Op/Ed: Why High School Film Archetypes Are Misleading
By Draven St.George
Picture from Breakfast Club, taken from usatoday.com
If we’re being honest, high school movies are unrealistic. This separation from reality typically stems from the characters having coincidentally good luck and being able to complain about lives that have no depth to them. However, the specific instance that always seems to plague young viewers’ minds is the connection to high school stereotypes and the labels that are put onto every group within the school. We see these stereotypes in many different older high school movies we watch like “Mean Girls,” “Heathers” and “Breakfast Club,” but even some movies today like “Edge of Seventeen” and “D.U.F.F.” include these tropes that play off of classic high school movie archetypes. Like come on, we can do better than that. This may sound like a rant, but it’s important to know the root of why these archetypes are somewhat harmful to viewers; let’s get into it.
Gives kids going into high school a “false hope” for what high school actually is like
Because of these archetypes of the weird kid becoming popular or the unexpected kid going out with the star football player, kids will be presented with a fairy-tale sugarcoating of what high school is like. Not to be a pessimist, but teaching kids that high school is the easiest and most fun time of your life, that it is a cakewalk to adulthood is an inaccurate representation of the grueling four years they’ll endure. Never forget the classic meme of the person who commented on Vanessa Hudgens’ Instagram post by saying “I JUST STARTED HIGH SCHOOL AND IT IS NOTHING LIKE HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL.”
2. Promotes the aspect of cliques and popularity within high school
We all know that high school cliques are as toxic as they get, but why do movies encourage this behavior and make it seem like a positive attribute of school life? The answer: for an optimal viewing experience. Due to this constant mentioning of social hierarchy within high school and the popularity totem pole, kids will constantly worry about their own social standing within their high school when the reality is that: high school popularity means nothing.
3. Demoralizes the so-called “weird kids.”
Although some recent coming-of-age movies have tried to paint these “weird kids” as the protagonist, movies continue to connote kids with certain interests and certain builds as quirky, weird and, in some cases, gross. Thanks to how common this trope has been seen in movies, it has become a real-life occurrence with kids all across the country being bullied all for having a different lifestyle than the one made to seem ideal by Hollywood script-written standards.
4. Makes high-school relationships seem easy to come by
As it is common with recent movies, there will always be the awkward girl or guy who somehow, sometimes considered a miracle, manages to get the popular girl or the star athlete as their date. While this isn’t impossible, painting this situation as a common occurrence gives kids an unrealistic expectation of the trials and tribulations of trying to get into a relationship in high school.
High school archetypes will never be truly accurate, and is that their fault? No, it’s obvious that the adult screenwriters will never have an accurate representation of the generation’s current struggles, and they can’t really be held accountable for that. However, it is necessary that these archetypes should not be taken to heart by the people who watch them. Don’t live your life as they do in the movies you watch; live your life in a way that could inspire a new movie.