Allan Moyle's Pump Up the Volume

681 Words2 Pages

In Allan Moyle’s movie Pump Up the Volume (1990), the protagonist of the movie, Mark Hunter, hosts an anonymous radio talk show that addresses the various flaws within the educational system. Though, Mark had not understood how large of an impact his talk show had upon the student body at Hubert Humphrey High School, student’s respond to the suggestions of action that Mark imposes, leading to a social movement against the school.
In the beginning of the movie viewers witness the first followers of Mark’s talk show, as a few students’ from Hubert Humphrey High School gather in a baseball field to listen to the show on the radio (Pump Up the Volume). Though, Mark does not know if anyone is actually listening to his radio show, the few followers displayed in the beginning of the movie represent the first followers. First followers are people that primarily follow the leader of a preconceived social movement displaying how easy to follow a social movement can be. In light of this, the followers that are displayed in the baseball field display how Marks ideas and opinions of the school are easy to follow as he keeps his talk show relatable to the students highlighting the start of a social movement (youtube.com). Mark also displays his leadership as he does not make the social movement about himself but the student body as a whole as displayed in the beginning of the movie when Mark decides to call the school vice Principal Mr. Desky on behalf of Cheryl Briggs expulsion due to her pregnancy (Pump Up the Volume). By calling the vice principal during the talk show, it provides followers with the idea that the leader will treat the followers as equals, thus, making it about “them” instead of “him.”
As Mark’s show begins to gai...

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...en easy to follow and promoted the social movements view of “being equal” among members.
In the movie Pump Up the Volume, viewers witness the creation of a social movement against the educational system as a teenager named Mark Humphrey, leads Hubert Humphrey High Schools student body into a social phenomenon. The teenagers collective action against the school results in the arrest of Mark and the creation of many more teenage talk shows as he displayed to teenagers how easy it was to be able to speak their minds and make their movements easy to follow, leading to a fully developed social movement.

Works Cited

"Motivational Speech From Pump Up The Volume." YouTube. Pump Up the Volume, 14 Nov. 2008. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
Brym, Robert J., and John Lie. Sociology: Pop Culture to Social Structure. Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013. Print.

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