WASTELAND PART TWO
Teenage Wasteland? Even though the two movies I discuss in this section came out two decades apart, both have the same theme, the aftermath of a school shooting. The 1999 tragedy at Columbine High School is regarded as the catalyst for what has become a nationwide nightmare. The first modern school shooting occurred at Grover Cleveland Elementary School on Monday, January 29, 1979, in San Diego, California. On that morning sixteen-year-old Brenda Spencer shot and killed two adults and wounded one police officer and seven students under the age of thirteen. While data reveal that school shootings date back to the 1800s, prior to 1979 most killers were males who had personal grudges or gang members fighting over territory. The 1979 shooting differed because it was committed by a gir...