Sociological Analysis of The Film Riding in Cars with Boys

Sociological Analysis of The Film Riding in Cars with Boys

Beverly, the main character of “Riding in Cars With Boys” fell into the categories of heterosexual, female. Beverly’s family of orientation consisted of her mother and father. The movie begins with Beverly participating in a craze with the most popular guy in school, who is a member of a voluntary, closed group of jocks. Beverly decides to use her innate ability for writing to express her non-material culture in the form of a love poem. She gives the jock this piece of material culture, and asks him to read it in private. The charismatic jock takes the poem, laughs in her face, and cruelly reads the poem aloud to his cohorts. Beverly experiences manic-depressive reaction after this abuse and runs into the bathroom, where she meets her future significant other Ray, who promises retributiveness. The jock experiences a severe sanction for his emotional abuse of Beverly in the form of a punch in the face by Ray. After this social interaction Ray and Beverly leave with their peers Fay and Bobby. They drive to the waterfalls where Beverly and Ray have sex in the front seat of the car, while Faye and Bobby get intimate in the back seat. This leads to Beverly’s pregnancy at the chronological age of 15. Her social structure status was in secession due to the fact that she was pregnant. She could no longer function in society because her role as an innocent 15 year old was questioned upon. Her father’s prestige was wounded and he, being a well respected police officer and having legal rational authority in their town, forces them to get married. Beverly goes through resocialization process when she gets married in church. The people who attended the wedding were a ...

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...ocial interaction between Beverly and her son. From the bus stop she could only think of returning to her family of orientation, so she called her father to come pick her up. At first, on the way home, they did not talk much but after a while of getting used to being around each other again, they sang a song that they used to sing when she was a little girl. The song was called “Dream”, and it reminded Beverly of the life she had when she was a young girl and didn’t disgrace the family’s name yet.

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Bibliography

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Publishing Company. Belmont, California.

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McGraw-Hill Publishing Company. New York.