In lieu of my regular blog post, and because I’m beginning to have nightmares about all the essays I have coming due, I am pleading for your help.
In my 302 class (English 1C), I have to write a 6-7 page paper on how education (high school, college) is depicted in film, and how that differs from reality. To help me, what I really need is to have numerous people fill out a small survey.
The films I am using for my paper are 10 Things I Hate About You, Legally Blonde, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (if I can rent it somewhere). However, you don’t have to have seen these movies to answer these questions, so please, if you’re attending college, have attended college, or are thinking about attending college sometime before you die, please take pity on me and answer my questions!
Please please pretty pretty please? With a cherry on top?
Alright. Thanks. I owe you one. And if you have a questionnaire , I am so there to fill it out for you.
- Before you entered college / high school, which movie (can be any one you’ve ever seen) did you most associate with how college / high school would be once you arrived?
- Why?
- Were you disappointed if your ideal didn’t match up with the reality of college / high school?
- Were there any parts of “film life” that matched up with real life?
- Anything else you’d like to add?
To answer the questions, don’t bother rewriting the questions (I know it sounds lame to actually have to state that, but I would do it, so I don’t doubt others would too). Either leave your responses in the comments, or drop me a line at lisa@unsympathetic.net.
If I use your responses, I’ll email you and let you know, because I will need a little bit of info to fill out my “Works Cited.” And as always, I’ll be posting the essay as soon as it’s done, so anyone can read it.
Thank you so much for your help!
I don’t know if I can really answer your questions point by point because my head doesn’t work that way. Maybe this will help.
When I was in Jr. high, I watched 16 candles. I totally identified with all those characters. I saw each of them all around me at school. Not long after, I watched the Breakfast Club. Again, all these characters were people I knew. The crazy chick played by Ally Sheady was me. Only I dated the rocker dude (Judd Nelson), not the jock. These two movies represented my highschool experience with shocking realism.
College… well, I really envisioned it as more Revenge of the Nerds because I was a nerd. My college experience was pretty close except not so much with the drinking and the jocks and I didn’t go to a major university. It’s mainly that, while I was in college, my life in general was filled with all the people you can find in that movie.
I grew up in a very small town and attended college only one town away. Not the best demographic cross section but hopefully it gives you something interesting to work with.
1. I had always hoped high school would be like American Pie, well from the point of view of Stifler.
2. Why? Who wouldn’t want to go to a high school where you partied, got the hot girls, and still managed to pass.
3. Not really. It didn’t take long to figure out high school was nothing like the movie and that was probably a good thing.
4. The part that matched is probably the overwhelming horniness of high school guys and the losers not getting any respect.
5. Not really
saw your query on the k2 forums.
1. For portrayals of high school, I’d say Sixteen Candles. For college life, I’d say Dead Poets Society. Also Revenge of the Nerds — maybe more so than Dead Poets Society, since my friend’s dad wrote Revenge of the Nerds, and we used to watch it all the time.
2. Sixteen Candles has the jocks, the nerds, the undiscovered pretty girl. High school is a big scene, and it’s easy to be unnoticed. This movie doesn’t glorify the experience, but it’s a sweet story. For college… wait a minute, is Dead Poets Society about boarding school kids, or college kids? uh oh, I don’t remember. Anyway, I thought of colleges as being old ivy league-type places where you learned neat stuff. For revenge of the nerds, I just really liked the movie — it’s all about taking off on your own and empowering yourself.
3. High school - No. I ditched a lot and went surfing everyday. All my friends were out of high school, so I wasn’t very involved in the scene. College - yeah, too many enormous lecture halls and it was difficult to have real personal relationship with teachers. I didn’t live in dorms, so I missed out on that part of the experience. All my friends were film majors, and they were interesting, and we had lots of fun.
4. HS - No, I never dated, so that kind of cancelled anything that could have fit along the lines of a script. College - Yes, loads of jocks.
5. I think most movies about high school are, in their own way, accurate. Stand and Deliver, the motivational, inspiring genre, is based on a true story. Wonder Years and John Hughes movies, with boring teachers, and kids just waiting to get out of class, are accurate too — many teachers are awful. There’s also first loves, rivalries, etc. I never found myself totally disagreeing with high school movies.
umm.. i aggree entiarly with ryan….
soz that u dont get n e from from me
Well, thanks everyone for their answers (except maybe Odin, since he didn’t say anything new). The paper is due in about 24 hours or so, so I suppose I should get to work and actually write the thing