Stereotypes In John Hughes's The Breakfast Club

In Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli, every student Mica high school is all the same: same clothes, same hair, same earrings, same everything. When a new girl comes and upsets the social hierarchy, Leo and Hillari Kimble make it their mission to make Stargirl “normal.” Not even caring that it would hurt her feelings in the process. What Leo did not realize is that you can't fix something that is not broken, and falls in cahoots with Stargirl. Stargirl is willing to change herself for Leo, but he only cares about the acceptance of society.

Brain vs. Thief For many high school students, the movie The Breakfast Club imbues the major juxtapositions that highlight secondary education environments. These associations mark key comparisons in the social hierarchies of youth. In The Breakfast Club, the method of displaying these observations fall under its main characters. Conveniently enough, each of its main characters assume the role of a typical high school stereotype.

In the 1980s, one of the most recognizable producer and director was John Hughes. His portrayal of teens during this decade is popularly known the such films as The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, and Ferris Buller’s Day Off. In The Breakfast Club, he depicts teenagers in a way that “…conveyed some feeling for the social tensions and frustrations created by high school clique and lifestyle divisions — nerds, jocks, preppies, druggies, and valley girls. Sometimes even class barriers are alluded…”

"The Breakfast Club" is a coming of age film directed by John Hughes in 1985, where five very different adolescent students are assigned to Saturday detention, where they figure out that each of them fits a particular stereotype, they all have the same characteristics but through their own experiences they become who they are today. In this movie Claire Standish is the princess, Alison Reynolds is the freak, John Bender is the criminal, Brian Johnson is the nerd and Andrew Clarke is the jock. At first no one’s knows each other, nor do they want to, but slowly through experience they have together they slowly have to get to know one another. They quickly realise that they have a lot more in common then they first imagined. Not one of them of them communicates well with their parents, all are under pressure from their peers, and they all dread their future, they fear they might grow up to follow

The teenage years are often times of rebellion due to physical and emotional changes, adolescence feeling demented and overwhelmed, out of control forming rebellion in their lives. They rebel against both authority and convention, this is visible in Abdel-Fattah’s novel “Does My Head Look Big in This?” and in Hughes film “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”. Both texts displaying a time of turmoil in adolescence, the rules they face and the characters’ struggles in dealing with them.

The Breakfast Club   The breakfast club is a famous teen film directed by John Hughes. The Breakfast Club provides many concepts of adolescent struggles like identity issues, peer pressure, stereotypes, family relationships. The storyline follows five high school students from different social status meeting at their school’s library for Saturday detention. The film depicts Claire as the princess, Andrew as the jock, Brian as the brain, Allison as the basket case and Bender as the criminal. However, later in the film, they realize that they are more than what society portrays them and that they have more in common than they thought.

Stereotyping is an issue that affects all ages, genders, and races. Not all stereotypes are bad, but when you maliciously stereotype it becomes a problem. In S.E. Hinton’s young adult novel The Outsiders, stereotyping is a significant issue. There are two gangs in this novel, the “greasers”, and the “Socs”. The greasers live on the east side and are known as “hoods”.

Adolescence can be described as a period of awareness and self-definition. According to Erikson (1968), it is an important period in the enduring process of identity formation in the life of an individual. The movie ‘The Breakfast Club’, focuses on a group of five adolescents, and their pursuit to find their prospective identity. This essay will focus on the process of identity development in these five adolescents, with particular reference to the character Andrew Clark. In addition, it seeks to highlight the different identity statuses, as well as, the factors that facilitate or hinder identity formation.

Group Dynamics and The Breakfast Club The breakfast club is a movie where five teenagers all get stuck in Saturday detention with each other. All of these teenagers are completely different but by the end of detention, all become friends in a way while in detention. This film is an example of group dynamics in society because it shows how different people from different social groups can all come together and make time pass faster in detention. By coming together, they slowly move into an “in-group” rather than an “out-group” like they were before.

The Breakfast Club portrays elements of adolescent development very well. In this stage of our lives we are trying to figure out who we are. Some of us may explore different identities and there are others that just do what others tell them to do. The movie depicted role confusion in each of the characters. It also talked about peer pressure and how it influences how we act.

Adolescence: A Look at Adolescence in the Movie The Breakfast Club The 1985 movie written and directed by John Hughes, called The Breakfast Club looks at five very different students who are coming into adolescence and becoming their own people.

Through the use of a younger cast and romantic relationships, the target audience was definitely reached and moved by this film. By effectively using the rhetorical appeals, the audience was able to relate to some of the ideas shown and look at their community through an entire new lenses. The Breakfast Club can be classified as a coming to age film. According to “As Film Studies: The Essential Introduction”, the coming of age films tend to rely on dialogue and emotion and often involves an important decision made in a short period of time (271).

Claire is the princess of the club, everybody looks up to her and she looks down on everyone. She’s is the first one to arrive at the school and her role in the school is made clear right at the beginning. She’s rich, popular and beautifu and her life seems perfect. She is used to be treated well and get whatever she wants which is reflected in the fact that she is stunned by how her father can’t get her out of the detention. Her reason for the detention tells a lot about her status too, she went shopping during classes.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe was written during the Civil War period. The book set in motion a monumental movement of anti-slavery in mostly the North and little of the South. The book is about a slave named Uncle Tom who is sold by his “loyal” owners. However, the book finishes with him being beaten to a death. If this book were made into a movie or play then people will be enlightened by the message the novel sends.

While everyone else was quiet and awkward because it was the start of the school year, she casually talked to her friends as they walked into class, made conversation with Mr. Carroll as he was handing out papers, and sometimes talked to the girl in front of her before class. I noticed that she wears no make up, which could mean she’s really comfortable in her own skin because she’s the first girl I’ve seen wearing absolutely no make up. Her outfits usually consist of sandals, a purse instead of a backpack, loose, stylish, tank tops or short comfy-looking shirts, and rarely any sweaters. It’s cold in the mornings so her lack of sweaters show that she prefers style over comfort.