Knock Three Times

Again I am failing you, my faithful blog readers. Even though I have spent seven years in post secondary education getting degrees and 10 years living and working at a college, I cannot alphabetize. I am sure it is a skill that will eventually become obsolete as Microsoft Office will just sort things for us in alphabetical order as necessary, but I am ashamed that I have had to publicly prove to all of you that I cannot do it!

Today's film is Now and Then, a classic film for someone who was coming-of-age in the 90s. You know its true when it reads "coming-of-age" on the DVD cover. What does that even mean? In this film it meant that four friends, about 12 or 13 years old, spend their summer making a pact that they will be there for each other whenever one of them needs it. We see these friends played by our favorite 90s childhood stars, Christina Ricci, Thora Birch, Gaby Hoffman and Ashleigh Aston Moore. They have some adventures in their small Indiana town in their last summer before they have to really deal with life, romance, and growing up. This part of the film takes place in the 1970s. We see snippets through the movie of these four friends all grown up and played by Rosie O'Donnell, Melanie Griffith, Demi Moore and Rita Wilson respectively. 

I read somewhere once that TV shows and movies that accurately depict college life and college students do not appeal to grater audiences because that is not the experience that the majority of TV watching Americans had growing up. According to the US Dept of Ed over 21 million students were enrolled for the fall 2013 semester. That is a lot of TV watching people. Once you count in all those that are graduated I think there is a strong audience for college comedies or dramas. These shows could be the real coming-of-age programs for today's young adults. I recognize that there is a lot of growth in those adolescent years but the college years are a just ripe with change for young people.

Watching a student change from their first year to their senior year is so fascinating. Once you have the luxury of working at the same institution for four years and see one entire class matriculate and graduate you have really seen it all. They write books and theories about student development and what stages they will most likely progress through as they discover their self, sexuality, personality, career, friends for life, some of them their significant other, and religion. But nothing compares to getting to see that happen first hand in the residence halls. I have been able to see many classes go through that cycle now at my current job and it never ceases to amaze me to see students change through the years.

I was just visiting with a former student and we were discussing how different she was in her sophomore year to her senior year. Her priorities changed from parties and negative attitudes about anything not related to parties to one where she started to see the benefits of her RA position, classwork, and other extra curricular activities. That switch was easy to see in her attitude and in talking with her. She grew up right before my eyes and I was fortunate enough to see it first hand. If there was a way for TV producers and writers to not only make the sets more realistic (I mean really Felicity- you did not live on campus in those nice of digs) but also to capture the outside of the classroom stuff that is beyond alcohol and parties it would make for excellent coming-of-age TV that would appeal to many viewers.