Teenage High School Stereotypes In The Breakfast Club

In a similar vein to The Breakfast Club (1985), in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) one of the characters from the film reels off a list of high school stereotypes that flood the halls of the fictional school. Grace, Rooney’s secretary, says that the “sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, pinheads, dweebies, dickheads, they all adore him [Ferris].” Though a few of these names do not translate to the contemporary audience, each of them still explains a particular clique or type of student at the school. In one major difference to The Breakfast Club, all of these groups of people like Ferris which Grace also says in the form of “They think he’s a righteous dude.” As if trying to fit in with the adolescent’s lingo in how she describes Ferris to Rooney.

In the film The Breakfast Club, Deviance and Conformity to the norms are used throughout the film to help viewers understand the Labeling Theory and how it connects to the behavior of adolescents. Deviance simply put is the departing of social norms and and values in social situations while the Labeling Theory can be defined as that people generate their own self image solely based upon what others think of themselves which leads to poor self image and feelings about themselves and others around them. The Labeling Theory is applied in The Breakfast Club because it appears that all the characters feel like they already know everything about one another solely based on who they really are when they all first meet. In the film, we start to get an idea of exactly who the characters really are inside. In the first few minutes we start to understand that there is a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal but by the end of the film we start to understand that the individuals are all different than what they seem. It feels like only in high school, you really care about how others perceive you, how you’re labeled and you’d do anything to just prove that you’re not some loser who spends time alone feeling bad for themselves. An example throughout the film is how defensive Claire acts when Bender is teasing her for all she has. By the end of the film, we start to understand that Claire does everything she can to get respect from her peers.

The iconic coming-of-age movie The Breakfast Club, focuses on the development of five, seemingly very different high school students. In the movie we are presented with the five main characters all with stereotypes that they identify with. Claire is the princess or the beauty queen, John, often referred to by his last name “Bender,” is the criminal, Brian is the brain or the nerd, Andrew, is the athlete, a wrestler , and finally Allison is the basket case or the weirdo. The story is set in saturday detention where they are forced to spend eight hours with people from other cliques that they would normally never interact with. The day progresses and the characters interact with one another, smoke, dance, break rules, and reveal very personal parts of themselves with the others. The story ends with some of the characters making an attempt to change their identity with the realization that even with the boxes they have been put into they are not that different from one another.

The groups that are formed as adolescents often determine group associations as adults and define an individual within their social group that will either set them with or against other groups. This is described in an article on social groupings by Colin Allen, which mentions that our social associations as adolescents are strong indicators to future patterns of social norms as adults. Therefore, the group of students in the movie, The Breakfast Club, can also be extrapolated to adult group dynamics. However, the varying social norms between groups can present conflicts when adults are required to function within a very diverse group of individuals. In The Breakfast Club, the Jock, Geek, Prom Queen, Delinquent, and the Freak groups are brought together initially through an autocratic or directive leadership role, used to bring the group together in order to proceed to the next phase of group development. This stage is particularly important within a group of

In the first 10 minutes of MG, we are introduced to all of the different cliques (friendship groups) in the school, these include, “Freshmen, Preps, Jocks, Asian Nerds, Cool Asians, Varsity Jocks, Unfriendly Black Hotties, Girls Who Eat Their Feelings, Girls Who Don't Eat Anything, Desperate Wannabes, Burnouts, Sexually Active Band Geeks and The Plastics.” In the Breakfast Club, we are only exposed to the cliques that are in detention, “a Brain, and an Athlete, and a Basket Case, a Princess, and a Criminal.” Cliques and friendship groups have different stereotypes and this is shown very clearly in both TBC and MG. The cliques in Mean Girls are based on a stereotypical American High School environment, the cliques in MG have all different roles, when first introduced to all of the cliques, the most prominent attribute that is all of the different cliques are doing something different that would result to a stereotype being instantly made, the same goes for TBC when all of the main characters are first introduced into the scene, Claire - with not a hair out of place and a father who tells her not to skip school to go shopping, making her look like a “princess”, Brian - with the overbearing mother who is constantly on his back to study during detention, making him look like the “brain”, Andrew - with a state varsity jumper on and a father who is yelling about not being able to get an athletics

According to Erik Erikson, he identifies the task of an adolescent as identity versus role confusion. This is where adolescent tries to form their personal and social identity. Some adolescents may adopt the values and beliefs of their parents; however, others may develop their identities from peers and oppose the values and beliefs of their parents. Adolescence who are emerging into adulthood struggles to confine with their psychological, cognitive, social, and emotional development. During this time period, there are five distinctive characters of emerging adulthood: age of identity explorations, age of instability, self-focused, age of feeling in-between, and age of possibilities. In The Breakfast Club, five high school students spend their Saturday together in detention, and they have to set aside their differences in order to make it through those long hours. The jock, the princess, the basket case, and the criminal reveal their internalizing problems involving their peers, parents or self. Their behaviors and personalities indicate the underlying issues of their cognitive and social development. The interaction between the students helps them find common ground with each other and learn the details of their life beneath the stereotypes. Throughout the movie, John Bender has an impulsive and aggressive personality that can be characterized by the environment that he was raised in, his

