High School Confidential David Denby Summary

David Denby thoroughly explains the distinction between the reality of high school life to what is portrayed in movies in the article, “High-School Confidential: Notes on Teen Movies.” He argues that many of these movies are extremely predictable and all have the same story line. Denby gives numerous examples of the cliché teen movie, which entails the skinny, blonde popular girl and her jock boyfriend who, let’s face it, has his shining moments in life, in high school. Denby’s main objective throughout this article is to distinguish whether these films reflect reality, or just what we imagine to be reality. He also touches on the other side of the social spectrum which usually consists of a quiet, female outsider who is known to be smart and

awkward.

Usually, she has a male friend who will one day be the richest man, at the ten year reunion. Denby focuses highly on the outsiders redemption and, as Denby claims, how “they might have been working at a hip software company, or have started their own business, while the jocks who oppressed them would probably have wound up selling insurance or used cars.” These high school movies are meant to intrigue us, and for the most part, they do and this is why there are so many of them. Denby closes the argument with expressing that in Alexander Payne’s, Election, Reese Witherspoon plays a very credited girl who even though she is on top, feels excluded. This shows that even surrounded my numerous cliques, you can still feel like you do not fit in. By ending this article in such a way, it gives the reader another view on these teen movies and shows that there are other movies that differ from the “mainstream” teen

movie.

There are many ways this article can be interpreted, and it all depends on what social ranking you were in, in high school. I believe that a large audience Denby was trying to allude to was the “geeks”, or “outsiders” in high school. Denby uses pathos when he states that the outsiders are usually the kids with no mother figure, or the ones who wear black. Denby concludes that “the motherless child, of course, is a shrewd commercial ploy that makes a direct appeal to the members of the audience, many of whom may feel like outsiders, too, and unloved...” This here shows that Denby is trying to get on the personal level of the people who feel like they did not fit in, while in high school. I do not believe that these movies are at all what high school is really like. Because of these movies, I went into high school with a completely different idea of what it was in reality.