Essay Example with a Movie Review for Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club is an American Comedy-drama movie regarding five different students who are forced to spend their Saturday in detention within their school library. It is written, produced and directed by John Hughes. It features Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheddy who acts like the teenager students (Hughes, 1985). These students have diverse social backgrounds and classes, and this makes it tremendously difficult for them to get along and be able to understand each other. However, throughout this period, they can learn about the problem that each of them faces, both at home and at school. In the movie, the personality traits of the students are displayed through the actions and the assertions that each gives. The themes of the teenage rebellion, family issues, and the peer pressure are therefore depicted the major thematic issues addressed in the movie. The movie director and producer, Hughes, depicts an essential aspect of the interaction of the five students in detention within the school library (Hughes, 1985). This aspect is based on the fact that the five students only met once but managed to change their life. The manner in which the students were able to form a group and be able to understand each other irrespective of belonging to distinct social classes is a big issue to examine. This paper will, therefore, discuss the developmental stages, factors contributing to the group cohesiveness, the extent to which they were able to understand each other, the problem-solving skills that they could have used to resolve their differences, and the role played by diversity in their group formation.

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Group Developmental Stages

Rothwell (2012) reports that the four phases of group development include forming, storming, norming and performing. Fascinatingly, these phases should not be viewed as sequential, and the groups must not necessarily pass through these developmental phases. For The Breakfast Club film, however, the group is formed through "forming process," which broadly entails coming together for some reasons (detention in this case). As part of the forming a category of the development phase, motivation, interpersonal attraction to each other, establishment of the meaning and identity are depicted as the significant part of the development.

In the Breakfast Club, the forming point entailed a stage whereby the students were forced into detention. This process provided the structure and guidelines and allowed individuals to familiarise themselves with each other. In the storming phase, the development involved arguments, power struggles, debate and the conflict of interests. Some individuals view the gathering as the waste if time. In the movie, the differing opinions and ideas based on the variations in the social norms led to the rise in conflict and arguments among the students. Notably, Claire is in the development stage of moral reasoning, described by living up to the expectation of others in the movie. She is continually tending to know in John Bender whether he will declare his romantic love to her, by so kissing John. The stage of adolescence has also been given weight based on the fact that Claire has the identity of identity moratorium. She is exploring her world and searching for her personality and has decided to choose which parent to side with, she explains how her mother says one thing. However, her father tells her another something that makes her find herself in a dilemma situation as she is also interested to know who she wants to be. She has proved herself that she cannot make her own decision by so looking for Andrew for approval, she intends to be like John who is more carefree and does not care about his image.

`Sporting motivation is seen in Andrew Clarke where he decided to join wrestling because his father wants him to be. Notably, his father does not wish to losers in his family. Having smoked weed Andrew admits, he has been pressured to do wrestling and even doesn't like it or say anything regarding that, his father was, even more, happier with what he did to Larry and expect him to do even worst things. Being desperate and loneliness is a kind of life that Allison Reynolds underwent. She finds her family life unsatisfying as her parents ignored her making her bored. For this reason, she volunteered to go for Saturday detention. Previously, she would always be silent because of this but decided to open herself and utters anything possible that she can, after smoking.

Throughout the film, the determination is portrayed as an exciting part of the plot. For example, it is evident in Brian Johnson who is seen to be an intelligent character, who consumes his time constructively. He is part of school math club and several other extracurricular activities. He is further known to be a superior intellect according to John Bender, ignores all manner kind of jokes, he has a fake ID, but this doesn't make him irrelevant among his colleagues, because other colleagues would use a phony ID to buy alcohol.

Group Cohesiveness

Cohesiveness refers to the degree to which the members of the group feel a part of the group, and this is characterized by their wish to stay well as the commitment to one another (Rothwell, 2012). In the movie, the cohesiveness is seen to be established primarily by the attention that the five students have towards their social relationships within the school library. It is essential, however, not note that too much attention to the productivity can tremendously diminish cohesiveness through the production conflict and stress. As observed in the film, the cohesiveness enhances the productivity among the members of the group.

Having broken the school rules, the five students decided to share about their problems both at school and home. They were thus able to understand each other and think on the same wavelength. This is because they were all serving detention, except for Allison who found herself in the trap because she had nothing to do. Fundamentally, the self-disclosure emerges as one factor that helps to establish this cohesiveness. Bender gets Claire to self-disclosure about her feelings towards her parents. In the same way, Andrew is interested to know much about Bender's parents. From this moment, it was significant to know how much they are sharing similarities in their struggle and their identity with each other. Surprisingly, Claire had to confess her virginity to the group while Andrew opted to describe his father's expectation in athletics. Bender as well described his father's abusive attitude. It is through this processes that the two characters can find common ground to come together and get to know each other. This further made Andrew conclude that his father and Bender's father ought to get together and go bowling. Nevertheless, they band together to fight against mutual enemies, parents, peer pressure, authority figures and stereotypes the group remained cohesive.

The five students were able to win the case due to the following reasons. Firstly, they had bared their souls to each other and become friends, out of this Claire thought of one essay being written to cover the case for all of them. In fact, Brian had to accept this friendship and resorted to taking a swift move on behalf of the remaining four students. They further operated in unity; a critical step that later translated to the source of their strength. Notably, the ability to convince other people propelled Brian to write an essay with the aim of convincing Mr. Vernon. In the letter, they accepted that they had to sacrifice the whole Saturday in detention for the reason that they committed the mistake, hence apologizing.

Group roles and related listening skills

According to Rothwell (2012), the process of the rational problem solving and decision-making is known as reflective thinking. It refers to the set of the logical steps that integrate the scientific techniques that involve the definition, analysis, and solving of problems. In the view of Dewey, this method is highly effective, structured approach to the decision making as well as the problem-solving. The problem identification, problem analysis, and setting the standards for the solution provider is vital. It is undeniable to mention that the letter Brian wrote was a focal point of the film. It demonstrated and illustrated the real change in students underwent during the day, their attitudes and perspectives that emerged as a result.

As part of other skills, this group was able to listen, understand and even respond to each other's question. They were able to pass hours in different ways; through dance, smoking marijuana, and also talk a variety of subjects including revealing their secrets to one another. Notably, Allison is seen to be compulsive liar while Brian and Claire are ashamed of their virginity. However, Andy showed that he got into trouble because of his father being overbearing and thus other members of the group came to know that they had a strained relationship with their parents and even promised not to indulge themselves in that one's adult. They also realized that one's detention is over they would not see each other again, but instead return to their circles and never speak to each other again. Other than that Claire had requested, and according to group consensus, Brian agrees to write the essay to Mr. Vernon and his preconceived judgment about them.

Conclusion

In sum, the traits of the five students developed into a new personality. Brian, Claire, Andrew, Alisson, and Bender all walked into detention with struggles, with their mentally disturbed but at the end with the help of each other's words of wisdom and experience. Nevertheless, they coped with these problems, they forgot their differences and formed a bond of cohesiveness as friends.

References

Rothwell, J. (2012). In mixed company: Communicating in small groups. Nelson Education.

Hughes, J., (1985). The Breakfast Club. You Tube