In every high school film, there are always the teenage stereotypes that are seen. In The Breakfast Club, the five students each represented the major stereotypes that people join with high school. Claire was considered the preppy popular girl, John was considered the bad boy, Allison was considered the weird emo girl, Andrew was considered the school’s best athlete and jock, and lastly Brian was the nerd. The crazy thing about this was that those stereotypes didn't even match the students, those stereotypes are what they used to hide their real identities. John wasn’t the real bad boy, he was insecure and scared. Claire didn't like being popular because she hated to agree with everyone, she wanted to be herself but she couldn't around certain people. Brian didn’t want to be the nerd, but his parents made him become one. Brian was just as cool and chill as the other students but he could never show

To contrast the two examples, in Mean Girls “The Plastics,” Regina George, Gretchen Weiners, Karen Smith, and soon Cady Heron, display the concept of a social hierarchy. They dominate North Shore High School and their fellow classmates wish to be them and crave interaction with them. “The Plastics” are generally unruly and have not much more to contribute other than their physical appearances and fashion choices. One girl claims that she was punched in the face by Regina George and “it was awesome!” This is practically absent in the genuine school scene, other than seniors taking the lead. No one knows and simultaneously worships a certain person or group of people. There are some groups or cliques of girls which tend to be more popular, although not to

In the film “Mean Girls” there were many types of peer relationships expressed. Friendships are described as a reciprocal liking, trust, and loyalty between all participating dyadic parties. An example in the film is the relationship that Damian and Janis hold because they are loyal to each other and the liking is mutual. Peer acceptance is to the degree one is liked by their peers. In the film Aaron Samuels is very much liked by his peers. Perceived popular is a child that is considered popular based on their peers’ perceptions. Regina George is a prime example of teenage girl perceived as popular. When students described Regina George in the film these type of comments were made, “Regina George is flawless”, “One time she punched me in the faced. It was awesome.”, and “she always looks fierce.” Cliques are polyadic social groups that are voluntary. A main clique in the movie is “The Plastics” which consists of Regina George, Gretchen Wieners, and Karen Smith. These forms of peer relationships are a lot more complex than just a group of friends, these relationships of dynamic in early adolescence.

My last concept is conformity orientation: refers to how strongly a family enforces the uniformity of attitudes, values, and beliefs (page 323). The scene that ties to this concept is the second luncheon we see with Leigh Anne. In this scene, there is a second luncheon with Leigh Anne, Beth, Elaine, and Sherry, and this scene is incredibly different from the first luncheon we see in the movie. The women now know that Michael is living with the Touhy’s and they noticed on the Touhy’s Christmas card that Michael was also in the picture.

Instinct plays a major part in the creation and maintenance of cliques. In the wild, prey are found in packs, or groups. The reasoning behind this, is prey survive dire situations better in large numbers. Humans do the exact same thing. In stressful, or challenging situations...like high school, humans revert to animal instinct. Staying in cliques provides a student a sense of belonging, and a sense of security. There is no greater feeling than to walk down the hall, and know that friends have one’s back. In the movie, Mean Girls, Cady Heron (Lindsey Lohan) has a quick flash of high school students acting like animals in the lunchroom. Eating, thinking, and GROUPING together. The point of this little scene was to demonstrate that humans fall back on instinct, in stressful situation...like high school. Another example of instinct in cliques is in the movie, I, Robot. The founder of U.S. Robotics, Alfred Lanning (James Cromwell) explains how a robot could potentially “grow” a conscious/soul. He

In the film all the people in the detention group are all apart of their own group outside of the detention. They identify in a group as either popular, jock, outcast, or nerd. Usually all those type of groups would not be seen together inside or outside of school, well at least as most of society views it. The characters move from being in an “out group” to a “in group” when they finally start to accept their differences and see why they would not be actual friends outside of that detention. Towards the end of the film the group identity becomes one, they understand all the differences between them and think about what the reactions of their other friends would be and sort of accept that as they go their own ways they know what happened with them and where they stand with each other and that’s all that really matters to them.

Five high schoolers have to spend the day in a library but, The Social Cliques interfere with their communication with each other until later on in the movie. In real life there may or may not be a “Jock”, “basket case”, “brain”, “criminal”, or “ princess ”, these are just a few labels of teenagers that are used everyday by outsiders who judge them without looking skin deep. If I had to label myself, I would say I'm not only one but I'm three of the five; jock, princess, and geek.

Any teen movie ever made has successfully pushed the social hierarchal agenda. Look at any John Hughes movie from the 1980’s and you’ll see a familiar trend. The common stereotypical high school cliques such as the popular crowd, the jocks, and the nerds flashed across the screen. Ever since the inception of films geared towards teenagers, the idea of queen bees and academically inept jocks was reinforced in a negative light. Creating anxieties for middle schoolers around the world. Though these heavy stereotypes do plague many high schools, there are some schools that seem to be exempt from the trend. Studies show the exemption could stem from the size of the school. However, the amount of freedom the students have also made a difference when it comes to social order.

High School Musical exposes the stereotypical high school setting by having students intertwine with multiple different cliques. There is a jock that likes to cook, a nerd that loves to dance and a skater boy who plays the cello. The senior class of St. Charles High School is similar in the intermingling of different groups of friends.