Teenage

Ambition? Well, I want to do something that's going to be lastingly useful...

and leave some sort of mark behind me, not just a blank space.

I think my ambition in life is to be famous, but I'm not quite sure.

I've never experienced another generation,

but I do feel we'll have something to say.

We'll make a gigantic splash in the world to come.

There's always a change going on.

You never know what's gonna happen next.

You never know what new clothes you're gonna have.

You never know what the new records are gonna be.

My stack of records keeps getting larger.

You know how parents are. They always bug you-- where you're going,

when you're getting home, who you went with,

what time you're gonna be back, don't stay on the phone too long.

Then you get your own car, and you're free a little bit.

But they're still holding on the rope.

We're teenagers.

But we didn't always exist.

We were a wartime invention.

Who would we become?

Who would decide it?

The adults?

Or us?

First we were just children.

That's how they thought of us.

And then all of a sudden we were supposed to be adults.

Twelve years old, and I'd be off to work in the factory.

I worked 74 hours a week.

6:00 in the morning till 5:30 at night.

Saturdays till noon.

My hands were bruised and cut.

I felt like a slave.

Children have always worked,

but it is only since the reign of the machine...

that their work has been synonymous with slavery.

There is no more terrible page in history...

than that which records the enslavement of mere babies...

by the industrial revolution.

Adults knew it wasn't right.

They wanted to protect us.

So governments started to make child labor against the law.

I started going to school.

I loved having fun with my friends.

We were young,

and we were allowed to be.

There was a second stage of life now.

"Adolescence."

In the factory we were prisoners,

but in the streets...

we were free.

The cities were fast and hard.

So were we.

We formed gangs that roamed the streets.

"Hooligans" is what the police called us.

We carried knives.

We robbed... and killed.

Youth were a problem...

that had to be controlled.

My brother Scouts,

you are doing much to prevent the present disgraceful waste...

of human materials...

and showing your poorer brothers...

how to be good, successful men.

One man thought he'd found a solution...

to the problem of youth.

A soldier called Robert Baden-Powell...

wrote a military training manual for the young.

Scouting for Boys it was called.

It was a manifesto for a movement--

the Boy Scouts.

You are tested on your honor...

to do your best to carry out the Scout Promise,

which is to work for God and the king.

Tracking and camping had always been a fantasy for me.

I'd yearned for an awfully big adventure,

and here it was.

The Scouts came to America too.

Hundreds of thousands of boys joined.

They learned patriotism,

courage and self-reliance.

Once a Scout, always a Scout.

I believed what Baden-Powell said--

"The Scout is loyal to the king,

to his officers, his parents and country.

He must stick to them through thick and thin."

We went from rat-faced slum kids...

to fit and healthy soldiers,

primed for war.

Today, England is off to war.

Meet the fall with the cry of liberty.

If you didn't join up,

you were letting everybody down.

They made sure you knew it.

In Germany, the news of war was intoxicating.

**

There were bands playing, flags flying.

What drove us was a feeling of adulthood...

burning up inside.

Half the population was under the age of 22.

Almost all the boys applied for military service.

13- or 14-year-olds...

were crushed if they were rejected by the recruiting officers.

Europe tore itself apart.

And then the Americans came.

More than two million soldiers,

fully equipped and indomitable in spirit,

were safely transported across 3,000 miles of seas,

where they turned the tide of battle,

one imperishable glory...

and triumph to the greatest war that the world has ever known.

They brought new music, dances and films.

American culture started to spread.

Our boys made good in France.

The word "American" has a new meaning in Europe.

When my brother died in the war,

they sent us a frame that said "Died on the field of honor."

There is no field of honor.

An entire generation was gutted.

We lost all loyalty and trust.

We were shell-shocked.

The pound of the guns drove us mad.

Millions of young men were massacred.

The old had sent us to die,

and we hated them.

After the war, everyone wanted to be born anew,

to blot out the past.

There was this reckless sense of release,

and I felt a kind of wildness inside.

What do they want?

They say, "We want beer."

Spending their money, debauching their character,

rotting their bodies...

and jeopardizing their immortal souls.

My father says I can't go out every night.

But what on earth does he want me to do?

Just sit around at home all evening?

I don't trust my parents anymore.

I just want to be with my friends.

Our world is speedy,

and they're old.

The power of today is in our hands.

We who number ourselves among the so-called wild and wicked youth...

would prefer to go out with drums beating and bugles blowing.

We want to be young before we're old.

They call us flappers, flaming youth.

The times have made us awfully experienced for our age.

I got all the new jazz records.

My mum thought it was awful noise.

She asked me why it was good, and I said,

"Because it comes from America."

You'd hear people say,

"Those who get the youth get the future."

Our parents had ruined Germany,

and we wanted a new kind of community.

So we joined youth groups.

There had been youth movements even before the war.

Workers' youth groups, Jewish youth groups,

but the most important group was the Wandervogel--

"Wandering Birds."

Our teachers and our parents didn't understand us.

So we created our own world.

Youth were leading youth.

We'd run through forests,

lay together at bonfires,

make flower wreaths and photos,

sing and dance.

Then drop off our clothes...

and feel free.

To be young was the style.

And it was for sale.

Records,

cigarettes, perfume.

And all those glamorous Hollywood stars to admire.

I wanted to be like Valentino.

He always got the girls.

When he died, we rushed the funeral by the thousands.

They called it a riot.

I wish I could have been there.

**

In Britain there was a new breed,

and we defined ourselves by our youth.

They called us the Bright Young People.

It started with a few girls who liked dressing up,

doing hoaxes and treasure hunts,

making a fool of everyone.

We took it all very seriously.

Except when we didn't.

The police were trying to shut down all of London's nightlife.

So we created our own.

There was this one girl who shined especially bright.

Her name was Brenda Dean Paul.

Brenda hit the scene in 1926.

She was 19.

She came from a broken home.

Longed to be famous.

She played many parts, but...

the most convincing was her role as life and soul of the party.

Pajama parties,

Greek parties, Russian parties,

sailor parties, American parties,