The Breakfast Club

Cliques 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. I'll 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 they're 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 they're 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.

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.