Academic Psychiatry 27:54-62, March 2003
© 2003 Academic Psychiatry
From Alice Cooper to Marilyn Manson
The Significance of Adolescent Antiheroes
Jeff Q. Bostic, M.D., Ed.D.,
Steve Schlozman, M.D.,
Caroly Pataki, M.D.,
Carel Ristuccia,
Eugene V. Beresin, M.D. and
Andrés Martin, M.D., M.P.H.
Drs. Bostic, Schlozman, and Beresin are affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. Ms. Ristuccia is affiliated with Tufts University, Boston, MA; Dr. Pataki with UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, Los Angeles, CA; and Dr. Martin with the Yale Child Study Center, New Haven, CT. Address correspondence to Dr. Bostic, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 15 Parkman Street, WAC 725, Boston, MA, 02114-3139.
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ABSTRACT
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Every generation has icons attractive to adolescents and equally repugnant to adults. This article examines antihero characteristics, their appeal to adolescents, and how adults can respond to adolescents enamored of antiheroes. The stage personas of antiheroes champion rejection of the mainstream, assail adult constraints and expectations, explore frightening topics, and ultimately fulfill the adolescent fantasy of surviving alienation and emerging victorious over parents and peers. But antihero idolization also tests the adult's defenses. Adults, fearing loss of control and rejection by the adolescent, sometimes resort to primitive defenses mismatched to the developmental needs of the adolescent. Adults, as much as the adolescents, benefit from examining their individual reactions to the antihero and how their current relationship can accommodate this intrusion. The antihero phenomenon presents adults with an opportunity to model ways to think through that which is uncomfortable and to navigate together the adolescent's developmentally normative separation efforts.
Key Words: Child and Adolescent Psychiatry • Popular Culture
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INTRODUCTION
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His kind of music is deplorable ... sung, played, and written for the most part by cretinous goons.
—Frank Sinatra on Elvis Presley
Popular music embraced by adolescents falls along a spectrum from the mainstream "hero" figures acceptable to parents and the adult establishment to the less tolerable and more disturbing extreme imposed by its countercultural antiheroes. Adolescent heroes, such as Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, and the Backstreet Boys, espouse values more "in sync" with the adult world and are usually palatable to parents. At the other end of this continuum are adolescent antiheroes such as Marilyn Manson—or Alice Cooper some 30 years ago. These stars are deliberately provocative, assailing almost every social convention of the adult generation, and parents often fear they are leading youth astray (1).
Although antiheroes continue to be blamed in tragedies such as adolescent suicides (2–5) and homicides (6), and a subset of severely psychiatrically ill adolescents imitate troubling self-destructive acts of these artists, the majority of adolescent fans do not incorporate these dramatized negative behaviors into their real lives. Parents sometimes become painfully aware that their own music is being rejected, and they anticipate fearfully their adolescent's rejection and replacement of other aspects of their lifestyle as well. Every generation appears to repeat this pattern, though, so perhaps this process plays an important role in adolescent individuation. Perhaps those icons, appealing to adolescents and simultaneously frightening to adults, fulfill a significant function during adolescent development and provide an opportunity for adults to support the adolescent through the transition to adulthood. Adolescent admiration of musical antiheroes presents a striking example of the struggle toward independence. Examination of the antihero phenomenon may thus help adults better understand and address three important questions:
- Are there common themes uniting antiheroes?
- What do antiheroes offer young people that more mainstream popular culture figures fail to provide?
- How can adults, including mental health clinicians, assist young people who are enamored of antiheroes?
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WHAT DO ANTIHEROES HAVE IN COMMON?
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Alice Cooper (AC) and Marilyn Manson (MM) each seized opportunities to offend contemporary sensibilities. Alice Cooper emerged in the late 1960s as the band "that drove a stake through the heart of the love generation" (7). Although Alice Cooper was the name of a band, AC was most associated with lead singer Vincent Furnier, and here "AC" will be used to refer to him (8). His more parentally distressing songs violated taboos of necrophilia ("I Love the Dead"), violence ("Dead Babies"), and mental illness ("The Ballad of Dwight Fry"). His stage antics were equally provocative, as AC dismembered baby dolls with an axe, assaulted women, and ultimately dramatically acted out a "guillotine" scene of decapitating himself at the end of shows. Additional information and photographs of AC may be viewed on the Internet at www.alicecooper.com.
