The Breakfast Club Cliques

The 1985 comedy drama movie, The Breakfast Club, included five teenagers who are in Saturday school detention for various reasons and at the end of the day must write an essay that explains how they define themselves. In Saturday school detention, each teenager learns about one another, what they have in common, and why they were assigned to be in detention. The teens all have similar problems with stereotyping of how society and especially how their parents define them. In the movie, four of the main characters: Claire, John, Andrew, and Allison experience at least one of the following theories: strain theory, social learning theory, control theory, and labeling theory.

Brian Johnson, or the “Brain,” in the movie The Breakfast Club, possess thought processes evident in Piaget’s Formal Operational Period stage in his theory of cognitive development. During Piaget’s Formal Operational Period, people begin to “apply their mental operations to abstract concepts in addition to concrete objects;” their thinking is hypothetical, systematic, reflective and logical (Weiten, 448). Brian asks himself existential questions like “Who do I think I am? Who are you? Who are you?” as he brainstorms Mr. Vernon’s assignment for the students in detention; these thoughts are abstract. His thought processes are also logical since he’s extremely intelligent; being part of the math, Latin and physics club requires some advanced thinking skills. Additionally, he understands how concrete applications like engineering stem from abstract concepts like Trigonometry. He also reasoned that if he took a class like Shop that “dopes” take, he could pass that class easily to maintain his GPA; such reasoning requires complex thinking. Finally, his thinking is reflective, especially when he ponders the permanence of the Breakfast Club’s friendship and describes how he steps outside himself to analyze what he sees. Unfortunately, when he observes himself, he’s highly critical and despises his “true” self; he possess a highly negative view of himself, labeling himself a failure, eventually leading to suicidal thoughts and actions.

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.

1985 and 2004 may seem like two very different eras, with different problems and views of life. The films The Breakfast Club (TBC) and Mean Girls (MG) are quite different from one another, however, they seem to grasp the same concept and problems faced by youth. Although these films somewhat mirror one another, the films also have many differences such as, the topic of sexuality, attire, and ethics and morals. MG and TBC portray youth in similar ways, however are in two very different time periods. Characters in the films are portrayed very differently from one another, however some of these characters both share the same thoughts or morals despite being from two different eras. Generation change between these movies are very different from

The Breakfast Club is a movie about five students from Shermer High School who gather on a Saturday to sit through eight hours of detention. These five students; Andrew Clark, Claire Standish, John Bender, Allison Reynolds and Brian Johnson, have nothing in common. The Breakfast Club zooms in on the high school social groups and cliques that are often seen in the development of peer groups during adolescents. The peer groups that are portrayed in The Breakfast Club include, John “the criminal”, Claire “the Princess”, Allison “the Basket case”, Brian “the Brain”, and Andrew “the athlete”. The movie centers around an essay that Principle Vernon wants each student to write regarding who they think they are. In the beginning of the film, the

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

Five teens, five different cliques, one eight-hour Saturday detention. These is the basics of The Breakfast Club. Through spending the day with one another Allison, Andrew, Brian, Claire and John realize there isn’t much difference between them, and the differences that are between them aren’t too important. Watching The Breakfast Club is a great way to learn about adolescents. You have five, very different -yet very similar- adolescents to observe along with what they do together. In observing them you can understand how they’re beginning to cognitively develop from children to adults

Do you ever wonder what people are really like and not just what they show on the outside? Yes, we all do. This is because we never take the time to meet up with a person to understand more about them. We meet our five characters at the beginning of the movie and they are all different. There is Andy the athlete, Claire is a princess, Allison a basket case, Brian the brain, and John Bender the criminal. But throughout the movie they learn more and more about each other and find that they all have a lot of common problems and beliefs. In his film The Breakfast Club, John Hughes uses the Star-crossed lovers and loyal companions archetypes to reveal how we as humans fail to recognize how trustful a person can be, because we let our differences control how we act and feel towards others and their beliefs.

The movie The Breakfast Club was released in 1985, and is based on a group of five high school students from stereotypical cliques; the popular, jock, nerd and the outcasts, who all wind up stuck together for Saturday detention. Throughout the movie many themes present themselves such as teenage rebellion, peer pressure and family issues as the students get to know each other. The most prominent theme throughout the movie is the student’s placement in the social structure of the school. From the very different reasons why they are in detention to the way that they are all treated differently by the principle, their social placement is evident.

Released in 1985 and directed by John Hughes ' The Breakfast Club ' is a film about teenagers that seem different on the surface but come to discover otherwise . When five students from different high school cliques are forced to spend their Saturday in detention, the brain, athlete, basket case, princess and the criminal together are faced with the question of who they think they are. The five characters put aside the ir dissimilarities in aid to survive the painful eight hour detention and in the process they discover they aren 't as unalike after all.

Sociologists use many different theoretical perspectives to study the behavior of people in society. According to Macionis, sociology uses both a micro-level and macro-levels to look at both the big picture and the smallest details (p.17). There are three major analytical models in sociology that include functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interaction. Both functionalism and conflict theory are macro-level and symbolic interaction is micro-level (Macionis, P.19). Each one looks at society in a different way and can in this paper I will analyze the movie “The Breakfast Club” using these perspectives.

1)A group role is the part a member plays in a group, as a function of your traits, personality, your expectation, expectations of others in the group. and who you are as an individual. Each member in the Breakfast Club has had an input into the story line and there are multiple characters with different roles, inputs and circumstances and all of them interacting to make this film quite interesting. Lets start off with the most deviant of them all.

Released in 1985, The Breakfast Club depicts five high school students from Illinois as they spend a Saturday together in detention. Prior to their arrival, John Bender, Claire Standish, Andy Clark, Brian Johnson, and Allison Reynolds had not met, nor would they have associated with one another on a typical day in high school. After spending nine hours together, however, the group of vastly different adolescents break down emotional barriers, manage to build a sense of intimacy, and some establish dating relationships by the day’s end (Hughes et al., 1985). The film illustrated a rather realistic portrait of adolescence in several topical domains.

In the Breakfast Club, there are many cognitive advancements that are conveyed. The biggest cognitive advancements that takes place throughout the film are abstract thought, hypothetical thought and multidimensional thought. The movie centers on the essay that the students need to write, “Who do you think you are.” This question requires the group of students to think about their experiences, formulate ideas, acknowledge their knowledge, awareness and reflect on their experiences. The film illustrates how the adolescents thinking changes from concrete thinking- judging their peers and their own lives, to abstract thinking- viewing similarities between the characters and understanding the differences in their lives while showing empathy.

Teenage years are the time of a person’s life when they really start exploring their identity, who they are and who they want to be. During these years it can be hard trying to figure out who you are and where you belong, with the constant