The world often fails to empower our youth as they deserve to be; Shazam! has a different message for them.

**Please be warned that the following article makes references to both suicide and gun violence. We caution readers to proceed any further if they may be uncomfortable reading about such subjects.

To the surprise of no one, a lot of young people made their way to movie theaters in 2018. According to the Motion Picture Association of America, 8.1 million kids under the age of 18 were identified as being “frequent moviegoers” in the United States and Canada, meaning that they attended cinemas at least once a month, if not more often than that. That number swells to 13.7 million if you include the 18-24 age group.

In fact, the 12-17 age group claimed the highest per capita attendance (tickets sold per person) alongside 18-24 year olds, and both were overrepresented among frequent moviegoers compared to their share of the total population. Where the 12-17 age range accounted for around 8% of the population in 2018, it accounted for 12% of those labeled frequent moviegoers.

Our youth clearly loves going to the movies, and those who head to theaters are extremely passionate about it.

The seemingly endless parade of escapism blockbusters is driving young people to cinemas, with the wildly popular superhero genre assuredly leading the charge. What movie-going youngster that you know wasn’t eager to see Wonder Woman, Guardians of the Galaxy, Spider-Man, or an Avengers flick? How else do you explain superheroes dethroning princesses’ 11 year reign as the most popular kids Halloween costume?

It’s kind of amazing, then, that DC’s Shazam! is the first superhero blockbuster where adolescents assume most of the leading roles. Before this, youth in the genre was primarily associated with the Spider-Man flicks, where the characters are still closer to their 20s than they are to middle school (and often portrayed by actors who are in their 20s). The exceedingly rare exception came with Dafne Keen’s X-23 in Logan, an R-rated film that most youngsters probably never even saw.

Whether it’s been Sony’s live-action Spider-Man efforts, 21st Century Fox’s X-Men universe, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or the DC Universe, it’s only characters old enough to legally drive a car who have made a difference in their worlds.

When we regularly see middle schoolers and grammar school children spurring charitable causes and other forms of activism, it feels long overdue that one of these big budget superhero spectacles shows kids making a positive impact on their environment.

Billy Batson (Asher Angel), Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer), and most of the Vasquez foster siblings are kids who do exactly that. Shazam! is a heartwarming movie where the kids spend plenty of time fawning over the might of famed heroes like Batman and Superman, only to then prove that they possess the same ability to save the day. It’s a wonderful message about the unlimited potential in the youth when they’re inspired and encouraged to achieve whatever they dream.

It’s a message that our youth should hear all the time.

It’s far better than what they often hear.

Older generations being overly critical of younger generations is nothing new, but it’s far more difficult for today’s kids to simply tune out the baseless cynicism directed at their age group. Constant connectivity through the internet―a platform that Gen Z members and younger have known their entire lives and have been trained to rely on―means that the cries of today’s youth being “lazy”, “entitled”, or “selfish” are often right in their faces.

Millennials know all about that after a thoroughly absurd instance a few years ago when Time Magazine decided to throw an entire generation under the bus. Scrolling through the news feed on a digital device or passing by a newsstand yielded this headline from the world’s largest weekly news magazine ― “Millennials are lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents”.

But the cynicism for Millenials, and especially those younger, isn’t limited to one giant backhanded compliment of an editorial that has the intellectual merit of your average grocery store tabloid.

It comes in the form of Millenials and Gen Z members being blamed for the troubles of once-flourishing retail chains who have seen their revenue plummet in recent years. As outlets like Bloomberg and Business Insider often like to put it, the young people are “killing” these businesses.

Surveys taken about young people reveal that adults think they are “less virtuous and industrious than their elders”, or that “social media [and] going on the internet are the most important things” to them, despite surveys which actually talk to young people revealing evidence to the contrary.

Whether it’s on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, or right here in America, kids are placed alongside other groups, like athletes, actors, etc. who should “stay away from politics”.

Even though any person under the age of 30 will be able to recount at least one time (if not many more) where they’ve heard a Baby Boomer or Gen X-er lament that kids these days ‘are too concerned with their phones and computers to pay attention to politics’, or some other variation of that sentiment.

The belief that youth and social issues don’t mix took a more sinister turn just last year.

2018 saw more kids killed in schools than servicemen and servicewomen were killed in combat, yet kids who pushed for any change or even suggested conversation on gun violence in America―including those students who survived school shootings―were publicly ridiculed, or even condemned for their advocacy.

Those students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the same who organized the March For Our Lives movement, endured it all as they took action.

They were insulted across all media channels, sometimes with run the mill jabs like “moron”, and other times with more creative barbs like “skinhead lesbian”.

They were subjected to doctored videos that blatantly and grossly misrepresented their cause.

They were even accused of having no souls.

But one bit of disdain for those students that really stands out ―

“This is the problem with letting children write news stories. The articles tend to be dumb, and intentionally or not they tend to be inaccurate and dishonest. Worst of all, they tend to reinforce the fantasy that complex problems have simple solutions, because that is what most children believe.” ― Tucker Carlson

To read that evokes so much more than just a disagreement with their cause. Those words go beyond one’s personal significance placed upon inanimate objects like firearms. There is a deeper, vicious nature to a statement like that, one that not simply degrades the social agenda which a particular movement champions, but degrades all young people in our society. It says that regardless of what ‘children’ believe, even if it’s a principle one may agree with, it will never have value.

Shazam! shows both sides of the coin which our youth can occupy. With Thaddeus Sivana, there is a child (played by Ethan Pugiotto) who was disparaged by those in care of him and who was always faced with declarations of what he could not accomplish. His guiding figures emphasized his incapability rather than his quality.

Billy Batson has faith placed in him, and not just by the wizard who grants him his super powers, but by his foster parents and every new sibling he gains when embracing the Vasquez household as home. This heroic young man is [eventually] the product of an upbringing and support system that emboldens him to realize his boundless potential.

Through the Vasquez foster family, Shazam! presents another key message for today’s young people―there is no such thing as an abnormal family. What’s not important is if your upbringing meets statistical criteria; what’s important is if there is love and support, no matter who it comes from. At a time when around 25% of US children live in a single parent home, and an estimated 114,000 same sex couples are raising children, Shazam!’s statement on family having no defined form will ring true for many kids.

Thaddeus Sivana had a biological older brother and father, but neither nurtured him. Billy Batson had the Vasquez household, a family of varying age and ethnicity, whose genuine care for him is truer family than any amount of blood relation.

Today’s youth needs and deserves as much of Shazam!’s positive reinforcement as possible. Teen suicide has risen dramatically over the last several years. Between 2007-2015, the rate jumped more than 30% for boys in the US, while it doubled for girls ages 15-19 in that same period.

This world can be unrelentingly nightmarish at times, and kids are exposed to the worst it has to offer now more than ever due to the internet’s ubiquity. The world’s ruthlessness can be daunting for any person, but it can only be that much more frightening for someone without the life experience to compartmentalize it all. Uncertainty looms over kids when life tasks them to anticipate what comes next, or to know what the correct response to misfortune is.

As society strives to correct this horrific issue, and even after significant progress has been made, we must continue to tell kids what Shazam! tells them―that they are superheroes, too.

If you want to help prevent suicide in our youth, as well for all people, regardless of age, we encourage you to donate to The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, or a similar cause.

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