Some 20 years later, MM reacted against the "grunge" music of the early 1990s. Each of the band members combined a movie idol's first name with a serial killer's last name (e.g., Marilyn Manson, Daisy Berkowitz, Ginger Fish), and the band took aim at everything sacred to this adult generation. Because of rageful and provocative lyrics ("I don't like the drugs, but the drugs like me"), ghoulish appearance, and extreme onstage behaviors (including self-mutilation), MM evoked adult ire and, specifically, blame after the Columbine shootings (9). MM photographs and song lyrics may be accessed via the Internet at www.marilynmanson.com.
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THE PERSONAS OF ANTIHEROES:WHAT DO THEY OFFER?
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Despite their provocativeness, it is important to keep in mind that AC and MM both exhibit onstage personas. These are often created characters, fantasied alter egos, capable of feats or behaviors beyond those of their creators. These onstage personas have several common characteristics:
- Each antihero champions the uprising of adolescents against the prevailing mainstream values and expectations. Each character challenges societal forces that constrain adolescent identity options.
- The quest for individuality culminates in a reaction against anything currently acknowledged by the mainstream, including the music of even the last few years.
- Each character is heard at all costs. The intensity of the message often supersedes the content.
- Each character has a distinctive appearance, identifying that antihero as distinct from the mainstream "herd." This demonstrative appearance shows others that an alternative to "fitting in" is available.
- Each character persists despite idiosyncrasies, weaknesses, or vulnerabilities. Neither AC nor MM is a physically large or strong male, yet they are strong characters.
- Each character celebrates, but perhaps most importantly survives, isolation from the mainstream (2). For the adolescent who fears exclusion and banishment, these artists provide hope that alienation can be survived and indeed may provide a model for an identity formation. That survival process, which Erikson termed "negative identity" (10), exemplifies the adolescent's struggle to find expression even at the expense of mainstream or positive values. The adolescent's affirmation of an identity is in itself usually strengthening, despite its link to negative or destructive imagery.
- Each character experiments with identity. No limits are imposed in terms of gender identity, sexuality, or religious or philosophical views. MM appeared in videos ("The Dope Show") with breasts. AC concludes his love song "Mary Anne" with, "Mary Anne, I thought you were my man."
Observers, however, frequently do not disentangle the onstage persona from the offstage person. AC's song lyrics were taken quite literally by adults, despite AC's comments: "I've never had a sexual experience with a male. But that doesn't mean I won't. It's just that America expects me to be chasing fourteen boys around a room with a whip" (11).
These antiheroes similarly explored religious practices heretical according to Judeo-Christian beliefs. AC's father was a minister, but AC represented reincarnation and witchcraft. MM attended a parochial school where he felt creatively stifled and unhappy as he observed the inconsistencies between the way he was treated and the religious ideas he was taught. MM (12) chronicled his interests in but similar disillusionment with Satanism.
- Each character embraces uncomfortable issues such as death and mutilation, and in doing so confronts difficult issues with drama and outrageous behavior rather than avoids them. These antiheroes provide adolescents a forum for considering anxiety-provoking issues, but in a way that is displaced and even exaggerated, much as riding a roller coaster allows one to face fears of speed or heights.
- These icons, like all people, frequently work through their own experiences, using their art as a tool to express overwhelming feelings. Their psychological themes may very well manifest "at work," while being viewed by thousands of adolescents who are also struggling to find some meaning in their own lives. AC missed months of school at age 12 following a ruptured appendix (7), and MM began his autobiography by describing disillusionment with family members and with pornography (12).
The above characteristics often appeal to adolescents as they begin to define themselves apart from their parents. Finding flaws in the existing adult social order helps the adolescent shift more time and loyalty away from the value system of adults. This alternative may be especially compelling for vulnerable and angry adolescents who have been emotionally wounded and have experienced rejection by parents, by teachers, or even by peers. Being able to assert the self without annihilation and to join a new-found group allows the adolescent to clarify boundaries that foster autonomy. For most adolescents, asserting oneself by words, attire, or deeds, and despite weaknesses, vulnerabilities, or uncertainties, tests conventional boundaries on one side and helps to create bonds with a chosen peer group on the other. Each adolescent brings a different past, and thus different intrapsychic conflicts, to this developmental task.
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WHAT FUNCTION DO ANTIHEROES SERVE FOR ADOLESCENTS?
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Developmental Theory and Antiheroes: Separation and Maturation
Adolescents face two intertwined tasks. First, adolescents must separate enough from parents to identify their own interests and construct an identity apart from their parents, yet remain close enough to return should they fail to connect to a peer group or find themselves in danger. Second, the adolescent must be able to affix to peers while letting go of parents. The adolescent often struggles with being "alike enough " to connect with other adolescents, yet valuable enough to avoid becoming dominated by peers.
