The Crew by Michael Mohr; Gripping and Devastating Look At The Punk Culture and Real Rebellion Against Any Form of Conformity

 The Crew by Michael Mohr; Gripping and Devastating Look At The Punk Culture and Real Rebellion Against Any Form of Conformity 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: One of my former high school teachers said that “Teenagers are the worst conformists” and I can't help but agree. Many of them play at rebelling against their parents, school, and society but they also create a structure of their own. They often form tight peer groups and are quick to point out the weird ones who don't fit in. If someone steps outside that group's standards, they then become the target of the other’s rancor. You can rebel against anything that you want but not the teen status quo.

That attitude is perfectly explored in Michael Mohr’s The Crew which shows those teen conformist standards and how they apply in even the most rebellious of groups.

Jack “Dog” Donnigan is invited to join The Crew, a clique of punk kids who go to concerts, stay out all night, do a variety of drugs, get into fights and cause more trouble. They are led by the enigmatic Cannonball, who practically adopts Dog as a kid brother.. Unfortunately, when Dog falls in love with Cannonball’s girlfriend, Sarah, he learns that freedom comes with a price of Cannonball’s unquestionable authority. Woe on anyone who challenges that authority as Dog learns.

At first Dog is exhilarated by the acceptance and seemingly boundless freedom that the Crew seems to exhibit. This is perfectly encapsulated when Dog attends a concert with his new friends. Intoxicated by their acceptance and his new found bravado, Dog jumps to the stage and sings with the band. He feels the glaring spotlight and the attention and admiration which the Crew fills him with. This moment shows him as someone who is willing to move beyond his comfort zone to gain not only acceptance but to give himself a pivotal role within the group that accepts him.

As Dog becomes mired within the Crew’s interrelationships he starts to see their dark side, most notably in his interactions with Cannonball. He alternates between admiration and loathing for his leader. On the one hand, he thinks that Cannon is the standard that they should all aspire towards. On the other hand, he resents his complete control over the junior members. 

Cannon encourages Dog to challenge authority including his teachers and parents, even break ties with them. Their nightly meetings are partly to please hedonistic pleasures but also to question the standard life that the Crew had previously been given. Whether through drugs, music, or probing their innermost thoughts, Dog, Cannon, and the other Crew members are looking for answers and they hope that this surrogate family can provide them. 

It can become dangerous when a group becomes the central focus of a person’s life and Dog learns that almost too late. Once he starts a secret relationship with Sarah, he becomes the object of Cannnonball’s scorn. Once a favorite member of the Crew and potential second in command, he becomes their inside outsider. Cannonball creates a disinformation campaign which brings suspicion towards Dog from the other members. He also encourages sadistic pranks like abandoning Dog while he crashes from a drug high and escalates violent threats when he challenges his former recruit to a fight. 

Cannonball’s authoritarian hold on the Crew makes him a hypocrite to the act of rebellion that he claims to exhibit. It’s okay to thumb one’s nose at parents, teachers, and the law but disobeying Cannonball is a step too far. He becomes less like a gang leader and more like a cult leader who takes full authority on his followers to the point that he becomes surrogate father, teacher, mentor, leader, and deity. There are some implications that Cannonball’s unsettled home life left him rootless and he holds a tigh grip on his Crew to maintain a significance that otherwise would have been lost to him. However, that significance comes with it a dangerous ego that needs unquestionable blind worship to be satisfied.

It’s ironic that in his rebellion, Dog becomes more confined and boxed in than before. It is only in the end when he is deprived of everything that has held him: school, family, relationships, friendships, and even his old gang, that he finds the freedom that he has looked for and the uncertainty about life that freedom entails.