The Young & The Dying : The Continued Romanticization of Terminally Ill Adolescents in Contemporary American Cinema

Sammanfattning: This essay examines how the past decade’s wave of young adult films portraying termi-nal illnesses compare and contrast with similar works from both film as well as literary works commonly referred to as “sick-lit”. By viewing three prominent films released be-tween 2014 and 2019 and applying both literature dealing with sick-lit as well as texts fo-cused on how cinema tends to portray serious illnesses such as cancer, I attempt to dis-cern whether significant change in the way which contemporary film handles severe ill-nesses has occurred.What this study reveals is that while certain narrative traits have been altered and various problematic elements addressed, film still vastly prefers portraying illnesses such as can-cer and cystic fibrosis as bleak, death sentences. The “sick-flicks” of modern-day cinema have also failed to address critique of the sub-genre as being both heteronormative and racially homogenous in nature.However, compared to films depicting terminal illnesses in teenagers from the 2000’s the recent wave of films in general dedicate more time to spotlighting their diseases. No longer relegating them to emotional revelations toward the end of the film.Overall, the findings are that most criticisms of cinema’s portrayal of terminal illnesses remain, yet progress has also been achieved in certain respects. Filmmakers more inter-ested in utilizing illnesses as a way to examine coming-of-age topics than the full experi-ence of terminal illness, notwithstanding.