yes, it definitely aims to depict the ‘70s, of course, but the interactions and the emotions still stand up today. It has aged quite well,” eleventh grader Aleister James stated.
“I wouldn’t say it represents modern teen life super accurately,” ninth grader August Doussan said, “but my dad says it reminded him a lot from when he was in school. I do think the movie accurately shows the desire for freedom and anxiety of becoming an adult.”
And that desire and angst appear to be timeless.
One of the themes that resonates with students today is that, ultimately, we put incredible pressure on ourselves, but to what end? We need freedom and the ability to figure out what we want out of life, not what we should want.
“Teens today are constantly monitored by cameras, their own phones, far more laws, etc., than we had,” our beloved English and Publications teacher, Ms. Crockett, said. “I think it’s a great movie to make teens think about where the middle ground between individuality and societal pressure should be that makes sense for their generation.”
To quote the character, Cynthia, “If we are all gonna die anyway, shouldn’t we be enjoying ourselves now? You know, I’d like to quit thinking of the present, like right now, as a minor insignificant preamble to something else.”
From Shakespeare to Jim Morrison, artists are constantly pushing the boundaries and exploring “taboo” subjects, though perhaps in less overt ways, but the topics they reference would still have been quite shocking for the time. The movie does explore taboo topics, but these are tangential to the core point of the movie. Ultimately, Dazed and Confused dares to suggest that we should be able to experience adolescence while we are young, a continuation of carpe diem concepts harkening back at least to the Romantic age of poets.
As Andrew Marvell said in his poem, “To his Coy Mistress”:
“Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.”
