High School Musical, Mean Girls, and Hairspray; any of those ring a bell? They're all classic high school movies that our generation has grown to love. Although each of these movies present the obvious cliques of the populars, jocks, and nerds, is it really all that similar to today's society? I had the chance to interview a few students here at SouthEast Tech about the stereotypes of high school and defining what is true and what is just a movie myth. When asking freshman, Anthony Gomez about something he's seen on the silver screen that he can compare to what he’s seen on campus is the sight of the crowded hallways. “It's all pretty similar”, Anthony stated “The hallways are usually crowded with people and it's hard to navigate sometimes.”
While high school in reality is full of surprises and twisty roads, teen television shows and movies are based off a strict set of conventions that allude to other teen films. In David Denby 's "High School Confidential: Notes on Teen Movies," he describes the typical movie storyline and characters: the blonde, superficial cheerleaders that make up the popular crowd, along with the buff, handsome jocks versus the social outcasts comprised of geeks and freaks. Denby continues to explain the nature of these two social standings, including how the “cool group” bullies anyone below them. Denby goes on further to discuss how a particular outsider usually becomes the hero or heroine of the story, despite their social discomfort or awkward
Stereotypes have a big affect on society today from young to old they affect everyone. However though we are talking about Dinuba Students, on how stereotypes affect them and everyone around them on campus. Being stereotyped in high school is tough it’s like bullying or judging others on what you think about them.
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
Every time that I muster up the courage to exercise it is like every part of my body bounces, like dropping a tennis ball from a fifteen story window and waiting for it to settle. My mind screams “Work harder! Obtain your goals!” while my body lags behind whining about wanting to sit on the comfortable couch at home. Unfortunately I have never been able to match those two up. The first time that I had questioned my size was in the first grade when your teacher makes you line up by height and not by name. I was easily the tallest kid in my class, towering over the little boys and girls with both my height and my stature. I remember looking back behind me and seeing all of the other kids judgmental eyes glaring at me and in my mind
High school, the best times of our lives. But in every situation others don’t experience it as the time of their lives. In specific, the so called, “Loser, Nerds, Outcasts." Sometimes the perception that most high school movies convey for this certain group are the reality. In this article "High school confidential: Notes on teen movies" by David Denby, He describes the functions of an everyday American high school. David Denby uses very effective language and rhetoric to provide the minds of the opposing side. A sample of the rhetoric skills he uses is stereotypes, ethos, and pathos.
High school in real life is full of surprises, but according to David Denby in his article "High School Confidential," High School in the movies is very predictable. The typical Hollywood "High School Scene" opens with the jock and the cheerleader characters. Blonde and buff, the Jock and the Cheerleader are superficial and proud to proclaim it. They are popular and perky, and always too good to be true. The cheerleader is usually the enemy of the hero or heroine. She is generally rich, blonde, and queen bee of the social circle, with no sense of selflessness. The jock is usually the bully, muscular, good looking and not very smart.(Denby 343) In an essence, the male counterpart of the cheerleader. The Jock and the Cheerleader are almost
Just like in the movie, high schools form cliques that are based off of similar personalities. Spending time in detention
Let me start off by saying this reading really opened up my eyes. It’s crazy that there is so much that comes into consideration when being apart of a society. High school is a big part of many people’s lives, they need to make it out big in the hallways. This means that people will do anything in their power just to fit in with the “cool kids”. In reality there is such a thing of a higher status and a lower status, but the fact that in high schools it’s a huge problem is sad. When I was in high schools, which wasn’t that long ago, this was a big problem. People needed to have the hottest clothes, shoes, phones, and music, in order to just be recognized. The funny thing is was that, the “nerds” were very high in demand as well. The cool kids wanted to be on their side as
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.
“Mean girls, jocks, band nerds, geeks, and freaks” are all terms used to stereotype and group teens in the 2004 movie hit, Mean Girls. This film created controversies in the content that it delivered. The credibility of adolescents is questioned greatly in this film. Mean Girls taught us that popularity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, in fact, they taught us that it’s actually meaningless. Through extreme character development, this movie shows the viewer that at the end of the day, all of the teens are the same. They all struggle to fit in, and that’s really the moral of this hilarious, but raunchy story. Mean Girls captures the struggle that every teen seems to have at some point of where they belong and how they relate to everyone around them. The film takes those stereotypes and melds them into what all high schools should aspire to be: a community.
Some aspects of these movies portray the truth within each high school. They show what many schools choose to ignore; the fact that there are many cliques that are somewhat excluded from one another. There may be the jocks, band kids, nerds, troublemakers, etc. Although these groups do appear in many public and private schools, movies take these cliques to the extreme. For instance, the popular movie Mean Girls over-exaggerates the amount of cliques and how exclusive
High School has obviously changed since the 1985 movie, The Breakfast Club, which portrayed different school stereotypes through five students, and how this made them reflect on their identity. In a way, this theme of different High School Stereotypes proves to still be evident in High School today when students
High school High school is a very crucial part of everybody’s life filled with many learning moments and also times that most would like to never redo. This being said we all go through this time and we can all relate to the stereotypes that come along with high school. Some were on the top and others were on the bottom, but everyone had their specific place.
The media labels Latinos as “Latin Lovers” (oversexed seducers), the “Crook”, and thugs. As for the Asian population, Asian men are considered as geeks, math whizzes, and are viewed as non masculine. Usually, the only time Asian men are viewed as masculine is when they practice martial arts. Asian women can be considered to be one dimensional, sexualized representations, and can also shown as the “nerdy” type throughout multiple shows and films. Native American tropes include silent, stoic men or bloodthirsty warriors.
Over the past 20 years hip hop and Hollywood cinema have steadily maintained and produced cliché and stereotypical images of hyper sexuality, violence, and the inequality of African American roles within hip hop and Hollywood cinema. I believe that hip hop artists as well as Hollywood have still maintained these clichés and stereotypes, instead of focusing on dissolving them, and creating an equal basis of hip hop and Hollywood cinema, where white people and black people are looked upon as the same and equal. Through the years Hip Hop has garnered a wide basis of followers. Since its appearance in the 1970s, Hip Hop has kept the same themes, styles, and language without much deflection towards a more equal base and less racially charged genre.