Max Hertzum 10PRG Media Essay
The media controls everything. The way we talk, the way we perceive and the way we think are all dictated by the media to a varying degree for each person. Young people tend to be influenced by the media more easily than most, this is because their brains are still developing, their media intake tends to be higher than most other group and because most media is aimed or marketed toward them. The media nowadays tends to represent teenagers as wild party animals or jocks or nerds, everyone supposedly has a stereotype they fit into. A stereotype is a widely circulated idea or assumption about a specific group. The teens viewing the media mimic or pick up behaviour depicted in the media, creating a feedback loop. In this case the feedback loop created starts with the media picking up on teen culture and then feeding it back to teens, and then when the teen culture they picked up gets boring or stale they exaggerate it. This means teen behaviour gets portrayed as more extreme than it is and some teens mimic it and the cycle continues. In this essay we will be focusing on two stereotypes from different films, we will analyse them and look at the impact they have on teens today. The stereotypes being analysed are: The Plastics from Mean Girls (2004) and The Brain from The Breakfast Club (1985).
The comedy film Mean Girls directed by Mark Waters in 2004 is a movie marketed towards teenagers (mainly girls) and features many different stereotypes, the main focus of the movie is on a group known as The Plastics. The Plastics are based on the typical ‘popular girl’ stereotype, they are beautiful, the centre of attention, quick to judge and they backstab each other repeatedly. The Plastics are shown to be unintelligent, yet desirable, mean, popular and very emotional. The Plastics look by what today’s standards would deem attractive and as a result lots of males like them romantically. Everyone treats The Plastic group as if they were ‘teen royalty’ despite how negatively they are portrayed. Throughout most of the scenes with The Plastics the camera is focused on them, putting everyone else besides members of The Plastics out of focus. This helps symbolise The Plastics overall importance and how they are the centre of attention and no one else matters. Slow motion is used in combination with the focus to help emphasise how attractive and graceful The Plastics are. These are used notably in the first PE scene, or the Plastics introduction scene to help the audience get a general idea of the Plastics, what they are about and how everyone treats them like gods. The techniques, particularly the focus, plants the idea in the viewer’s head that in order to receive attention, affection and praise they should act or look similar to that of the Plastics. This is further reinforced by the use of slow motion, showing the audience that if the viewer was skinny and attractive like these girls then everyone would love them for it and they would be the centre of attention. The focus technique is subtle, but enough to be subconsciously noted by the audience. This means that with enough exposure to these techniques, a large number the target audience (teens) will associate being popular and getting attention with looking good and acting in a similar manner to the members of the Plastics. Throughout the movie, the costumes The Plastics wear tend to be very form fitting or revealing, to help show off their conventionally attractive bodies and further emphasise the sex appeal of the group. This helps further show and emphasise how skinny and beautiful the Plastics are and how being those things can make you more popular or desirable. It gives the audience, that is mainly mainly made up of teenagers, the message that if you change yourself to fit this mould that was created by the Plastic’s representation in the film that everyone will love you. The fact that they are displaying their good bodies constantly somewhat normalises this skinny body type to the audience. It makes people want to gain the body type more so that they will be popular. Mean Girls tells the viewer that if you act like a shallow and ditsy plastic the world will take notice of you and everyone will love you. It normalises what was considered an ideal body type, and makes the idea of this near impossible body tangible and more real to the target market of mostly young teen girls.
The 1985 film The Breakfast Club directed by John Hughes features five core high school stereotypes. The stereotype focused on in this essay will be The Brain (known as Brian Johnson). The Brain is an amalgamation of most generic nerd and geek stereotypes, the Brain is a pampered, intelligent and rule abiding student. He never fails any of his classes and tends to prioritise school work over social life, his social skills seem stunted and inept and he is extremely awkward and tends to make encounters will other people largely uncomfortable. His mannerisms are childlike due to a good home life and the Brain remains reasonably carefree, aside from academia, nothing else matters. The Brain is a bookworm and has a high intelligence when it comes to school subjects, however he is lacking in the emotional and social intelligence area. The Brain tends to wear comfy and soft clothes and physically, is not intimidating or athletic in the slightest. Props are used in the lunch scene, the scene where the characters all sit down and showcase their varied lunches, to help the audience better understand the Brain’s character. The Brain’s lunch helps reinforce the respective stereotype he has been assigned. His lunch consists of: warm soup in a thermostat, a juice box and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the crusts cut off. His lunch is very nutritious and give the audience the impression that the Brain has a very sheltered home life and is well looked after and even babied by his parents. This is similar to how most typical geeks and nerds in media are portrayed as being wimpy and having a sheltered lifestyle. Costume and casting choice is also used to further emphasise both the stereotype and how uncool being a nerd can be. The Brain wears a comfy and thick sweater, making him appear very out of place next to the other characters, he wears very strange and childish looking trainers and a digital watch. The casting of Anthony Micheal Hall also furthers this geeky look, with the actor being thin, youthful and not remotely intimidating. All of these techniques combine to tell the audience that being smart makes you a nerd, and that being a nerd isn’t considered cool. The lunch being very childish makes the audience associate being childish and babied with being smart, the costume and casting choice further emphasises how uncool being a smart is and how being intelligent makes you weak. This results in smart people watching not feeling good about themselves, as in the movie being smart makes you weak. The other people watching may treat other people with intelligence as if they are weak or if they aren’t of real value, because throughout the movie the Brain is used for his intelligence by the other characters constantly and is the only character left alone in the end. The audience is being told that smart people are uncool nerds who end up alone, this can deter people from developing or showing their intelligence out of fear for being judged and deemed uncool by other people. The way the Brain is shown in the Breakfast Club reinforces this idea present throughout most media that being smart is not what is considered good and that being smart will make you a cowardly loner. It devalues smart people and intelligence in general send the audience the subconscious message that someone smart is a nerd and is not of value.
The problem of presenting teens in these ways in media is that everyone can relate to one of these stereotypes because they are so general and broad, meaning that people get to associate with their particular stereotype and as a result get treated differently. The things we see in the media are an artificial or constructed reality, meaning that in movies, the media oversimplifies things, boiling down characters to one or two quirks and an overall stereotype, it makes people’s bodies look perfect and almost unreal. Take the Plastics for example and the message they bring with them to the audience: that if you look good and have what is considered an attractive body everyone will love and respect you. This message can be potentially harmful to the teens watching, especially girls. The fact that the media represents girls as impossibly skinny and attractive, the Plastics being an example of this, can be extremely harmful as it normalises a perfect body type and as a result can leave girls feeling envious and wanting to have an unachievable body type. As a result, some girls can develop eating disorders to try and become skinny, like in the movies. In 2017 a study concluded that roughly 50% of teenage girls use unhealthy methods to lose weight because they consider themselves fat or not good enough, this can be due to representations and stereotypes like the Plastics in the media, giving girls this impossible goal to work towards. The Brain and other similar geek stereotypes tell teenagers that being intelligent is not cool or desirable and it will just make you end up alone. This devalues intelligence to people and send the message to the audience that smart people are lesser beings to your regular folk, this can insight bullying and resentment to apparent ‘nerds’. Approximately 17% of US school children are bullied 2 or 3 times a month and some are bullied even more regularly. This is due to the way the media reduces people to a single simple stereotype that people can identify with, meaning that other people associate certain people with a stereotype and bully them because of it. Both of these stereotypes have negative impacts on the way teens perceive and treat each other and themselves but they also have an impact on adults. Some parents cannot relate to their kids due to the media’s portrayal of kids, parents and adults are not usually exposed to teen life, so everything they see in the media is the extent of their knowledge. Parents struggle to empathise with their children due to stereotyping them because of what they’ve seen in the media. This can lead to family disputes and a disconnect from parents and children which can lead to the children developing mental issues.
In conclusion, the media is a very powerful force that is viewed universally. The two stereotypes analysed in this essay were the Plastics from Mean Girls, popular, backstabbing and emotional queen bees and The Brain from The Breakfast Club, a wimpy and pampered nerd. The media has an influence over everything and everyone, especially perception and the way we treat others. The media is a huge part of teen culture and influences trends and what is deemed socially acceptable by the masses. The media for children and teens nowadays plays a big part in raising them and as a result today’s youth are exposed to the concepts of stereotypes early in their lifetime. It’s important that we educate people to remain aware that the media presents an artificial and ideal version of reality where everything is more simple and one dimension and everyone can be boiled down to a single core attribute. We need to educate both teens and children on staying aware that most media is entertainment, not the way we should be living. The sooner we educate people on concepts such as the feedback loop and stereotypes the better off we will be. If we spread awareness about these stereotypes and educate people on them people will learn that everyone is more than just a single quirk or trait. We need to make everyone, including the media more self aware and the negative impact they are having on teens and everyone in general.