English edit

Etymology edit

teen +‎ -sploitation (from exploitation film). From 1980s.

Noun edit

teensploitation (uncountable)

  1. (film) A genre of exploitation films, starring teenage actors with teen-oriented plots involving drugs, sex, alcohol or crime.
    We sat down to watch a teensploitation slasher flick.
    • 1999 February, Bill Sienkiewicz, “Forever Young”, in SPIN, SPIN Media, page 64:
      With 1955's Blackboard Jungle—the first film to traffic heavily in youth rebellion and sex, the twin pillars of any teenager's existence—a brilliant, if obvious, new genre of film was born: teensploitation, movies about teenagers made for teenagers but watched by everybody.
    • 1999, Edmond Grant, The Motion Picture Guide: 1999 Annual (The Films of 1998), CineBooks, page vii,
      Adrian Lyne's LOLITA was more notable for the terror it struck in controversy-shy American distributors than for its content, reducing taboo subject matter to a teensploitation film with a literary pedigree.
    • 2005, Rob McInnes, Timothy Shary, Teen Movies: American Youth on Screen[1], Columbia University Press (Wallflower), page 21:
      The influence of Rebel Without a Cause is difficult to underestimate.[sic] Despite what appeared to be just another entry in the burgeoning teensploitation trend, the film distinguished itself for a variety of reasons.

Further reading edit