Teen Movie Poster Deconstructions

The Perks of being a Wallflower

"An introvert freshman is taken under the wings of two seniors who welcome him to the real world."


- Yellow-green - sickness (anxiety), safety and growth
       - also the colour of the book cover
- Characters smiling - personality and storyline not evident at all
- Sam's head on Charlie's shoulder - indicates close relationship
- High Key lighting
- Tag line is quote from the book - interesting a specific audience
- 'Based on the critically acclaimed novel' - already an audience interested in the storyline
- Title - typewriter font - links with literature and writing
- Golden rule - a lot of space int he centre of the poster where the tagline is which draws the attention of the viewer to the characters and the title of the film

The Breakfast Club

"Five high school students, all different stereotypes, meet in detention, where they pour their hearts out to each other, and discover how they have a lot more in common than they thought."

• All characters in the centre of the poster - there isn't one main character they all have an equal role in the film
• Varied appearance of characters - match them to the text: Brain (centre), Beauty (Bottom), Jock (centre right), Rebel (Top centre), Recluse (Left centre) 
• Text at the top of the poster indicates what the film is about - still restricted narrative even though a lot of the character traits are revealed
• Simple title font - also a logo
• basic poster yet straight to the point with tagline and main image

Juno

• Colours associated with health, safety, youth and fertility
• Main concept obvious due to pregnant teenager in  main image

• For detailed deconstruction of this poster click here

KiDULTHOOD
"A day in the life of a group of troubled 15-year-olds growing up in west London."

• Main image background and "Streets of London" indicates the film is set in an urban setting
• Racially diverse character in main image - community and belonging
• Violence and Crime - shadows cast on face make certain characters look dark and the baseball bat suggests violence
• White title contrasts with black background
• body language of actors seems intimidating and closed representing them with a bad attitude - 
• "before adult hood comes..." - adulthood is the sequel of the film, suggests target audience of the film

Cyberbully
A teenager is subjected to a campaign of bullying through a social networking site.

• Main character in centre of the image - isolated, alone, vulnerable - she is the victim of the cyberbullying (preferred reading)
• Title - L's replaced with //, fitting genre and narrative of online bullying
• blue connotes trust and loyalty - ironic in storyline as we know from the title is about bullying
• very basic poster - restricted narrative

Generally, all posters for teen films represent the characters in a stereotypical way with the main character types (jock, geek, outsider...etc) visible. A lot of these films discuss teenage problems and moral panics such as bullying, pregnancy, poverty and social exclusion/anxiety. The posters tend to show these ideas in an obvious way yet do not give too much narrative away.