Movie Analysis of “The Breakfast Club”
The purpose of this paper is to analyze a movie and list five sociological concepts outlined in our textbook, Sociology A Down-To-Earth Approach, 6th edition by James M. Henslin, which was published by Pearson Education, Inc in 2015, 2013, and 2011. I have chosen the movie, “The Breakfast Club.” This is a 1985 movie directed by John Hughes. It is about five high school students that have detention on a Saturday for nine hours. The five students are played by, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, and Anthony Michael Hall. These five students are deviant in their own particular ways and have different stereotypes. Eventually the students share personal information about their
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lives and they get to know one another. They start getting past their differences and they become friends. They realize that even though they all seem so different from one another that they learn they have a lot more in common than they ever dreamed of.
This movie also has many detailed concepts such as social sanctions, peer pressure, sociological perspectives, and control theory. This movie is rated R and won MTV Movie Silver Bucket of Excellence Award. It is also rated 4 stars out of 5 stars and is one hour 37 minutes long.
Sociology Concepts Outlined in Sociology A Down-To-Earth Approach.
Deviance and Social Control
1. Stigma is the first sociology concept we will discuss in the movie The Breakfast Club.
Stigma is a term used to refer to characteristics that discredit people. It is like a blemish that discredits a person’s claim to a normal identity. The stigma can become a person’s master status, which will define him as deviant.(Page 157). Deviance is the violation of norms for rules of expectations.(Page 156). In The Breakfast Club all of the characters have a stigma. Emilio Estevez plays the role of Andrew Clark, “Andy.” He is known as the athlete and as a bully by others. Ally Sheedy plays the role of Allison Reynolds and is considered the basket case and a compulsive liar. Judd Nelson is John Bender, “Bender,” the criminal, a rebel, and a failure. Molly Ringwald is Claire
Standish the princess, rich, spoiled, and very conceited girl. Anthony Michael Hall is Brian Johnson known as the “Brain,” geek, nerd. These teenagers are considered to be deviants in their own particular ways. They are deviant because they had to do something wrong in order for them to get Saturday detention and also because of their acts they do while they are in detention for nine hours. Claire, the princess, skipped school to go shopping and was caught so she was given detention. At the end of the movie she is also deviant because she makes out with John, the criminal, while still in detention. John, the criminal, is always in trouble so he deviant all of the time. He destroys school property, irritates and is disrespectful to the principal Mr. Vernon. To get into detention he pulls the alarm to cause a false fire alarm at school on Friday. He also never gets involved in any school activities because he is always doing something wrong and he doesn’t want to be around the other students that feel they are too good for everyone else. Allison, the basket case, did not do anything to get detention. She just came to detention because she had nothing better to do so she spent Saturday in detention. While Allison is in detention she steals Brian’s wallet and John’s lock to his school locker. Brian, the brain, gets detention because he gets caught with a flare gun in his locker, which he brought to school to commit suicide. He gets caught because it goes off in his locker. Brian wants to commit suicide because he got an F in shop and his parents do not allow anything but A’s. Andy, the athlete, got detention for taping a student’s buttocks together and beating him up because the boy is weak. He also smokes marijuana with John, Brian, and Claire which makes all of them deviant. 2. Sanctions are at the center of social control which is the formal and informal means of enforcing norms.(Page 158). Negative sanctions are an expression of disapproval for breaking a norm, ranging from a mild, informal reaction such as a frown to a formal reaction such as a fine or a prison sentence. Positive sanctions are an expression of approval for following a norm, ranging from a smile or a good grade in a class to a material reward such as a prize.(Page 158). Social sanctions was seen in this movie for example when John takes the screw out of the library door, so it will close, so the principal Mr. Vernon cannot watch them and the other students in detention with him cover for him and do not say who has the screw or where the screw is. Mr. Vernon threatens all of the students additional Saturdays in detention because he is trying to control the students. 3. Peer pressure is the conformity in the sense of going along with our peers. Our peers have no authority over us, only the influence that we allow.(Page 148). Peer pressure can be a positive deviance for instance is when Brian tries to please his parents and other people. You can tell he is trying hard because when he takes shop, because he thinks it will be an easy A, and he makes an F he wants to commit suicide because he feels like a failure. Brian also agrees to write the essay for all of the students in detention because he is “The Brain,” the smartest one. Peer pressure that is negative deviance can be seen when John smokes marijuana in detention and lets everyone else in detention smoke with him. 4. Control theory is the idea that two control systems-inner controls and outer controls-work against our tendencies to deviate. Our inner controls include our internalized morality-conscience, religious principles, and ideas of right and wrong. Inner controls also include fears of punishment and the desire to be a “good” person (Hirschi 1969; McShane and Williams 2007). Our outer controls are people-such as family, friends, and the police-who influence us not to deviate. The stronger our bonds are with society, the more effective our inner controls are(Hirschi 1969).(Pages 161-162). An example of control theory would be when during the movie all five of the teenagers sneak out of the library, during detention, and are trying to get back into the library without Principal Vernon catching them. Every way they run they keep seeing Principal Vernon. To keep everyone from getting into trouble John distracts Principal Vernon, by making noises, yelling and playing basketball in the gym, so the other teenagers can get back into the library without getting caught and in more trouble. 5. Functional analysis is a theoretical framework in which society is viewed as composed of various parts, each with a function that, when fulfilled, contributes to society’s equilibrium also known as functionalism and structural functionalism.(Page 15). In The Breakfast Club the detention on Saturday, that the five teenagers are at, serves as the towns manifest and latent function. Manifest function is if an action that is intended to help some part of a system and the latent function is an unintended consequence that helps a system adjust.