For adolescents fearing parental dependency, antiheroes may provide identity anchor points or way stations to slow their absorption into adult society. Antiheroes, in their role of highly visible provocateurs, can provide optimal cushioning or buffering during such perceived free fall. Indeed, their very shock value can be understood as a highly effective form of compromise formation: one between pushing and scaring away on the one hand (the "stay out of my life!" demand) and luring, pulling in, or seducing on the other (with its inherent plea for ongoing attention and involvement). Provocation or shock thus can be reconceptualized (and put to clinical use) as an alternative therapeutic métier.
For the adolescent who is unsure of his or her own sense of self, the portrayal of a well-defined character able to swim against the mainstream is immensely satisfying. As Erikson (10) stresses, the alternative to a cohesive identity is disintegration of the self. Adolescents, especially those who are unsure of their societal roles, will often go to great lengths to avoid the amorphous and intensely anxious feeling of being ill defined (13).
Every generation has its own icons that adolescents embrace, but why do some adolescents choose such antiheroes, as opposed to more palatable mainstream heroes? One factor may be that these adolescents simply don't see themselves as having the talents or traits to turn into more mainstream heroes. Few have suggested that either AC or MM has vocal ability beyond that of any speaking adolescent. What antiheroes do possess, along with their outrageous behavior, is uniqueness, creativity, and courage, which predominate over attributes such as perfect pitch or physical strength. Adolescents can have hope that despite their "flaws," they still can become important.
As adolescents mature cognitively, they become increasingly proficient at recognizing hypocrisy. Although younger children may recognize hypocrisy, they have the external controls of latency (including parents and other adults who exercise authority over what they are exposed to) to contain these internal conflicts. Adolescents shed these external controls as they feel the impetus to let go of parents so that they can bond with peers. Adolescents sensitive to or harmed by hypocrisy, as well as those who fear dependency, appear inclined toward these antiheroes. These antiheroes reject the mainstream, making them attractive to adolescents who feel betrayed or insufficiently protected by mainstream society. Embracing those icons who have also been rejected by society provides adolescents, de facto, a group to ally with against their oppressors. Indeed, they may feel a "connection of rejections" with these antiheroes.
Adolescents may imitate particularly superficial aspects of the antihero (such as clothes or dress) as they try to fashion themselves into a figure similarly powerful against authority figures. Too often, "looking the part" becomes the first step toward playing out the fantasy in which they, like the antihero, emerge victorious. But these antihero identities adopted by adolescents are almost invariably "holding" identities. Eventually, the adolescent figures out that the stage persona represents an invincible, uncompromising fantasy, both to adolescents and to its creator. For younger adolescents, the freedom to be appreciated for their differences promotes their hopes and dreams for the future. As development proceeds, many adolescents eventually envision identities that include uniqueness, creativity, and unconventional beliefs but that do not require as extreme a departure from mainstream values as their antiheroes have demonstrated.
These antihero personas are indeed fantasies, little different from comic book characters or other fictional characters. Both AC and MM have identified difficulty maintaining the boundaries between their antihero and offstage identities: AC described deterioration when his stage character (AC) began to dominate his personality, and MM experienced legal retaliation by security personnel when he tried to "play" his stage persona with them during performances (14).
Ultimately, antiheroes suffer the dialectic fate of all other antithetical forces or ideas: they become somehow assimilated or absorbed. To continue as antiheroes, these characters have to rebel against their socially acknowledged role. While AC in 2002 made tongue-in-cheek commercials for a hotel chain, MM participated in remaking a song for a major Hollywood movie company. This is not to contend that these artists "sell out," but rather that they do provoke a response from mainstream society, which invariably reequilibrates to them.
Primitive Defense Mechanisms
It is also possible to understand antiheroes in terms of adolescent defense mechanisms. Under stress, adolescents often regress to more primitive defenses such as splitting and projection. Adolescents uncomfortable with their broadening and less secure view of the world might resort to splitting, choosing to view controversial issues as entirely good or entirely bad. This defensive maneuver clashes with considering multiple perspectives, and they may choose to project outward these uncomfortable feelings. Projection of this sort is ideally suited for displacement, and antiheroes are ideal vehicles for displacement. The classic adolescent battle against conformity can be safely displaced onto the antihero's "battle" with conventional society.
