Teenage Wasteland

Based on the inclusion of “Baba O’Riley” (“Teenage Wasteland”), a song that the influential rock band The Who released in 1971, this story likely takes place in the early 1970s. If the 1960s were about the ascendance of youth culture and increasingly liberal perspectives on sex, women’s place in society, and race, the 1970s was a moment of reaction by people whose authority was called into question by these shifts and by the apparent beneficiaries of liberalization. Donny’s character arc most clearly illustrates the sense of uncertainty around what would happen once adult and societal authority were overthrown.

Donny is an elusive character whose motivations are not always apparent because Daisy serves as the focal character in the story. Still, his words and actions make it apparent that he has embraced the rejection of authority and middle-class values that animated youth culture during the 1960s. His truancy, drinking, and overt rebellion against his parents show that he has little respect for the values of an older generation.

Cal’s entrance into the lives of the Cobles merely gives Donny the vocabulary to talk about this rejection and a space to exercise his autonomy outside of the control of his parents. Donny might simply be lazy or have an undiagnosed learning disability, but with Cal’s help, Donny finally identifies school as a coercive, prison-like space that prevents him from exercising the full range of his teenage freedom.