Comparison Of The Breakfast Club, Clueless, And Mean Girls

The word savage connotes the idea of painted, primitive men walking around with spears, but it has also come to signify harsh words spoken in high school social situations. While these two things may seem very different, they have much in common. Mean Girls is a movie about a new girl, Cady Heron, and “The Plastics,” three mean girls led by Regina George who depict savagery through ruthless acts in the halls of Northshore High School. Likewise, Lord of the Flies is an allegorical work about young boys left stranded on an island that highlights man’s tendency to savagery. These pieces of literature, Mean Girls and The Lord of the Flies, show us similarities through common characters, symbolism, and irony.

In an essay published in the New Yorker in May 1999, entitled “High-School Confidential: Notes on Teen Movies,” writer David Denby analyzes movies targeted towards teenagers and the stereotypes associated with them. He begins his essay by describing the archetypal characters in high school genre films: the vapid popular girl and her athletic male counterpart, and the intellectual outsider and her awkward male counterpart. He then describes the reality of teen life, and compares it to the experience depicted in these films. Next, he analyzes the common theme that the geeky characters are the protagonists, and suggests there are such because of their writer's personal experience and a history of geeks being ostracized. Finally, Denby analyzes the tropes in

In the movie, Ann-Margret’s character (Kim MacAfee) accepts an invitation to kiss Conrad Birdie (Jesse Pearson) on national television even though she has a boyfriend which can be correlated to the growing acceptance of sex that occurred in the Sixties. In another scene Kim MacAfee dyes her hair and when her mother (played by Mary LaRoche) confronts her about it she argues that it is her hair to do what she pleases which reflects the movement made in the Sixties for women to have control over their own body. A major theme that grew immensely popular during the sixties was the feminism movement (things like women’s birth control pills were created in 1960). This theme of feminism was definitely reflected in the

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.

The author of the essay “High-School Confidential: Notes on Teen Movies,” David Denby, purpose was to explain the stereotypical high school movie genre. Most teen movies follow certain criteria that some may feel has little reflection on what high school is truly like while others may feel these movies are exactly what high school is like. In typical teen movies, there are usually the cool kids, the popular cheerleader with the jock boyfriend, and that outsider nerd or outcast. Where that cool kids control the playground and the outcast just try to fit in and be part of the cool clique or stay as far away as possible and avoid humiliation. The film “Easy A" proves to follow this exact pattern that Denby speaks of, just as stereotypical as any other teen film.

This story speaks of a young teenage woman who, amid the civil rights’ movement and sexual revolution of the 1960s, is rebelling against the conservative morals and values of the 1950s and exploring her individuality and sexuality with a sense of egotism and inexperience that eventually gets her into harm’s way. Looking back, the Civil Rights movement may have been the most emotionally charged movement of the 1960s (Anderson). No other movement in United States history defines a change in culture better than the movement of the 1960s. Issues such as women’s rights, war, civil rights and the sexual revolution greatly influenced the American youth. Conservative family morals and values that predominated the 1950s were beginning to be questioned. Oates

In the essay, “High School Confidential: Notes on Teen Movies,” David Denby argues that teen movies reflect each other and lack originality. To prove his argument, Denby illustrates the majority of teen movie’s typical characters and events such as the antagonists that are the popular rich girl with long blonde hair, a dense quarterback, the geeky protagonist who is usually an outsider with family and/or friends struggles, and the importance of prom night. His purpose is to expose teen movies for having a pattern of cliches and in order to convey his this, Denby addresses the stereotypes and lack of creativity. Denby addresses teenagers and others who had similar experiences in their high school career and appeals to them by using a casual,

Within satirical writing, it is common to amplify a deeper meaning with a more superficial or sarcastic one. This can be successfully done by making the obvious even more noticeable as it can attract and sustain the reader’s interest. Two works that effectively demonstrate this are the satirical essay “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathon Swift and the Paramount Pictures’ film Mean Girls starring Lindsay Lohan. “A Modest Proposal” is a man’s suggestion to solve the large population of beggars who are a hindrance to Irish society. Mean Girls is the story of Cady Heron, a formerly homeschooled teenage girl who moves to the states from Africa and beings life as a student in a modern high school. Although these both appear to have a rather plain and