While the adolescent's defense structure shifts as necessitated by developmental tasks, the adult's defense system is also tested. For the adult, anxiety increases with the fear of loss of control of this child, with the fear of being criticized by other parents for succumbing to the adolescent, and, perhaps most important, with the fear that their children will reject their values and will abandon them. Reaction of the adult to the adolescent's emerging separation, and particularly to loss of control over the adolescent's behaviors and values, may so intensify adult anxiety that the existing defense system is overwhelmed. Alternatively, adult defensive styles may become exaggerated in an effort to secure the threatened values and boundaries of adolescents. This view of "defensive paternalism" may help us to understand intolerance or larger-scale efforts at censorship and regulation, in which adults are trying to secure the well-being not only of their adolescent, but of those under their societal charge more broadly.
Ideally, the adult's healthier, more mature defense system protects the child and adapts to changes as the child's libidinal and aggressive urges require greater containment with the onset of adolescence. However, given the intensity and volatility of these urges, sometimes the adult's defense structure begins to collapse and become more primitive. Primitive adult defenses emerge, which manifest as primitive responses (sometimes regression to authoritarianism, but sometimes denial manifesting as avoidance or neglect) but which, most importantly, are ideally mismatched to the needs of the separating adolescent. In a sense, the tables are turned and adults respond cognitively as latency-age children, clinging to absolute rules and regulations: "You will not listen to that garbage!" On the other hand, adolescents in this setting might protest, "But you don't know anything about the music!" The adolescent seizes on the issue as a means of protesting any attempt to stifle independent thought. The adult's defense system, rather than providing containment of further anxiety, often gives way under this increased anxiety load, making even small tensions too great to bear. Disconnection and avoidance of anxiety-provoking interactions ensue, facilitating adolescent separation but without providing the adolescent with useful or higher-order defenses to employ as coping skills.
The issue then becomes systemic, located not only within the adolescent, but between the adolescent and the adult. The adolescent's anxiety about navigating the particular developmental task at hand (finding a separate but attractive identity) is only the catalyst for this adult–adolescent conflict. Both the adolescent and the adult must examine their individual reactions to the antihero, what the antihero provokes inside of them, and how they must adjust their current relationship to accommodate this intrusion. It may at first seem paradoxical that adolescents who attach themselves emotionally to antihero idols actually provoke more parental intrusion than more mainstream adolescents because of a typical parent's concern about the adolescent's choice, but it is appropriate for the adolescent and parent to communicate about the meaning of the attachment. Isolating the adolescent from the antihero while preserving the adult's defensive structure rarely works for the adolescent, and thus rarely works for long. The adolescent's attraction to antiheroes serves as a barometer of the needs of the adolescent and clarifies what changes are needed in the adult–adolescent relationship. The options, while uncomfortable for the adult, are to adapt to this change or to distance from the adolescent.
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CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: HOW CAN ADULTS ASSIST YOUNG PEOPLE ENAMORED OF ANTIHEROES?
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The initial objective for the adult (parent or clinician) is to foster communication necessary to understand if the adolescent's attachment to "antihero" music is actually an expression of overwhelming psychological distress or part of a developmental process providing a sense of belonging, structure, or even comfort for the adolescent. It may be difficult for a parent or a clinician to accept that this attachment, and rejection of the adult's values, may be a valuable coping strategy for an adolescent during a time of exploration. The perceived threat to the adult's identity often appears greater than that to the adolescent, who is often experimenting with various roles or personas.
The most important direction for inquiry is to find out what the adolescent is trying to say through this particular musical choice. A clinician has the opportunity to help an adolescent identify what it is that most resonates between the adolescent and this antihero. The adolescent may resonate with the persona of alienation, rage, or confusion depicted by an antihero (15), or with certain music or lyrics, or even with technical aspects such as videography or musical innovations. (For example, Ginger Fish was featured in Modern Drummer describing technological achievements in triggering sounds and loops within MM songs.) Evidence suggests that adolescents often attend far less to song lyrics than had been expected (16); meanwhile adults often "antiresonate" with certain aspects of these antiheroes' lyrics.
Accordingly, the most courageous question an adult can ask an adolescent is. "What all about [musical icon] do you like?" The emerging dialogue may reveal underlying issues, but also opportunities:
- Are adolescents who enjoy antihero music testing or cultivating their bravery by showing that they can listen to or watch (and survive) "scary" or unsettling music? If this is the case, parents and clinicians can use this as an opportunity to recognize the adolescent's good intentions in examining the unfamiliar, bolstering self-esteem and increasing the likelihood of positive choices. This need not become an endorsement of the antihero, but rather recognition of how the adolescent is using the antihero.
