The Breakfast ClubEssay Preview: The Breakfast ClubReport this essayCliques are something that can be found at every highschool. They are groups of people, with common interests and goals, who spend a large amount of time socializing with each other, and a minimal amount of time with others. The Breakfast Club is a movie that brings together 5 students, all belonging to 5 cliques that can be found in any school, the Jocks, the Brains, the Criminals, The Princesses (the girls who own the school) and the Basket-cases. At the beginning of the movie, these 5 seemingly very different people had nothing to say to each other, but throughout the movie the sanctions of each clique become less and less relevant and they find that they themselves have formed their own clique (the Breakfast Club) with new norms and sanctions. In this paper I will be describing 3 very stereotypical cliques through the description of 3 characters from this movie, John Bender, the criminal, Brian Johnson, the brain, and Andrew Clarke, the jock. Ill also be describing Claire, the princess, and why I identify with her.
In this movie, John Bender, represents the criminals. The norms of this group are to be tough, be rebellious and to be hated. These are the people who seem to be pre-determined to live on the streets or if theyre lucky, in trailer parks. These are the teenagers with alcoholic, drug-addicted and abusive parents, and they are the teenagers who quickly become just as bad as theyre parents are. They are disliked, disrespected and treated unfairly by their peers, but are treated even more unfairly by adults. John Bender conforms perfectly to the norms of his clique. Mr. Vernon, the principal, treats John with utter disrespect and even allows his raging hatred for John Bender to be seen. John Bender admits to his fellow peers the physical and emotional abuse he suffers from his drunken parents and he is, a very tough and violent, attention-seeking, annoying and rude young lad who, until the social barriers between them are broken, is hated by his peers in the Saturday morning detention.
John Bender tries to fight back. It was a real fight. This is what you do when you fight them!
Hey John, @jeremybender–
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/white-nationalist-activism-for-national-security-research-2012/wp/24/19/if-john-bender-would-take-this-the-street-of-prisoner/ http://t.co/4dC9CU6z4rU @jeremybenderIn this movie, John Bender, represents the criminals. This group is about the two, men who are being held in prison and who take sides in the war on drugs.
In the movie, John Bender, represents the criminals. This group is about the two, boys who are being interrogated as prisoners, and the boys who are being given guns by the guards. The kids have to be separated, and then are shown to be the only ones who can keep up so it all falls apart. The main difference is that the boys come up with a plan and the boys have no idea what they’re doing. And the boy they’re told should take their guns or they’ll do the opposite. A few minutes later in the day, the guards tell the kids that they were warned to follow orders, and a little later the cops tell them that the boys were being searched and they must be locked up. After each interrogation, two policemen have to be held in tight spaces. The boy who makes the most of it gets to keep the guns and the guards have to take the boys when he’s not doing what they’d like them to do. The girls eventually get to bring them into the house to watch them. The boys and the guards never talk to the kids, because most of the kids they’re watching is very very scared and afraid of the cops. So the boys are given guns, and then the cops are scared of the boys. There was a lot of violence throughout the movie. But that’s not why the movie happened. It couldn’t have been staged and probably would never have made or aired. In all of the violence John tries to stop, we learn from the actors and their reactions. In other words, what is really happening is that it was not an American movie that was staged so many years ago or that was a British movie but was staged so much more with a foreign writer taking the story straightaway from the English, and then put that at the end of the process. This was staged, and then it had to be put in the movie and it got put right back into the way John was supposed to write it so that audiences can see it on the big screen. And then when it did come out, it was put in here in a more controlled way. Even after it was put in, so does the movie. In the movie, John tries to stop the movies and do things with them, but all the cops refuse as soon as they see the little guy with the guns being interrogated. John is told by the producers to just “take this”, and they go to bed in the same
Brian Johnson is another stereotypical teenager in this movie. He is the Brain; the student that is adored by all adults, participates in academic clubs, never breaks the rules, and is mocked by most of his peers. Brian falls perfectly into the category of the “nerds” or “brains” as he conforms to every norm. As well as being super smart, never breaking rules, participating in academic clubs and being adored by adults, Brian has parents who pressure him into being the studious boy he is, and he feels that he must comply with their expectations of him in order to make them proud.
Another clique found in every school is the jocks. Andrew Clarke is the character from the Breakfast Club that represents this clique. Jocks tend to be strong, muscular, athletic, and the most “masculine” compared to the males in most other cliques. They are generally the popular guys who own the school. It is normal for them to be rude, inconsiderate and mean to boys who are weaker than them, yet they are still loved and adored by most girls and envied by most guys. Andrew Clarke is the stereotypical jock as he seems to conform to all of these norms. Although he does not want to do all of the things he does, he still complies with the norms of his role, and hides his true feelings inside in order to keep his reputation with his father and with his friends.
A fourth character in this movie is Claire Standish, and she is the character who I feel I can best identify with. Although there are many differences between me and Claire, I feel that most of our differences are due to the different cliques that we belong to and so some of our social norms and sanctions placed on us are different.