By Ella Stone
When it comes to watching movies focused on the high school environment, whether they are new movies or old, you will come to find that the characters always seem older than they do in real life. But theat’[s just one of many reasons high school movies don’t always show reality.
A lot of times, movies stay away from basic high school experiences and focus more on things that are less likely to happen for dramatic effect. If you are watching a movie, you want things to go wrong and things that will pull you in, and if movies just showed the life of a regular everyday high schooler you wouldn’t have those things. Many problems in real life that could be portrayed as dramatic often aren’t for Hollywood and more just for in-the-classroom tea to tell your friends.
In movies, many characters have one thing that categorizes them, whether they are a jock or a nerd, it makes them easy to recognize, which makes the relationships between other characters easier to follow and understand. In real life, students’ lives are far more complex.
They may have many different groups of friends or many hobbies that they enjoy, and that’s totally normal. Movies try to avoid going in-depth to the behind the scenes of the characters and just give you the basics on what you need to know. When you throw all these things into a movie, it can be hard to include them all and keep the storyline flowing.
Often, in movies two people are romantically involved—whether they’re enemies to lovers or in a love triangle—and that causes drama. These moments always tend to seem larger than life, with a huge speech in the gym, or running into prom at the exactly right moment to apologize. This is to make the watcher invested to keep watching. This doesn’t happen in real life, whether people in high school aren’t ready to date or their relationships just aren’t this public. I promise you won’t see a huge apology at this homecoming rally.
A lot of times, the jocks seem to rule the school and the nerds run in fear when they see the football players. They throw the smart kids in garbage cans or give them wedgies while all the cheerleaders follow them around. There tends to be a hierarchy in movies that doesn’t exist in real life. Yes, there are bullies in real life, but it usually isn’t a whole group of people that you have to fear. They are popular groups in high school, or people who are well known, but they seem to cross over between different groups and don’t just stay in one place.
When it comes to making these movies, there is a pressure to entertain. You have to draw the audience in, which is why these movies have to include things that don’t typically happen. It is entertaining, but it gives unrealistic expectations to incoming high schoolers, who are in for a surprise when they actually get here.
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