Essay on Thirteen: Conduct Disorder and American Drama Film

The playwright was trying to get quite a few messages when he created this play. First of all, I believe he was trying to show social change and the power and potential that an individual has inside of them, despite their circumstances. I think that this play/movie reveals the true messiness of life and how with the right mindset, you can make it through anything you

As a whole, I think that the creators of the film had a good grasp on what they wanted to portray to the audience since everything was rather simple to follow along and understand where the creator was coming from.

The teenage girl matures from a rebellious odd member of the family to an

Thirteen, was an incredibly uncomfortable film to watch. There was no respite from the trauma. The film was immersive due to the realism. I found my body physically responding to the pain the family was experiencing. Irrelevant behavior was exhibited throughout the film by Tracy demonstrated through her disobeying rules and partying. The poem was a cry for help. Intervention with Satir Family Therapy could have introduced open communication that may have facilitated a different path for the family. Family rules appear to avoid conflict and deny feelings.

"I would not think of quarreling with your interpretation nor offering any other, as I have found it always the best policy to allow the film to speak for itself."

Some may not realize it, but parents have a huge influence on their teen. A parent who may seem “toxic” to the child will make the child want to avoid becoming like that parent. Carl Pickhartd says in his article says that these “revisionist parents”, “... sometimes end up parenting the same. So you have a mom brought up by strictly repressive parents who wants to give her adolescents freedom she never had. However, by becoming too permissive, her teenagers careen out of safe control until only by imposing severe measures can she curb their wild ways. Now she becomes even stricter than her parents were with her, recreating the influence she swore she would never impose on children of her own” (Adolescence and parental influence). These parents

Aileen at a young age was kicked out of her home and lived on the streets. Due to this Aileen never had guardians to teach her positive and negative reinforcement. Aileen’s criminal behavior persisted due to her social reinforcement. Her friends were just like her. They participated in delinquent and criminal behavior and this was the norm for them.

Phrases such as “You are an idiot!” or “Why can’t you be like the other kids?” impact a young child’s brain. Even symbolic aggression such as a slamming door or the silent treatment can affect a child who’s already been abused. The more a child experiences these events, the more of this kind of behavior is planted into their brain. Over the course the child’s life, everything they’ve ever witnessed or experienced, has planted a “seed” in their brain. The more recurring the events get , the more fertilized that “seed” becomes; it becomes easier to grow and take root. Around the ages of ten through fifteen, the connections in the brain, or “seeds”, are put to the test. What they experience in that five year range will grow some seeds more than others, and let others die out. It is at this point in the child’s life that is most crucial to influence them down the right path and try to “prune” away the bad seeds and encourage the better ones. To do this though, people must first recognize the signs of sociopathy in a child early on to start taking precautionary measures.

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.

Thirteen is a drama film based on a true story that was directed by Catherine Hardwicke and released in 2003. Nikki Reed helped write the script as it was based during her adolescent years. This movie focuses on adolescents and illustrates the developmental struggles that occur during middle school. At the beginning of the film the main character, Tracy, is perceived as an innocent and smart young girl that may be identified as a neglected youth with little friends. However, this quickly changes when she starts surrounding herself with the wrong crowd and transforms into a rejected or controversial youth.

Risk & Protection Factors: The movie thirteen is about Tracy who is a thirteen year old adolescent female who is victim to an impoverished living environment. In the film, Tracy is being raised by her mother Melanie who works long hours as an in home hair stylist. Tracy mother is a single parent of two children and she is struggling to make ends meet. Initially, Tracy is a good student who seemed to be doing well academically.

Nevertheless, his final product possesses very clear postmodern traits. It intentionally introduces confusion to question the assumed perfection in the Hollywood dream. At the same time, the movie doesn’t attempt to steer the audience in a direction or offer better meanings, it instead opens up and leaves space for the viewers’ own interpretations. The film is purposefully ambiguous so to make meanings assigned to the film inconsistent and equivocal, because it is viewed in different ways. There are many theories out in the world on multiple aspects of the film and what is actually happening.

The films, Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945) and Thirteen (Catherine Hardwicke, 2003) portray the Freudian myths, reinforcing the view of feminine subservience relative to a society infused by universal patriarchy. The primary social conflict around which both films are structured relates to the classical conflict that underlies Hollywood narratives: Chaos versus Order.

The movie Philadelphia was inspired by the story of Geoffrey Bowers, a New York City lawyer who was involved in one of the first AIDS discrimination cases. Bowers who was diagnosed with AIDS in April 1986, in May of that year, he received a satisfactory evaluation from the partners at his firm, Baker & McKenzie, but just two months later, he was fired due to what the firm claimed were performance issues. Bowers filed a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights, appealing that he’d been fired because of the AIDS-related skin lesions that had begun to appear on his body. The Division of Human Rights conducted hearings and after several years, finally awarded $500,000 in back pay and damages in 1993, but by that time, Bowers had

To add suspense to what is a moralistic and pious story the 4 girls improve their character flaws throughout a year through a series of trials and tribulations. for example, one of jo’s lessons is to learn to keep