My research for this essay will focus on uncovering how teenaged girls have been portrayed in the film industry, particularly with regards to decades since the 1980s. I hope to discover and learn from multiple literary opinions about the patterns as well as the thematic differences between the struggles of teen girls in films throughout the last 30 years. While mainly focusing on Mean Girls (2004), Clueless (1995), and The Breakfast Club (1985), I plan to direct my research towards how these specific decades portrayed in each film are the source of the aforementioned thematic differences. For example, I might try to find research explaining the cultural aspects behind Claire from The Breakfast Club’s struggle with finding her true identity in a culturally segregated high school in the 1980s.

The contemporary portrayals of teens in films are still very similar to the portrayals of teens during the 1980s. The six major approaches to teenage films during the 1980s are the following:

The opening of the film leaves viewers thinking Elle will be the “dumb-blonde” so common in the media, only to be quickly shown as the opposite after shutting down a sales clerk who tries to overprice a dress. Her quick and out-of-the-box thinking proves this otherwise, and helps convey the issue that is very much a problems today in America’s society. In the real world, blondes are often seen as being stupid and dumb, and social media is filled with “dumb blonde jokes.” This film challenges that, and with a primarily teenage-girl audience, the uplifting message is being in the right direction. Feminism is a big controversy being dealt with today, and despite this film being 15 years old, the issue is touched upon in the perfect way.

For two books to be in relevance to each other, they must share the same message and cover the same topics. The two books Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher and Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kayson are somewhat connected, but it may not be enough for them to be paired together. The main characters in these two novels are along the lines of complete opposites. Clay Jensen, the main character of Thirteen Reasons Why, is a caucasian male whom is still in high school sometime during the two thousands. On the other hand, we have the main character of Girl, Interrupted, is a newly high school graduate, attending McLean hospital in the late nineteen sixties. Due to the fact that they are so different, in the nature of both time frame and personality,

Just as rules and boundaries exist in most of the world, they also make their way into the movie making industry, in particularly in Hollywood films. Hollywood moviemakers focus on relatable, real-life possible events, which they dramatize and turn into big hit blockbusters. In order to categorize their many productions, they use the notion of genre and create their own rules/qualifications to be able to classify movies as such. This categorization even persists within the movies themselves, especially within the extremely popular teen girl genre. Teen girl films focus primarily on the stereotypical junior high/high school life of an adolescent female. Thus, the narrative of the films must contain specific rules and character types that encompass high school life. To make a real seller, the most often-used character type is the so-called ‘mean’ or ‘popular’ girl in a social hierarchy based school. In order to be identified as the ‘mean and popular’ girl character, one must be physically attractive, judgmental/cruel, and be the center of attention. To understand this archetypal character type it is best to examine the two most ‘infamous’ popular girls in the industry, Regina George, and Kate Sanders.

Since its humble beginnings in the later years of the nineteenth century, film has undergone many changes. One thing that has never changed is the filmmaker’s interest in representing society in the present day. For better or worse, film has a habit of showing the world just what it values the most. In recent years, scholars have begun to pay attention to what kinds of ideas films are portraying (Stern, Steven E. and Handel, 284). Alarmingly, viewers, especially young women, are increasingly influenced by the lifestyle choices and attitudes that they learn from watching these films (Steele, 331). An example of this can be seen in a popular trope of the “romantic comedy” genre in this day and age: the powerful man doing something to help, or “save” the less powerful woman, representing a troubling “sexual double standard” (Smith, Stacy L, Pieper, Granados, Choueiti, 783).

The teen film genre aims to shatter the construct or provide moments of self-discovery to symbolize how teens react against the adult world and struggles within society. At the end of the film the high school a voiceover of Brian reading out a letter written by him to Mr Vernon, the teacher, effectively embodies the teen process of finding their identity: