Bagels and Cereal
May. 25th, 2010 12:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icepixieI watched The Breakfast Club for the first time in my life tonight. I know, I know, unamerican, alien baby dropped in a field, etc. etc. One day I'll make a list of all the pop culture standards I missed the boat on and get around to watching them.
Anyway. The best thing about that movie was Ally Sheedy's haircut, and yet...it was still strangely compelling. Perhaps after teaching college freshmen for a year, I have more sympathy for high schoolers. Or perhaps after teaching college freshmen for a year, I have more sympathy for the principal, particularly when he's telling the janitor how horrified he is that these kids will one day be running the world.
I think I would've appreciated the emotional highs and lows more had I seen this at sixteen; instead, the whole grinding-to-a-halt-so-everyone-can-cry-for-a-while section came off as unintentionally hilarious. I was glad when the flare gun bit got it back to something resembling comedy.
The ending made me cringe somewhat, with the whole NO ONE WILL LOVE YOU UNLESS YOU'RE CONVENTIONALLY PRETTY message that Andy and the newly-made-over Allison falling into each other's arms sent. Not to mention that she was more more striking and attractive pre-makeover. Bender and Claire I saw coming a mile away, and it was pretty entertaining the way they did it ("Remember how you said your parents use you to get back at each other? Wouldn't I be outstanding in that capacity?"). Bender in general was like the train wreck you can't look away from--he was horrible, but full of fascinating energy.
So tell me, was this at all representative of high school in the 80s, or high school in general? 'Cause I went to nerd school for grades 9-12, and more and more I realize how very unusual my high school experience was, at least compared to popular representations of it. Well, okay, yes, part of this is me--I was so uncool that by comparison I made Brian look like a hep cat, as the kids say. But I don't remember all this brouhaha about whether one had or had not had sex, don't recall such well-defined cliques (nerd school, remember--we all fell into the bright kid category, so differences were muted), don't think there even was such a thing as detention, let alone shop. I don't seem to remember much ado about boyfriends/girlfriends (this could be because 2/3 of the student body was female), and there never seemed to be this adversarial relationship between students and teachers/administrators that always gets depicted. Not that I would have liked to have had any of that as part of my high school experience, but I have to admit that it feels much like I grew up on Mars.*
* OR MAYBE I DID. *whistles X-Files theme*
Anyway. The best thing about that movie was Ally Sheedy's haircut, and yet...it was still strangely compelling. Perhaps after teaching college freshmen for a year, I have more sympathy for high schoolers. Or perhaps after teaching college freshmen for a year, I have more sympathy for the principal, particularly when he's telling the janitor how horrified he is that these kids will one day be running the world.
I think I would've appreciated the emotional highs and lows more had I seen this at sixteen; instead, the whole grinding-to-a-halt-so-everyone-can-cry-for-a-while section came off as unintentionally hilarious. I was glad when the flare gun bit got it back to something resembling comedy.
The ending made me cringe somewhat, with the whole NO ONE WILL LOVE YOU UNLESS YOU'RE CONVENTIONALLY PRETTY message that Andy and the newly-made-over Allison falling into each other's arms sent. Not to mention that she was more more striking and attractive pre-makeover. Bender and Claire I saw coming a mile away, and it was pretty entertaining the way they did it ("Remember how you said your parents use you to get back at each other? Wouldn't I be outstanding in that capacity?"). Bender in general was like the train wreck you can't look away from--he was horrible, but full of fascinating energy.
So tell me, was this at all representative of high school in the 80s, or high school in general? 'Cause I went to nerd school for grades 9-12, and more and more I realize how very unusual my high school experience was, at least compared to popular representations of it. Well, okay, yes, part of this is me--I was so uncool that by comparison I made Brian look like a hep cat, as the kids say. But I don't remember all this brouhaha about whether one had or had not had sex, don't recall such well-defined cliques (nerd school, remember--we all fell into the bright kid category, so differences were muted), don't think there even was such a thing as detention, let alone shop. I don't seem to remember much ado about boyfriends/girlfriends (this could be because 2/3 of the student body was female), and there never seemed to be this adversarial relationship between students and teachers/administrators that always gets depicted. Not that I would have liked to have had any of that as part of my high school experience, but I have to admit that it feels much like I grew up on Mars.*
* OR MAYBE I DID. *whistles X-Files theme*
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-26 03:38 am (UTC)Cliques at my school weren't quite so starkly black-and-white, but they were a huge presence. Relationship drama was also a daily thing, whether you were personally involved in it or not. Detention wasn't used much (not in my circles, anyway - though some kids had "in-school suspension" all the time), but we had a whole building dedicated to shop classes, lol. As far as teachers v. students, it got much more antagonistic the further down the GPA axis you went... and it went down a long ways. (Some unreasonably large percentage - maybe 25%? - of my class didn't graduate on time, if at all.) Stay classy, South Knoxville!
no subject
Date: 2010-05-26 02:56 pm (UTC)As far as teachers v. students, it got much more antagonistic the further down the GPA axis you went... and it went down a long ways.
Ohhhh, my. I guess that comes from not being allowed to completely kick them out of class like we can at college...
(Some unreasonably large percentage - maybe 25%? - of my class didn't graduate on time, if at all.) Stay classy, South Knoxville!
Ouch.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-30 05:00 am (UTC)Yeah, I almost took some auto shop classes, because they seemed really useful, but I was stopped by lack of schedule space and being creeped out by all the redneck guys that would be my classmates for an entire semester...
because you have way too many books and damn, those cheap fiberboard bookcases aren't all that cheap anymore
You know what's awesome? Ikea bookshelves. They're just like the cheap fiberboard kind, except fancied up a notch and much sturdier/less bendable, and the price is quite decent. I'm tempted to buy another one to contain all the books oozing out of my first one... If only they had more Ikeas in the world!
I guess that comes from not being allowed to completely kick them out of class like we can at college...
Yup. The options were "public school" or "no school at all," with option B being almost purely voluntary. And my friend's boyfriend made a bomb threat and didn't even get expelled! He was just suspended for a little while!
no subject
Date: 2010-05-30 07:15 pm (UTC)Two problems with IKEA: the closest one is in Atlanta, and my Office Depot ones are doing fine construction-wise, but got expensive.
And my friend's boyfriend made a bomb threat and didn't even get expelled! He was just suspended for a little while!
Duuuuude. I think that would've at least gotten you into the Alternative School For Criminals school in Nashville's district, no matter where you were going at the time.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 02:55 am (UTC)Oh internet. How else would we fill the holes in our educations?
It's a shame there aren't more Ikeas near Tennessee. We're so spoiled up here, we have two within easy driving distance.
Duuuuude. I think that would've at least gotten you into the Alternative School For Criminals school in Nashville's district, no matter where you were going at the time.
I think they figured he wasn't a threat because he was just too stupid to make a real bomb...