“Rebel with a Shrine,” by Molly Haskell, first appeared in the September 1988 issue of Vogue. For more great pieces from Vogue’s archive, sign up for our Nostalgia newsletter here. James Dean let out a great wail in the middle of a proper decade, shaking us all with the violence and raw need for love in his performances—and then he was gone. His death in a car accident on September 30, 1955, sparked a cult as wild as Valentino’s: fans would gather at the spot where Dean’s Porsche crashed, screaming and weeping, while others ransacked his apartment and took apart his car. Now their successors, who may never have seen East of Eden or Rebel Without a Cause in CinemaScope, will have a shrine to visit: a museum in his hometown of Fairmount, Indiana. I was never one for lighting candles, but I can understand the fanaticism around Dean. East of Eden came out in 1955, just before he died; Rebel followed soon after; and Giant the next year. For those of us who were teenagers when we saw his three great performances and were stunned by them, a new star had appeared in the sky. Here was a young person for whom youth itself was torture—someone beautiful, baffled, and “bad” in ways we felt ourselves to be. As the patron saint of teenagers, he put us on the map and changed the balance of power forever. And as an androgynous new male icon, he led the first shift in sexual roles. Teenagers are now an institution, a “market,” a fifty-first state with its own language, movies, brat-pack stars, and arsenal of defenses—contempt and withering scorn against weak, ineffectual parents. But when Dean came along, families—movie families—lived together in the relative harmony of shared values. Boys wanted to grow up like their fathers (and girls like their mothers). With postwar material success, America was ready to turn inward, to the suburban dream, the Puritan ethic, and the Oedipal underbrush Freud had spotlighted. A chasm was opening between the generations, and Dean stood on its edge. When he flailed against a pious, hypocritical father (Raymond Massey’s righteous patriarch in Eden) or a henpecked dishwasher (Jim Backus in Rebel), or raged at the mother who’d abandoned him (Jo Van Fleet in Eden), Dean fought for emotional honesty and “authenticity” over the era’s emphasis on appearances and moral rectitude. His brooding face on posters and his hangdog look tell only half the story: in giving voice to all that was unspoken in teenage misery, he was fearless, changeable, aggressive, forcing every secret mood and smoldering resentment into the open. His body—taut one moment, slack the next—was as expressive as his voice. “He doesn’t say much,” Sal Mineo says of his idol in Rebel Without a Cause, “but when he does, he means it.” He turned the same lost, yearning look on everyone because, for him, everyone was a potential mother. Dean shared an androgynous image with some of the greatest stars of the past—Olivier, Garbo, Gary Cooper, Dietrich, Mae West, Katharine Hepburn. But Dean took it further, blurring the boundaries not only between male and female but between adult and child. He was a lusty twenty-four-year-old man playing a fumbling teenager, driven by the polymorphous desires of an infant. “Girls really run after you,” Julie Harris says to him twice in East of Eden; and so, almost openly for the first time, did boys. Sal Mineo’s Plato in Rebel Without a Cause idolizes him with something more than the comradely admiration his namesake suggests. Dean turns the same lost, yearning look on everyone because, for him, everyone is a potential mother. As with Brando, another androgynous actor, Dean’s blend of male and female qualities may have come from being the child of an artistic mother (Dean’s died when he was eight) and a distant businessman father. Unlike Brando, however, Dean seems more at ease with his femfeminine side and therefore with women. Dean seems to have defined a generation, and indeed, male “softness” has become commonplace, so much so that stoicism may be making a comeback in such refreshingly stiff-upper-lipped types as Kevin Costner and Harrison Ford. But “soft” may be the wrong word for Dean. Vulnerable, yes, but shrewd and tyrannical with his genius. He knew how to keep everyone off balance, to reach into the depths of his psyche, and to get the last word, as the actors he upstaged can tell you. Onscreen and off. Remember when his sweetheart, Pier Angeli, spurned the unstable romantic for Vic Damone? Dean came to the church, waited outside on his motorcycle, and, when the bride and groom emerged, gunned his machine noisily as they kissed. Our hearts were broken, but could it have been otherwise? Dean in Damone’s shoes, embarking on a ‘fifties marriage—with stardom, children, maturity, old age? Wasn’t he far happier out in the streets, a Byronic figure, gunning his motorcycle, enjoying the drama of his rejection—and stealing the scene completely from his ladylove?

Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs about From the Archives Rebel with a Shrine

What is From the Archives Rebel with a Shrine
Its a title in the From the Archives series that explores a historical figure place or artifact connected to rebellion devotion or both

Is it a book article podcast or exhibit
It depends on the series format but From the Archives usually refers to archival storytelling In most cases its a written feature or collection based on historical records

What does Rebel with a Shrine mean
It suggests someone who challenged authority or tradition while also being honored remembered or venerated in a shrinelike way

Who is the main subject
The main subject is typically a rebel figure whose life death or legacy inspired a shrine memorial or devoted following

What time period does it cover
It usually focuses on the historical period when the rebel lived plus the later years when the shrine or memory developed

Why is this topic important
It shows how rebellion and reverence can exist together and how history turns complex people into symbols

What are the benefits of reading it
You get a clearer view of how memory religion politics and rebellion overlap in history

Do I need prior knowledge of history to understand it
No Its usually written for general readers though some familiarity with the era helps

What are common problems people have with this topic
The biggest problem is separating historical fact from legend propaganda and later devotion

How can I tell whats accurate
Check primary sources compare multiple historians and note when a claim comes from a shrine legend or political account

What are some examples of a rebel with a shrine
Examples can include martyrs outlaw heroes religious dissenters and political rebels who were later honored at graves shrines or memorial sites

Is the shrine always religious
No It can be religious political cultural or personal Sometimes its a grave a monument a room or a site of pilgrimage

Why do rebels often get shrines
Because people admire their courage see them as victims or use their memory to support a cause

What practical tips help when studying this topic
Ask who built