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Interpersonal Communication In John Hughes's The Breakfast Club

1079 Words5 Pages
John Hughes’ 1985 movie, The Breakfast Club, offers uncountable examples of the ideologies of interpersonal communication. Five high school students: Allison, the kook, Brian, the brain, John, the criminal, Claire, the princess, and Andrew, the jock, are required to devote the day in Saturday detention. At the end of the day, they discover that they have more in mutual than they ever grasped. I will begin by choosing a scene from the movie and using it to explain what interpersonal communication is. The interpersonal transaction I chose to isolate was the scene where we see Bender and Claire going through each other’s wallet and purse. Claire inquires about the pictures of girls in Bender’s wallet and Bender asks about the number of items in Claire’s purse. This scene shows that interpersonal communication is a dynamic process. In previous transactions between the two characters, they are hostile towards each other and self-disclose minimally. In this conversation, Claire calmly asks Bender personal questions, although Bender is still watchful of what he self-discloses. Interpersonal communication is inescapable. While Claire is asking these questions, no matter how Bender responds, he is still sending Claire a message about himself, which is a form of communication. Interpersonal communication is unrepeatable, in that Claire probably wouldn’t ask the same kind of questions after realizing Bender’s disbelief in monogamy. The conversation couldn’t be reenacted exactly the
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