The Breakfast Club is a 1985 American indie teen coming-of-age comedy-drama film written, produced, and directed by John Hughes. It stars Emilio Estevez, Paul Gleason, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy. The film tells the story of five teenagers from different high school cliques who serve a Saturday detention overseen by their authoritarian vice principal.
The Brat Pack is a nickname given to a group of young actors who frequently appeared together in teen-oriented coming-of-age films in the 1980s. The term "Brat Pack", a play on the Rat Pack from the 1950s and 1960s, was first popularized in a 1985 New York magazine cover story, which described a group of highly successful film stars in their early twenties. David Blum wrote the article after witnessing several young actors being mobbed by groupies at Los Angeles' Hard Rock Cafe. The group has been characterized by the partying of members such as Robert Downey Jr., Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, and Judd Nelson.
The Faculty is a 1998 American science fiction horror film directed and edited by Robert Rodriguez with a screenplay by Kevin Williamson. It stars Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Laura Harris, Josh Hartnett, Shawn Hatosy, Famke Janssen, Piper Laurie, Bebe Neuwirth, Robert Patrick, Usher Raymond, Jon Stewart, and Elijah Wood.
Sixteen Candles is a 1984 American coming-of-age comedy film starring Molly Ringwald, Michael Schoeffling, and Anthony Michael Hall. Written and directed by John Hughes in his directorial debut, it was the first in a string of films Hughes would direct, centering on teenage life. The film received positive reviews from critics and was a box-office success, earning $23.6 million against a $6.5 million budget, and launched Ringwald to fame.
But I'm a Cheerleader is a 1999 American satirical teen romantic comedy film directed by Jamie Babbit in her feature directorial debut and written by Brian Wayne Peterson. Natasha Lyonne stars as Megan Bloomfield, a high school cheerleader whose parents send her to a residential in-patient conversion therapy camp to "cure" her lesbianism. At camp, Megan realizes that she is indeed a lesbian and, despite the "therapy", comes to embrace her sexuality. The supporting cast includes Clea DuVall, RuPaul, and Cathy Moriarty.
Long Duk Dong is a fictional character who appears in Sixteen Candles, a 1984 American coming-of-age comedy film written and directed by John Hughes. Played by Japanese American actor Gedde Watanabe, the character is a Chinese foreign exchange student and a supporting character in the film set at a US suburban high school. The character has been called an offensive stereotype of Asian people.
Adolescent cliques are cliques that develop amongst adolescents. In the social sciences, the word "clique" is used to describe a group of 3 to 12 "who interact with each other more regularly and intensely than others in the same setting". Cliques are distinguished from "crowds" in that their members socially interact with one another more than the typical crowd. Crowds, on the other hand, are defined by reputation. Although the word 'clique' or 'cliquey' is often used in day-to-day conversation to describe relational aggression or snarky, gossipy behaviors of groups of socially dominant teenage girls, that is not always accurate. Interacting with cliques is part of normative social development regardless of gender, ethnicity, or popularity. Although cliques are most commonly studied during adolescence and in educational settings, they can exist in all age groups and settings.
In the United States and Canada, a jock is a stereotype of an athlete, or someone who is primarily interested in sports and sports culture, and does not take much interest in intellectual activity. It is generally applied mostly to high school and college athletics participants who form a distinct youth subculture. As a blanket term, jock can be considered synonymous with athlete. Jocks are usually presented as male practitioners of team sports such as American football, basketball, baseball, lacrosse, soccer, swimming and ice hockey.
Can't Buy Me Love is a 1987 American teen romantic comedy film directed by Steve Rash, starring Patrick Dempsey and Amanda Peterson in a story about a nerd at a high school in Tucson, Arizona, who gives a cheerleader $1,000 to pretend to be his girlfriend for a month. The film takes its title from a Beatles song of the same title.
Teen Wolf, known as The Cartoon Adventures of Teen Wolf in the United Kingdom, is an animated television series broadcast from 1986 to 1987, that was produced by Southern Star / Hanna-Barbera Australia in association with Clubhouse Pictures in the first season and Atlantic/Kushner-Locke in the second season. It was based on the live action film Teen Wolf (1985), and the second installment overall in the titular franchise.
