What is the narrative perspective of
Young Americans? Is it narrated at the same time as the events it portrays, or later, or neither? What is it temporal setting?
Ostensibly, at least, the drama is set in the present -- time time at which the drama was first aired. On the front of Rawley Boys', throughout the drama, hang huge blue banners bearing the words, "Summer 2000." And the drama's dialogue abounds in allusions to the popular U.S. youth culture of the late 1990s.
However, the drama also abounds in anachronisms. Gender-segregated boys' prep schools and full-service gas stations both nearly disappeared from New England during the 1970s; the last such school went full coed in 1997, and by 2000, full-service gas stations, although not impossible to find, were rare. Charlie Bank's gas station, the setting many of the drama's scenes including its first, has a 1920's style canopy and exterior decor, a 1930's-vintage coke dispenser, 1940's-vintage gas pumps, two trucks dating from around 1950, and Coke in glass bottles (generally unobtainable in the USA after the 1970s). And the dialogue and soundtrack contain or allude to many things from the late 1960s and early 1970s -- when YA's creator, Steve Antin, was young -- such as Nick Drake songs, bell-bottom pants, Bob Dylan's "Love Minus Zero," the Vietnam war, Hendrix's "Foxy Lady," and Abba's "Fernando."
Until the last voice-over the the last episode, Will Krudski narrates in the present tense, ostensibly reflecting on contemporary events. But how can a drama set in the present, and narrated in the present, include events of which the narrator has no contemporary awareness -- including nearly all of the Jake-Hamilton storyline? And the tense of narration changes, in the last voice-over of the last episode, from present to past: "I knew I'd never forget ... that summer." To underscore the change, Will repeats, word-for-word, his closing voice-over from the first episode -- but now in the past tense rather than the present tense. So is Krudski narrating about the past from the present, or about the present from our future, or neither, or both?
Perhaps Young Americans has no unique temporal perespective. Perhaps time, in
YA, doesn't obey the rules of reality. Perhaps the drama's a dream.
YA abounds in references and allusions to dreams:
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I am the dream of a better life. -- Krudski in his essay for Finn, unaired pilot
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Just think about the good stuff. -- Krudski's mom to Krudski when dropping him off at Rawley, YA 1.
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WILL: The perfect lawns, the perfect building, the perfect life, the perfect people -- something that wasn't meant for me. ... For you guys, anything is possible. ... I don't belong here.
SCOUT: Nobody belongs anywhere. It's all in your head.
-- YA 1
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Quote:
Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high,
There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.
Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.
-- "Over the Rainbow," song from The Wizard of Oz (1939), a dream-tale, played at the end of YA 1 & YA 8. YA contains two more allusion to The Wizard of Oz, "Munchie" (Munchkin) in YA 3 and "The Wiz" in YA 5.
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Quote:
"Be yourself." What a cliché! We hear it over and over in literature, fairy tales, songs. But we still don't get it. It might be because when we dream we don't worry whether the dream is worthy of us, but whether we're worthy of the dream. So we lose our identities in order to chase what we want. But if we can stay proud of who we are and not run from ourselves, then maybe our dreams, like the prince with the glass slipper, will come find us.
-- Krudski's closing narrative voice-over, YA 4
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But if
YA is a dream that combines present reality, past memory, part hope for the future, how does it combine them, and why? If YA is a dream come true, then in what sense is it "true," if it's not real? What does that suggest about the dream's core, a tale of "true love"? Who or what is Krudski-as-narrator, how does he relate to Krudski-as-character, and why is he dreaming this dream? Why is he going to Rawley? Why does he take us there with him? What are we there to learn? What are we there to do? What's the point?
(Thanks to our moderators for their kind permission to start this thread.)