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The Breakfast Club Sociological Analysis

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Sociology Analysis Paper Sample Analysis: The Breakfast Club The Breakfast Club is a film detailing a Saturday intention involving five very different students who are forced into each other’s company and share their stories. All the students are deviant in their own way and eventually are able to look past their differences and become friends. The film also offers detailed observations of social sanctions, peer pressure, control theory, and the three different sociological perspectives. The first principle seen in the film is a stigma, which is an undesirable trait or label that is used to characterize an individual. Each of the characters is associated with a stigma at the start of the film. For example, Allison is known as a basket case …show more content…

This is seen when the students cover for John when he snuck back into the library and also in the way Vernon threatens the addition of more Saturday detentions to control the students’ actions. Similar to this is peer pressure. In the film peer pressure is used to encourage both positive (when behavior over conforms to expectations) and negative (when behavior under conforms to expectations) deviance. An example of negative deviance encouraged through peer pressure is when John convinces everyone else to smoke pot with him. An example of positive deviance would be in the way Brian tries so hard to please people, especially his parents. This can be seen in the way he is driven to suicide because he is failing a class and the way he offers to write the essay for everyone at the end of the detention because he is “the smartest”. Control theory also goes along with peer pressure and social sanctions. This theory states that compliance with social norms requires strong bonds between individuals and society. This is seen when John distracts Vernon and sacrifices himself to get caught when they sneak out instead of everyone getting in trouble. This demonstrates the level of compliance given to Vernon because the other characters are scared of being caught. Finally, the three sociological perspectives can be seen. Functionalist can be observed in the way

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