A Midsummer Night's Rave is a 2002 American film adapted from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream released on November 1, 2002. The film stars Corey Pearson, Lauren German, Andrew Keegan, Chad Lindberg, and Sunny Mabrey; and was directed by Gil Cates Jr. It is set at a rave, rather than the forest where most of the original is set. The film received little attention from professional movie critics, but is considered a success with teen audiences, and has been used as an exemplar for a category of movies in more academic publications.
Bratz is a 2007 American teen comedy film based on the fashion dolls of the same name from MGA Entertainment. The film is directed by Sean McNamara with a screenplay by Susan Estelle Jansen, from a story written by Adam de la Pena and David Eilenberg. It is the first live-action film based on the toyline after a series of direct-to-video animated films and a television series.
A queen bee is a woman who dominates or leads a group, is in a favoured position or behaves as such. The term has been applied in several social settings.
A teen situation comedy, or teen sitcom, is a subgenre of comedic television program targeted towards young people. In general, these type of programs focus primarily on characters between 11 and 19 years of age and routinely feature characters involved in humorous situations, and often focus on the characters' family and social lives. The primary plot of each episode often involves the protagonist(s) the program centers on, while secondary plotlines often focus on the character(s') parents, siblings or friends, although the secondary characters may sometimes also or instead be involved in the episode's main plot.
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-genre, macro-genre, or micro-genre, such as soap opera, police crime drama, political drama, legal drama, historical drama, domestic drama, teen drama, and comedy-drama (dramedy). These terms tend to indicate a particular setting or subject matter, or they combine a drama's otherwise serious tone with elements that encourage a broader range of moods. To these ends, a primary element in a drama is the occurrence of conflict—emotional, social, or otherwise—and its resolution in the course of the storyline.
Awkward is an American teen comedy-drama television series created by Lauren Iungerich for MTV. The show's central character is Jenna Hamilton, a Palos Verdes, California, teenager who struggles with her identity, especially after an accident is misconstrued as a suicide attempt.
Crowds are large groups of adolescents defined by their shared image and reputation. Crowd membership is externally imposed and not a direct consequence of interaction with other members of the crowd.
A clique, in the social sciences, is a group of individuals who interact with one another and share similar interests rather than with others. Interacting with cliques is part of normative social development regardless of gender, ethnicity, or popularity. Although cliques are most commonly studied during adolescence and middle childhood development, they exist in all age groups. They are often bound together by shared social characteristics such as ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Examples of common or stereotypical adolescent cliques include athletes, nerds, and "outsiders".
Basic is a slang term in American popular culture used pejoratively to describe people who are perceived to prefer mainstream products, trends, and music. "Basic bitch" originated in hip hop culture and rose in popularity through rap music, songs, blogs, and videos from 2011 to 2014. Their male counterparts are usually termed "bros". Similar labels to "basic bitch" or "airhead" in other English-speaking countries include contemporary British "Essex girls" and "Sloane Rangers", and Australian "haul girls" known for their love of shopping for designer gear, and uploading videos of their purchases on YouTube.
Dawson casting is a cultural phenomenon and trope observed in film and television in which many of the actors appear and are actually much older than the characters they portray. The concept is observable in teen dramas such as Glee, Gossip Girl, and Pretty Little Liars where adults are cast to play teenage characters. An example of this is Pretty Little Liars character Spencer Hastings, who is 16 but is portrayed by actress Troian Bellisario, who was 24 years old at the time of shooting. Derry Girls is a non-American example of Dawson casting of teenage characters. The term was originally circulated on the Internet in response to the casting choices of Dawson's Creek, though the phenomenon predates that series, with examples such as the 1948 film Joan of Arc, the 1978 film Grease, the 1985 film The Breakfast Club, and the 1990s teen drama series Beverly Hills, 90210 casting actors in their twenties and thirties to play high-school aged students.