- Are adolescents who listen to and watch antihero music revealing how they feel about current social institutions such as church, school, and domestic life? For these adolescents, a number of underlying and unvoiced insecurities and fears may be in play. Young people may think to themselves that if those at school or at home really knew what they were thinking, they would be even more outcast than they already feel. Adolescents are often fearful they will never have a place within existing social channels (17), and thus they reject society before it can reject them. Indeed, the more the adolescent fears rejection, the greater the intensity of his or her hostility.
Adolescent antihero worship allows adults to model valuable lessons in tolerance and objective thinking. This can be done by asking the teenager what appeals to him or her in the antihero. If adults can contain their own anxiety, they can allow the adolescent's perceptions of the antihero's position to emerge. Of course, the risk for adults is that the antihero may have, in true dialectical fashion, contributions to make. Should women be entitled to the same sexual freedoms as men, as encouraged by Janis Joplin or Madonna? Would the world improve if people talked about what frightens them, as Alice Cooper did? Is it better to be honest about one's questions and one's journey as Marilyn Manson has done? However, in confronting such questions young people learn to recognize their own inconsistencies, as do adults. Anything that allows teenagers to better face their own strengths and weaknesses will diminish the likelihood of the substantially worse outcome that they will relinquish their identity to someone or something else.
Antihero Worship and Signs of Serious Psychological Distress Among Adolescents
There is no single factor indicating that an adolescent's attachment to an antihero is significantly self-destructive or a sign of imminent danger to that adolescent. There are, however, general signs of psychological distress among adolescents that can be applied to teens who idolize antiheroes. Adolescents who are without a peer group, who are significantly socially isolated from friends and distant from their families, or who appear to be obsessed with a particular musical icon whom they emulate and worship to the exclusion of all other interests are likely to be experiencing serious psychological difficulties. These adolescents are generally at risk and in need of immediate psychological intervention in order to assess their level of distress and safety.
Much of the anxiety that adults bring to this subject is based on their very real fears that young people about whom they care deeply will be irreparably harmed by antihero exposure (18). Given the extent to which mass media have both increased in prevalence and, as a consequence, decreased in level of censorship, what was once alienating and offputting has increasingly become normalized and accepted (19,20). Thus, preventing exposure to antiheroes becomes difficult as children reach adolescence. Too often these antiheroes arouse parental anxieties ("Is my child upset because of something I did? Is some aspect of our life a sham, unhappy, or hypocritical? Did I spend enough time with my child preparing him to contend with antisocial forces?") that are sufficient to evoke primitive parental defenses of repression (avoidance of listening to or discussing antiheroes) or regression ("Might is right, and I've destroyed or thrown out that music"). Conversation remains the dialectical process best able to bridge understanding and allow attention to both the adolescent's and the adult's underlying insecurities as revealed through the antihero.
Some adolescents with serious emotional disturbance express these feelings through preoccupations with firesetting or illicit drug use, and some also become unhealthy in their preoccupations with musical icons. Negative musical messages have been associated with negative behaviors (21), although adolescent anger knows no musical category limits (22). An important sign of this problem involves fixation on one icon for an extended period of time. AC and MM would never advocate that their fans not listen to other artists or explore additional styles. If an adolescent limits musical choices to one particular genre of music, concerned adults might ask the adolescent to discuss the differences among different artists of the same genre. This process can help young people to begin the process of differentiation and to recognize their own potential for stagnation.
If the adolescent persists in severely limiting musical choices, adults should consider what fears are causing the adolescent to relinquish his or her own identity and to adopt someone else's. For example, for the young person who fears he will never belong, adopting the less glamorous aspects of the antihero might protect against more personal rejection: "reject my Manson T-shirt rather than rejecting me." In this situation, efforts to stress the adolescent's uniqueness and individuality are strengthening and beneficial and can also help to clarify how the adolescent feels in relation to his or her peer group. Problem-solving steps could then evolve to help the adolescent cope with fears of humiliation and rejection.
