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Breakfast Club Stereotypes

Decent Essays

John Hugh’s The Breakfast Club is a film about high school stereotypes and their perceived notions. The opening scene depicts five high school students that must serve detention by attending high school on a Saturday. This scene serves to introduce the five main characters and their personalities. Their personalities and attire are all associated with specific high school stereotypes, such as the popular girl, athlete, rebel, etc. By changing the original all white cast to a diverse, multiethnic, and LGBT-inclusive cast and the location of the high school to California, the opening scene can defy Hollywood’s perceived notions of race, ethnicity, and sexuality associated with certain stereotypes and illustrate to the audience that anyone can be popular, smart, rebellious, etc.
In the film, Claire is depicted as the wealthy, popular Caucasian girl who has lived a comfortable, affluent lifestyle. I would recast Lana Condor to portray Claire as a popular Asian girl in the high school. Having someone who is both Asian and female as the popular in the school is very rare in Hollywood, so a portrayal of Claire as an Asian girl illustrates that Asians do not always fit into the stereotypical roles of nerds, geeks, or martial arts masters. Though some television shows currently feature a female Asian lead and there is a large presence of well-known and successful Asian faces in other media platforms such as YouTube, there is still a lack of representation for Asians in mainstream

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