Much of what a younger child understands about highschool is thru movie and tv. Expectations have been drawn excessive due to these portrayals. Stereotypes, such because the jocks and preppies, burnouts and stoners, or geeks and goths, have been perpetuated like no different. More than something, they translate social normatives that aren’t particularly related to everybody, a lot much less reasonable.
The highschool clique trope is an particularly fascinating trope that’s nonetheless making its solution to extra trendy movies. Remakes of ’90s movies, equivalent to He’s All That, take an idea that’s particular to a era and “rebrand” it for a more moderen one, perpetuating an concept that’s in want of being reworked. The query right here, is, does that make the highschool clique trope a factor of the previous? The reply, sadly, might not be so easy.
The clique tradition of the Nineteen Eighties is grounded in expectations, the place most adolescents felt the pressures of dwelling as much as a sure way of life and aesthetic. Moreover, movies like The Heavenly Kid and even Better Off Dead perpetuate that climbing the social ladder in highschool is the only most necessary factor to realize. Being lower than well-liked and wealthy, as seen in Pretty in Pink or Some Kind of Wonderful, units one up for failure, or being handled as lower than others. Turning to cliques, then, will not be a lot a trope however a actuality for a lot of who grew up in Gen X, as figuring out with one group was higher than being forged off.
While the Nineteen Eighties gave solution to highschool clique tradition, there are a selection of instances wherein this trope is overexaggerated. In the case of the Nineteen Nineties, cliques have been seemingly nonetheless related as youth countercultures and third-wave feminism introduced extra range among the many pupil populations. Films like She’s All That, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Empire Records seize a glimpse of what clashing cliques appear to be beneath societal and parental stress, nevertheless, an outline like Clueless begins to broach into why these movies get some concepts of highschool mistaken.