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Representation of teenagers in the media
Representation of teenagers in the media
Society expectations for teenagers
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The Breakfast Club (John Hughes, 1985) is a film in which focuses on the stereotypes of teenagers within high school and the difficulties that are faced during this period of their lives. The film is based on a group of five young adults who have never met before, and are in Saturday detentions for varied reasons. They are asked to write a thousand word essay in which they have to describe who they think they are, but instead refuse to do so. Due to this, they get bored and it permits for them to bond and share experiences, beliefs and values. From this, they discover that although they are all different on the outside but in fact they are similar on the inside. This then allows for them to grow and develop not only as a group, but as individual …show more content…
Throughout the film, they are forced to form bonds as a group in order to pass the time and kill boredom. Through this, they breakdown their cultural differences in order to find out more about each other. This leads to them discussing each of their issues, which typically surround insecurity within education, family life and personal life. All of which they all have in common. The cultures they are currently in are what is breaking them down the most, and led them to finish up in Saturday detention. An example of this is with Claire, as she skipped class in order to go shopping. This would be something that would happen regularly amongst her group of people, and she would have been judged if she had refused to go. In turn, trying to fit in with the clique led her to a Saturday Detention like the other …show more content…
Examples such as Sixteen Candles (John Hughes, 1984) focuses around the issues that a teenager may face. For the young girl she faces problems with love, family and birthdays. These are also problems that may come as part of growing up. Part of the teenage culture is learning how to deal with these issues and providing an understanding that issues are not just individual, but the majority of people will go through. A number of films that tackle these issues will be more appealing to a wider audience.
A film similar to The Breakfast Club, is St. Elmo’s fire (Joel Schumacher, 1985) which focused upon the following of a group of college graduates who are now facing issues that come with adulthood.
“St. Elmo 's is a Washington, D.C. bar frequented by a group of Georgetown graduates. Like the recent "Breakfast Club" and last year 's "The Big Chill," the film concerns itself with the aspects of adjusting to the real world of post-college life. For some of the young men and women, the transition has yielded productivity; for others, the passage into the world of adult responsibility is a move too frightening to handle.” (Michael J. Borza,
In the iconic film, The Breakfast Club, five random high school students must spend their Saturday together in detention. Each teen is in detention for a different reason. The Jock (Andrew), the Princess (Claire), the Brain (Brian), the Basket Case (Allison), and the Criminal (Bender) must put aside their differences to survive their grueling eight-hour detention with their psychotic and rash principal Mr. Vernon. While in detention, they are expected to write about “who they really are” in one thousand words. Throughout the day, their actions reveal their innermost struggle involving their cliques and their home lives. As the movie progresses, we find out the reason each teen is in detention that culminates in a climactic discussion about
‘Dazed and Confused’ made it’s debut on September 24, 1993 and did not obtain instant success in the box office but has been considered a classic because of how well the movie captured the free will and problems of high school aged kids. The movie’s setting is a high school in Texas during 1976, and follows a diverse group of teens as they go through their last day of school before summer break. The movie embodies what it feels like to be that age by depicting the conflicts that kids their age face and allowing you to relate to them. It even makes you feel nostalgic with how well they depict the teenagers as they are going through their last day of school and the overwhelming happiness you got when the final bell of the year rang. The simplicity of the plot is what makes the movie so relatable because there are not many unreal elements. Even though the movie was released in 1993 the
The film that interested me for this assignment was “Boyz n the Hood”. The movie was about a Los Angeles neighborhood expanding of drug and gang culture, with increasingly tragic results. It was about how one teen had family support to guide him on the right path in life regarding the social problems around him. The other two teens in the film wasn’t as fortunate and fell into the social problems of drugs, violence, and gangs; where one ended up dead.
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.
The Breakfast Club, showed viewers how people from all economic backgrounds have something in common. From the very beginning of the film, as each student is dropped of for detention, the assumption about what these kid’s home life is like, what type of child they are and what social class they come from is established. When the kids are sitting in the library, where they sit even screams social standing. Claire and Andy sit next to each other because, from what we can tell, they are in the same standing. The hierarchy is started right from the beginning. The other kids all choose seats behind them. This shows that the popular, upper class, come first, everyone else is under them.
