Social Cliques in The Breakfast Club by Eric Berne

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Social Cliques in The Breakfast Club by Eric Berne

“Jock”, “prep”, “gangster”, “loser”, “geek”, “criminal”, “ popular”, are just a few labels of teenagers that are used everyday by outsiders who judge them without looking skin deep. In the matter of stereotyping, some may perceive it as being the base of an identity in the view of society. Eric Berne, an author and psychologist, wrote an article, “Can People Be Judged by Their Appearance?”, where stereotyping is categorized and used as a positive view. As opposed to the film The Breakfast Club, written by John Hughes, that creates a more negative input on stereotyping. Berne’s uses a theory of basic human types as an example of a scientific subject made for nonscientists, where in the article he breaks down categories of people’s appearances to help them reflect on their own personalities. On the other hand, Hughes engages in a different theory of how to let people recognize stereotyping by giving a different perspective of it. In The Breakfast Club Berne’s lets viewers realize that stereotyping between children and parents is a natural difference, while a group of misrepresented teens are put in detention for eight hours on a Saturday, all realize that regardless of what each are looked upon as, all are one of the same. Stereotyping in our society can be viewed in two ways, one being a means by which people judge one another, and the other as a way of unfairly categorizing people in society simply by the way they look ...

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