Case Example
L.R., a 15-year-old girl, was seen for complaints of depression after the school reported "suicidal acts." L.R. denied suicidality but revealed that she had carved words in her abdomen, as she had seen done at an MM concert. She brought an MM CD to her second meeting with the psychiatrist and asked that he listen to the song "God of Fuck," seemingly interested in his reaction to the provocative title. She admitted she had kept these CDs hidden in a car because her family "prohibited" her from listening to such music. The psychiatrist commented on the "interesting song title" and asked her what it meant. She described MM's ability to take on anything, including all adult censors, and his honesty about dealing with sexuality. She described her wishes to be able to defend her own thoughts successfully, both with her parents and her peers. She described her carving as a spontaneous act shared with another girl, but she had only done it "a few times" because she worried about getting "infected" by sharing the razor blade. At the third meeting, the psychiatrist returned her CD, having listened to it but not having purchased his own copy. Empathic reaches about what it was like for her to cut revealed that she harbored fears of homosexuality and the abdominal cutting was a way of punishing herself for her sexual feelings. She elaborated that she felt different from all peers and feared never fitting in with them, and she recounted how MM had been criticized by others. When asked about other similarities, she instead described differences in religious position from MM and clarified her wish to be as "smart" in "comebacks" as he appeared. Discussion of her conflict resolutions with family and peers clarified that escalations to yelling, slammed doors, and "days of silence" were typical. She most wished to stop the "aggravations" at home and secondarily wished for better friends at school. Her avoidance of underlying issues (e.g., sexuality) by arguing about her "combat boots" ensued, and she suspected her family knew of her sexual confusion but were "afraid to deal with it." L.R. and the psychiatrist discussed her sexual interest and curiosity, which revealed attractions to males as well. They also discussed what she wished she could say to her parents and how she wished they would react. She fantasized about what she thought her parents thought about her interest in MM, leading to discussion of her anger at her parents and teachers for not better preparing her to engage with desirable peers. Therapy focused on how to initiate nonaggressive conversations and "read" reactions of others, and she experimented by trying to converse attired in different clothing styles. The psychiatrist met with her parents, who described fears they had "failed her" and their increasing social embarrassment, although they did not describe fears about her sexual inclinations. The psychiatrist reframed their perceived "failing" as a dilemma still ongoing, which resonated with their increasing anxiety about how they would interact with her once she reached 18; they further discussed her musical interests (and surreptitious CD collection) as a metaphor for testing what they could handle "hearing" from her. They altered their rules for interacting (nightly dinners with safer topics; music with expletives limited to listening only on headphones; focus on how one thinks through a decision rather than just what the solution "should be"; how to survive but also learn from rejections by others; and alternatives to self-mutilation or dangerous behaviors when frustrated). Perhaps more importantly, they formed an altered collective goal of helping her successfully engage with others of all types, so that she did not feel manipulated toward peers that only they liked. Over the next year her musical interests widened, her gothic attire muted, and she became meaningfully involved with a young man her parents liked.
This case clarifies how adolescents and their parents become embroiled in conflicts that are mutually unsatisfying. L.R. feared that underlying differences impeded her opportunities with other peers, and she displaced much of her anger onto parents and teachers who had not prepared her. Meanwhile her parents found her musical preferences an identifiable target in hopes of changing her behavior. The conflict over boots was a convenient distracting topic for channeling their collective anger, but since it was not the underlying issue (fears about connecting with peers), no discussion of it would ever produce a satisfactory outcome. Once she recognized that her own identity was evolving and that curiosity and fantasy about everything (including sexual choices) was a normal benefit of brain maturation, L.R. could focus away from defending every thought she had and could also reconsider her self-persecuting behaviors. Identifying L.R.'s, but also her parents', anxieties, somewhat revealed by L.R.'s musical tastes, provided direction for appropriate treatment interventions. Opportunities also existed to work with school personnel, particularly with regard to increasing their understanding of self-destructive behaviors.
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CONCLUSION
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Adolescents often need help in negotiating the sometimes treacherous path to adulthood. Adults can provide invaluable support to young people by encouraging their efforts to respond to the varied media, artistic, and musical stimuli that characterize their world while continuing to provide an accepting and safe environment at home. The answer is not in limiting exposure to uncomfortable issues; besides the fact that such limitations will be met with adolescent protests and defiance, the sheer enormity of media outreach will ensure that any attempt at limitation and censorship will most likely be thwarted. Rather, the antihero phenomenon presents us with the opportunity to model the ways we think through that which we find distressing. Antiheroes are merely a part of the sometimes frightening, always interesting, and in many ways routine path adolescents travel as they make their way into the adult world. Perhaps Milano (23) best reminds us to consider these antiheroes in historical context:
Anyone who grew up in the 70s should be experiencing déjà vu: a few million Alice Cooper fans grew up to be reasonably well-adjusted adults, and it's a safe bet that scores of Mansonites will do the same.
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ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