Every person sees themselves differently, whether you're the jock, the brain, or even the criminal, we all have a plethora of personality quirks in common. We don't belong solely to the singular “clique” that society has placed us in. Throughout The Breakfast Club, we see ourselves in each of the characters, and so did John Hughes, while we may relate to a singular character or clique in the beginning, we come to see ourselves, our struggles in each and every character. Though John Hughes may have seen himself as the geek or the athlete in high school, that's not all he was, and it's through this classic film that he shows himself to be all of the characters in some way or another. We're all united in common beliefs, in
This film contains some classic examples of the kinds of real life issues adolescents deal with. Issues such as popularity, peer relationships, family/sibling relationships, sex, and struggles with identity are all addressed in this ninety-minute film.
People like John Hughes made some lasting changes in the way that teenagers are depicted onscreen. Seeing the real, down-to-earth concerns of teenagers being dramatized is much more common today than it was in the 1980s. Teenagers in films today will frequently discuss their issues like the protagonists in the Breakfast Club. The Breakfast Club was one of the first films to deconstruct the high school archetypal characters, but these character types are frequently subverted today. John Hughes managed to stand apart from many other writers and directors in his day by taking a whole genre of films in a new direction.
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.
Social Psychology is the study of how we think and relate to other people. These psychologists focused on how the social situation influences others behavior. We see social influences everywhere we go, but might not notice it. Like when watching a movie for fun you do not notice it as much as when you are actually looking for the behaviors, like in the film The Breakfast Club. There are several examples of social psychological behaviors in the film.
In the film The Breakfast Club there are various social psychological theories and concepts that describe the inner selves of the characters. The characters in the film are initially perceived in a certain manner by each other because of knowing the way they behave in school and the type of people and environment they surround themselves with in school. However one detention on a Saturday brings these characters together and throughout the film their true personalities and behaviors start to reveal themselves by means of social psychological theories and concepts. The characters individually and as a group display their personalities through theories and concepts of social psychology. At the very start of the film, one of the concepts displayed is the acceptance type of conformity. The principal assigns the characters (students) to complete a task and because he is a figure of authority, the characters accept having to complete the task by the end of the day without any attempts to alter that. One of the students, Claire Standish, is revealed to display the concept of narcissism, which is unfortunately a dark side of herself. This is evident as Claire claims that she is popular and loved by her fellow schoolmates and seems to care and showcase her rich and beauty too much. She is, as her detention-mates discover, full of herself. In addition this also shows signs of the spotlight effect theory which can relate to Claire in that she believes that her schoolmates look at her and pay so much attention to her appearance add rich, spoiled-like behavior. Another character to show a theory of social psychology is Allison Reynolds. In the film, Allison is a character with an introvert personality, although she also displays strange and...
In the film The Breakfast Club, written by John Hughes, a group of five high school students find themselves forced to attend eight hours of detention on Saturday. As each student arrives at Shermer High School for detention, the audience can see that each character attending detention represents an obvious high school stereotype. The jock, the criminal, the nerd, the princess and the basket case feel as if they could not be more different. Throughout the day as they talk and learn more about each other, two characters, Claire Standish and Allison Reynolds, realize they have a lot more in common than they initially thought.
The film the “Breakfast Club,” is a movie about a group of stereotypical teenagers whom all received detention and must report to school on a Saturday. These students are known as Brian the “brain,” Claire the “princess,” Andrew the “athlete,” John the “criminal,” and Allison the “basket case.” Despite the different groups, they belong to, each student learns they are not as different as they thought they once were from one another. Spending eight hours with one another helps them, not only form a bond, but figure out their own identity as well. When taking a closer look, psychologically, the audience learns that they behave certain ways because of how they were brought up and what is expected of them by the people that they surround themselves with.
Almost everyone in America today has seen one of John Hughes’ iconic 1980’s teen movies. From Pretty in Pink, to Ferris Buellers Day Off, these iconic 80’s hits are still viewed as pop culture even two decades after their release. None of John Hughes movies has had as great an impact on society in America as The Breakfast Club. The 1980’s in America were filled with nuclear threats from the Cold War, President Reagan’s war on drugs and an increasing gap in wealth distribution. Even with America experiencing these heightened tensions, American teenagers were able to be more carefree, in a large part due to the draft being over, and worry about “teenage” problems. The Breakfast Club was able to capture this newfound freedom among teenagers as well as the feelings of anxiety, fear, and drama that came with high school. The film showed that one’s parents don’t determine your life, that breaking out of a label is possible, and that the emotions and issues that take place during this period of life aren’t any less important than the ones you face later on. The Breakfast Club by John Hughes was so impactful on 1980’s American culture because it gave hope for social class mobility, fought against the conservative politics of the era, and was one of the first movies to be shot from an accurate teenage perspective.
The Breakfast Club. Dir. John Hughes. A&M Films Channel Production, 1985. Perf. Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy, Emilio Esteves. Film.