Is Being 17 Really So Cool?

Chuck Zlotnick / Warner Bros. In the latest switcheroo movie, 17 Again, Zac Efron shows that teenagers have a hell of a lot more fun than adults. But do they? Willa Paskin explores the age-old question.

Hollywood loves recycling. Not paper, plastic, or glass—it loves recycling ideas. This weekend, it’s treating us to the latest in a long line of comedies about adults and teenagers who magically switch bodies, 17 Again, starring teen heartthrob du jour, Zac Efron.

17 Again is one of more than half a dozen films with plots that involve adolescents and adults landing in new corporeal surroundings. The first was 1976’s Freaky Friday with Jodie Foster, but there’s also the 2003 remake with Lindsay Lohan, Tom Hanks’ Big, Jennifer Garner’s 13 Going on 30, and a trifecta of mediocre late ‘80s movies about father-son and grandfather-son swaps, Vice Versa, Like Father Like Son (starring then teen pin-up, Kirk Cameron), and 18 Again.

The upside of Hollywood’s penchant for making teen-adult body-swapping flicks over and over and over again, besides the fact that they're pretty reliably amusing, is that it provides us with a timeline of what we thought were the pros and cons of adolescence and adulthood from movie to movie, year to year.

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In each of these films, an overworked, aggravated adult or a mollycoddled, put-upon adolescent magically gets to see how the other half lives. Hijinks ensue. The protagonist then realizes he had the better deal originally, and returns to his chronologically appropriate form with a new appreciation for his lot in life. 17 Again hews to this formula (it’s essentially Big in reverse), but though its plot is old, its conclusion is new: Being a teenager is way more fun than it used to be. In fact, it’s pretty much all fun, all the time. Why would anyone ever want to be an adult?

In the films that came before 17 Again, being a teenager was a drag. “I can’t eat what I want, I can't wear what I want, I can't keep my hair and nails the way I want,” Jodie Foster moans in Freaky Friday. Kirk Cameron’s dad refuses to comprehend that he really, really doesn’t want to be a doctor. The kid in Big suffers petty humiliation upon petty humiliation, including being too short for all the cool carnival rides. Being a teen’s so hard, one might reasonably wish to be “30 and flirty and thriving” instead, just as the girl in 13 Going on 30 does after her humiliating birthday party.

And adolescence isn’t just frustrating for teenagers in these films—it’s objectively difficult. All the grownups who find themselves newly housed in pre-pubescent digs have a hard time adjusting. Teachers condescend to them, parents ignore or smother them, classmates beat them up, and peers pelt them with garbage and dirty looks if they seem too smart.

Instead, it’s adulthood that’s a blast. Teenagers have to do what they're told, and grownups, or rather teenagers who look like grownups, do not. When Kirk Cameron turns into his father, he immediately maxes out his dad’s credit card on hideous Miami Vice threads and gets wasted trying to pick up chicks. When Fred Savage becomes his father in Vice Versa, he takes himself and a date to the heavy-metal concert his father forbade him to attend. Tom Hanks bags himself an enormous apartment and jumps on trampolines all night.