I really liked the way you seam your experiences, Morrissey's comments and James Dean's references together! I watched "Rebel Without a Cause" this past summer, and I really believe, after wathing so many films from the period this one was made, that this film is one of the only ones that actually dares to put its finger on the wound of some sensitive issues that never were brought up, worked out nor unfolded before the eyes of Hollywood, which were maybe very puritanic back then, and which wanted to keep conforming to basic social values. Although the fifties, were the times family and social values began to be, more than the 40's openly questioned in films, "Rebel Without a Cause" focused on a younger generation whose perspective on the "older and wiser" was never a focus to be counted for, unlike it happened with this film and others, like The 400 Blows. I think that's why James Dean was so important; he was the embodiment of this youth that was malajusted yet the one who saw a stagnant life with humanist unconformism, and a strange sense of justice. Yes, they are lost and hysterical, they fill up the police departments, they have nearly killing impets, but these "neurotic" characters offered a fresh perspective to movie goers in those days. And even in our times. When Morrissey once said the family/society battlefield really haven't changed much since the 50s [in terms of homophobia, family values, police authoritarianism], then is where you see what James Dean's films, as well as many of those in the 50s and 60s, mean to him.