Friday, March 26, 2010
My Research Paper
I chose to write my paper on the 80's classic, The Breakfast Club. I choose this movie because a) I couldn't write about any of the movies I love from the 90's and, b) because of all the really horrendous movies released in the 80's, The Breakfast Club has managed to stay really relevant in our culture today. This is due to the simple fact that the movie looks at stereotypes. As much as people like to think that they are above labeling people by the way they look or act, it is something we all do. We crave order and organization in our lives, and stereotyping allows us to do that. I got the idea of making my paper focused on stereotyping from my sociology class; we spent a lot of time looking at how roles affect behavior and I thought it was a really interesting topic. If you think about the movie, specifically the scene where the jock is telling the other kids about how he beat up a nerd, it becomes obvious that even though he thought it was wrong he did it to fulfill his role as a dominant male. I'm also trying to plan it out so I can do a little research of my own and send out a survey to my old high school to see if stereotyping is as relevant today as it was in the 80's. Overall, I think there is a lot to be said about this issue.
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Wow, that's really a great idea that you are planning on sending a survey out to your old high school! I hope I can can incorporate some sort of research like that into my own paper. Anyway, I love the breakfast club! I remember during my junior year sociology class, we actually watched that movie while discussing social classification and stereotype stuff too so I think it's definitely really relevant and a good topic to cover when discussing the movie. The 90s really is the decade of best movies in my opinion too haha but The Breakfast Club is definitely a classic high school movie and was one that kind of set the trend for movies throughout the nineties, such as 10 things I hate about you, she's all that, and other movies that address similar issues in high school. The impact of stereotypes throughout high school can be extremely detrimental (i know from experience), so I think your paper can end up being really powerful in terms of finding a way to not necessarily avoid stereotypes, but find some less harmful ways of addressing the not so pretty ones. Good Luck on your paper!
ReplyDeleteThe Breakfast Club is one of my alltime favorite movies and I love the direction you are taking with your paper. It is so true, as much as people try to say they don't stereotype, it's easy to see and very hard not to do. Although they all have their distinct personalities, their underlying commonalities bring them together. Once they are able to figure out that they aren't that different from one another, they are opened up to the fact that maybe their way of seeing the world isn't the only right way. In a way, it's the saying "don't judge a book by its cover." It would be extremely interesting to see the research from your old highschool and how they feel about it. Look forward to hearing more about it! Good luck!!
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