My noodle

6. Denby refers to Robert Warshow and his opinion that when the gangster dies, people feel ok about it because that basically means that society was being cleaned up.  This would be an explicit example of ethos.  An implicit example would be when he tells about how Americans have it pretty good these days, with computers, S.U.V.s, a good job market for adults, etc., and so teens should have it easy.  Instead they’re all worried about their identify, their friends, and their clothes.

7. His central argument is that teen movies are an extreme exaggeration of what high school is really like.  Denby’s secondary argument is that Hollywood changes the roles of characters to make them more interesting to the audience. He connects them by comparing the two together.

10. He supports the argument of “geeks rule” comparatively to the Columbine High School massacre because usually the geeks are the more successful, happy people and leave the “jocks” that bullied them in the dust.  The two Columbine killers did not see that and thought that their public embarrassment was too much, so they decided that waiting for a successful future was not worth it.  They wanted revenge.

11.  The movies such as If, Carrie, and Heather, show that the students who feel oppressed by others get back at them in evil ways, such as shooting them and burning down the school.  In the movies Clueless and Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, and Election, the oppressed students get back by becoming  very successful in different ways.  These examples bolster Denby’s argument that teen-agers nowadays tend to rebell against their own social order.

12. The audience is probably any kids/adults/teenagers who are interested in such examples.  I’m sure the article attracted filmmakers and made them think about what they were putting out there. Denby considers his audience by telling the cliche ways of Hollywood, and making parents/adults realize it’s not always like what they see at the cinema.