(Page 16). The manifest function in this movie is the type of punishment the students receive for acting up in school and receive detention. The latent function is the manner in which the students become friends and come together to stand up against Principal Vernon. The conflict perspective is seen at the end of the movie. This is seen then because the teenagers had a lot of conflicts in the beginning of the movie and after they spent time together and shared personal feelings and realized they were alike in many ways their conflicts are ended and turns into something positive. These five students realize that even though they are from different groups, have different backgrounds and are different in many ways, they are actually a lot alike. They figure out they aren’t any better than one another. At the end of The Breakfast Club these five students share feelings, stories, express their point of view to situations they discuss and they eventually help one another with each of their problems. At the end of the movie the Principal Mr. Vernon reads the essay Brian, “the Brain,” wrote for all of the students. This essay was given to them by Mr. Vernon but each of them was supposed to write an essay at least 1,000 words long about who they think they are, but decided the smartest student should write it for them. This essay shows the symbolic perspective because Brian questions why Mr. Vernon wants to know this, because he sees them the way he wants to see them and that is as the, athlete, the brain, the princess, the basket case, and the criminal. To them, the five students, realize they are more than that. They are a little bit of one another, a brain, a princess, a basket case, an athlete, and a criminal. They are no better than one another. In doing this they are refusing to associate themselves with just their group of people because they are one now. This movie is wonderful in demonstrating the effects of peer pressure, social conformity, deviance and similarities in one another. It is great to see at the end they are all friends and accept one another as their equal even though they have differences. This movie was great and I would advise everyone to watch it.
The 1985 film, The Breakfast Club, directed by John Hughes shows how a person’s identity can be influenced by conflict he or she has experienced in life. First, John Bender is in the library telling everyone how he got a cigar burn on his arm from his dad. For example, his mother and father don’t treat with the most respect or any respect at all. They call him names and say he can’t do anything right. One day him and his dad got into a really bad argument and his dad burnt him with is cigar that he had. Because his parents treat him that way, he treats everyone he’s around very badly.
The representation of cliques in this movie were defined partly on the basis of socioeconomic status (Bleach, 2010)
...lms these students get away with murder and still go on to college. This simply does not happen in real life; therefore, looking to Hollywood films for the true colors of schools is not in the best of interests. We have to realize that directors produce these films in their vision of American culture. We as Americans always look to the American Dream of sometime “making it.” The films neglect to see the loser’s point of view, meaning Hollywood films only look to a positive ending because it is in our nature to believe in the American Dream. This book allows our society to actually look past the films fantasies and observe the true inequalities in school. Although Hollywood films do correctly show how urban, suburban, and private students behave in schools, they do not show the true outcomes of real life.
Throughout history, mankind has changed and been influenced by the acts of one another. Sociologists have studied the behaviors of humans and they have coined numerous terms, theories, and principles to try and describe why humans behave the way they do. In the movie West Side Story numerous sociological terms are depicted, such as labeling theory, social norms, formal and informal sanctions, and the results of what governs groups within society when all else fails.
Breakfast Club film contained a wide variety of behavior and stereotypes. Each person had their on personality and taste at the beginning of the film. I believe that communication played the biggest part in the movie. It shows the way that people from totally different backgrounds can communicate and even agree on issues. The various types of communication and behaviors within the film will be discussed.
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What is sociological imagination? Our textbook describes sociological imagination as the ability to see our private experiences, personal difficulties, and achievements as, in part, a reflection of the structural arrangements of society and the times in which we live. The movie entitled Forrest Gump is a great example of sociological imagination. In this paper, I will cite examples from the movie and tell how they correlate with sociological imagination. Sociological imagination allows us examine the events of our lives and see how they intersect with the wider context of history and tradition of the society in which we live. (Hughes/Kroehler, The Core, p. 7)
This Analysis Paper is an analysis of social problems an issues presented in the film. The film under analysis in this paper is "What 's Eating Gilbert Grape" (1993). The topics used as a lens for analysis are family, social roles, deviance, and social groups. This paper will present numerous examples of these social issue topics as they are displayed in the film.
The film, The Breakfast Club, introduces five students, each perceived with a different stereotype which is commonly found in American high schools.
The Breakfast Club demonstrates the interpersonal concepts “I-It” and “I-Thou” as it follows students whose immediate reaction is to treat each other as nothing more than the stereotypical person their titles assume them to be; however, as the film progresses and the characters begin to develop friendships, the characters abandon the stereotypes and begin to look at each other as individuals who have unique personalities and stories.
The movie The Breakfast Club is a perfect example of peer relationships in the adolescent society. It shows the viewer some of the main stereotypes of students in high school you have a jock, a nerd, the weirdo, a rebel, and a prep. Over the course of a Saturday detention the different types of peers learn a lot about one another by hearing what each one has done to get into Saturday detention as well as why they chose to do it.
Brinkerhoff, David B., Rose Weitz, Suzanne T. Ortega. Essentials of Sociology Ninth Edition. Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013. Print.
Foster, Gwendolyn Audrey. Class-passing : social mobility in film and popular culture (Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press, 2005).
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We’ve gone over many sociological concepts in class, but the three that I believe apply the most to this film are socialization, deviance, and resocialization. “What sort of world is it at