Sociological Interactionism In The Movie Stand By Me

In the movie, Stand By Me, by Stephen King, four boys, Gordie, Teddy, Vern and Chris, set out in search of the body of a young boy who had been missing. They had overheard where the body might have been located and went to see if they could find it. The boys endured several different obstacles whether it was a train, sleeping in dark wilderness filled with vicious animals, or older boys who were also intent on finding the body, but they continued on until they found the body. Throughout the movie there were several sociological concepts such as, growing up/coming of age, the idea the people will go to great length to achieve fame, and the idea that people perceive people that may be different then how they actually are. The movie uses all three of the sociological perspectives, but the one that stood out to me most what the symbolic interactionist perspective. The sociological concepts within the movie tells us a lot about the society in the movie. Society’s idea of coming of age was mentioned a few different times throughout the movie. For example, in the movie the boys kept talking about leaving grade school and were

Symbolic interactionism is the idea that people grow and develop through social interactions. For example, Gordie had recently lost his brother, Denny and Gordie’s father was making him feel unwanted by blaming him for the loss. In the movie the boys carried a gun for protection. When they found the body, an older group of boys came and were trying to take the body by threatening the younger boys, but Gordie picks up the gun and points it at one of the older boys and tell them that they need to leave them and the body alone. The older boys left and nothing happened, but this scene showed the change that Gordie had made because he had the courage to stand up the the older