Puberty Bluesis a 1981 coming-of-age film directed byBruce Beresford,based on the novel byKathy LetteandGabrielle Carey. It follows the lives of two high school girls on the precipice of teen angst; sex, surf, school, and fitting in with the cool crowd. The film is set in Australia during the late 1970s, specifically in and around the beaches of Cronulla, an area of southern Sydney, a middle-class beachside suburbia.
Puberty Bluescame out in the middle of the Australian New Wave, a period of cinema during the late 20th century when Australian films were gaining international acclaim, and Australian directors such as Peter Weir and George Miller were getting noticed. Despite this, there was still a certain… Perception of the Australian narrative being encouraged when the films came out, from thegritty apocalypse ofMad Max,to thepsychedelic outback nightmare ofPicnic at Hanging Rock,the Australian New Wave rarely left the bush, let alone to a very specific suburb south of the capital city. This is not Byron or Bondi, the Sutherland Shire was introduced to international audiences throughPuberty Blues,and it was introduced to them warts and all.
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When watching the trailers from the movie upon its release, especially from the United States, you see an image forming of a high school movie full of sun, surf and high school crushes. This perception is correct in some ways, Cronulla Beach is the focus of the film, surfing is one of the main contentions, with the triumphant ending heavily involving it. It is a film involving the follies of youth, house parties, cheating on tests, fighting on the bus, with two charming young friends, Debbie (Nell Schofield) and Sue (Jad Capelja), at the center. The film is fun, showing the good times of being a teenager as much as the bad, the experiments and risk taking as rites of passage, the universal language of growing up.
The specificity of the time and place is shown not only through the location, but the lingo peppered through the film, with “rack off, moll” and “dead set” being part of the Australian Urban Dictionary at the time. Even something as minor as the school uniforms, a very regular phenomenon in Australia, are short and stylish for the summer. The beach is a social paradise where kids surf, cause trouble, sunbake, and even horseback ride, and the home feels like a safe place for the characters. It’s a chill, summery hang out film with a wholesome, empowering female friendship in the center, that is, on the one hand.
A Realistic Look at High School in 1970s Australia
On the other hand,this isn’t Rigdemont High,and while the end of the film gives you the feeling that Debbie and Sue will be all right, some characters are not. Neither the book nor the film shy away from the pervasive issues that plagued this period and the “surfie culture” of the 1970s, and choose to show it in a way that is both explicit and almost casual, this was life at the time, but it doesn’t make it okay. The corporal punishment of students by teachers was expected, as is the casual smoking in the bathroom, and the fights on the school buses and beaches. These things are only problems when you really go home and think about it, especially here in the 2020s.Puberty Blues,however, goes even deeper and darker. There was a misogyny that was pretty much run-of-the-mill, the expectation to put out sexually while being totally fine with being treated like garbage by the surrounding boys. “Chicks don’t surf,” but they have to watch them. The film shows this in a way that is not romantic or comedic, rejecting the idea of just putting up with it by putting the audience in the shoes of the girls expected to act as such.
While the film shows that some of the mistakes you make as a teenager aren’t the biggest mistakes of your life, they are careful to show that some mistakes very much are, as you watch characters decline from elicit drug use, and even overdose, which is portrayed in a climax that shakes you down to the core. Everything is fun and games until the ambulances come. The parents are ignorant of things that they shouldn’t be, as the kids don’t want to get in trouble, believing their parents don’t understand. The lack of adult supervision or intervention turns out to be damaging, even deadly.
Not All Beaches and Sunshine
Even though there are actions that turn out to have dire consequences, this is not a morality play on staying pure, virginal and sober.Puberty Bluesthrives in the knowledge that Lette, Carey and Beresford had: That morality plays simply aren’t effective or realistic. There are teenagers that will, inevitably, have sex, experiment with alcohol and drugs, and give into peer pressure, despite what any adult, book, or movie would tell them. Adolescence is not about not making any mistakes, it’s about learning from the ones you do, andPuberty Bluesdoes not celebrate the bad choices or exaggerate them to the point of comedy, or crucify the characters as if all mistakes were created equal.
The cool kids aren’t always cool, sometimes they’re just stupid slackers, being a teenager sometimes sucks, but as long as you have at least one good friend, you’ll make out all right
