Andrew Thompson and Tim Gretzky were the most popular kids at our school. They played varsity soccer and basketball and the girls loved them. They could have worn sweats everyday and smelled like grandma's perfume and the ladies still would have swooned to them like BYU Freshmen running to the Cannon Center after church let out.
They were pretty funny.....good looking...treated most people like crap, and were below average students, yet they were the unofficial leaders of the school. WHY?
If your High School experience was similar to mine, then the more popular members of your school were also the very good athletes. What's the coorelation?! How is it rational that "Being good at sports = popularity"? Why is it not "being the star of the robotics club = popularity" or "winning the tri-school wizarding cup = popularity?" Where's the rational connection?!
Here's a few examples of the popular kids in school being the best athletes in the school as well.
1) Napoleon Dynamite-
2) High School Musical-
I've thought of about 5 more, but I want to let you pick out the rest.
Here are two questions..answer either one.
1)Name another movie or song or aspect of "pop culture" where the popular person was the best sports player.
or
2)Where did this social construction come from that the better athletes in school become the more popular people in the school?
29 comments:
"John Tucker Must Die"...haha probably the epitome movie for this post. love it.
It was definitely the same in my high school. Oh boy...
"Cinderella Story," a classic in high school.
I think my high school was quite different - but maybe it was just because I was a jock/music/academic person, so I just got along with everyone.
I would say "Bring It On" - Cheerleaders tend to be portrayed as the most popular girls in high school.
I came from a very different background than public high school. I attended a performing and visual arts high school where I majored in musical theater and I guess, I could be considered a theater geek. My high school had every type of art from theater, creative writing photography, painting, drawing, etc. On some level typical stereotypes did not exist at my school. But when you take a closer look....my high school was just the same. The dancers (most equivalent with cheerleaders) were the most cliquish group. They were the popular girls and the girls all the guys dated. I've often wondered why the dancers were the "popular" group in my high school. But I think on some level, it is the way our society is taught to think. Dancers were the closest thing we had relating to sports in my high school and therefore they got the popularity. Where this construction came from, I'm not really sure, but I think it exists in many different forms.
As for a movie that shows this....I'd say She's All That.
Although I was an athlete in high school, I LOATHED the jocks. I loved it when the most popular kids in my high school, considered to be the best athletes, were not given the title of "Athlete of the Year" and I took it from them instead. My loathing for them mostly was due to their thought that there was supposed to be some sense of entitlement. And why everyone fell over for them? I still can't figure it out to this day.
You know who was a family of jocks like that? The kids in "Billy Madison" that always throw their hands up and say "O'Doyle RULES!"
Friday Night Lights.
Varsity Blues.
She's all that.
Mean Girls.
My wife told me about those last two of course. .. I have never seen them...uh...
in HS culture, sports are valued over arts and intelligence when it comes to entertainment. high schoolers are confused as it is, so there's typically no rhyme or reason for one clique being more popular than another.
in HS culture, sports are valued over arts and intelligence when it comes to entertainment. high schoolers are confused as it is, so there's typically no rhyme or reason for one clique being more popular than another.
I think that parents of high school students contribute to this notion too. Some parents think their kids are going to be professional athletes the rest of their lives and focus on honing their athletic skills. In fact, this probably isn't going to happen, and their children will miss out on other opportunities they would have had otherwise.
Oh man, I think Mean Girls is certainly a movie that exemplifies this point. I think "jocks" get their status because they are in the limelight a lot, so everyone knows who they are.
I immediately thought of the 1990's classic "She's All That". Freddie Prince Jr. stars as the typical jock who tries to turn a not so popular girl into the Senior Prom Queen. Nothing to life changing. But funny movie. As my for high school, i guess you could say the jocks were the "most popular". However, something really cool...our Student Body voted a boy with autism to be our Senior Homecoming King.
I grew up overseas attending a private international school, so I really don't know what a public American high school is like. However, as I watched movies like the ones you all have listed above, I couldn't help but think "wow, that's a gross stereotype; there's no way schools are really like that." After reading your posts, I guess I was wrong. I think part of the reason why I believed these movies to be an exaggeration of truth is because my school was not like the movie portrayals at all. To begin with, being in a high school of about 450 kids, there really wasn't a "popular" group. I mean, I guess there were some kids that were more social than others, but I can't really name a single person that everyone wished they could be, like is shown in High School movies. It was also interesting that the lines were pretty fuzzy between the stereotypical groups; the majority of students at my school belonged to a variety of cliques: the basketball captain was also in jazz band; the rugby captain was also the best artist; the cheerleader was the valedictorian; the leader of the Model United Nations also led the computer science club.
I think the thing that bothered me most about watching these movies was that I always felt like the jocks, while always the most popular, were also the biggest slime-balls. This really wasn't the case where I grew up. Yeah, I mean there were definitely some people on the sports teams that were pretty shady, but the number of immoral individuals in the chess club, or NHS, or jazz band, was just as high (and honestly, sometimes higher) than the "jocks."
In the US we love celebrities. In High school jocks are the closet things to celebs. So in turn America = jocks = cool! If you dont like it, move to Canada!
"Varsity Blues," and actually I thought of "John Tucker Must Die" too.
I actually thought about Nacho Libre. Ramses, a big time mexican wrestler in that movie, is number one. He pretty much gets whatever he wants due to his athletic ability, regardless of the fact that hes a "real douche".
So many teen movies depict this notion perfectly that jocks rule the universe. Most of them have already been said.
-The Breakfast Club
-Sixteen Candles
-Dazed and Confused
-Varsity Blues
-John Tucker Must Die
-Mean Girls
-She's All That
-10 Things I Hate About You
-Cinderella Story
The list could go on and on.
After reading the posts it seems like this is an American Public School Phenomenon. Maybe it does have something to do with our culture--jocks feel a sense of entitlement, parents perpetuate the stereotype/ pass it on to their kids, etc. I think it has to do with the mind-set..In HS I had friends across the board (music, sports, etc), and none of my jock friends were the popular jerks. There were your typical football players and cheerleaders who definitely ruled the school, but it didn't seem like they played the sport and got the attitude. More like they had the attitude and then played the sport--either because they were good at it or because it was the cool thing to do.
In "She's the Man," the soccer jocks are majorly popular at the school.
At my high school, the jocks were very popular, but so were the really nice, outgoing people. Interestingly enough, several of the student body officers were in the school musical.
I went to an ALL-girl school, so we didn't really have the "cool" JOCKS. For the most part...the girls that were heavily into sports (most specifically "male dominated sports" like basketball) were looked at as BUTCH and unfeminine...with the exception of about 2 or 3....they were NOT cool.
If I had to come up with a movie to describe the typical high school experience I would say "Varsity Blues"...but in all honesty, my high school experience was pretty void of popular jocks.
Not all high school are jock related. Mine was a school of math and sciences, but it so happened that a lot who did very well in those areas did even better on the field, no matter what the sports, giving our school lots of mentions within the state. But it could be agreed that if you are good on the field, you must have a decent personality. But I can see what is being said.
My high school was tiny and, other than a few poor kids here and there, there was hardly any diversity. So, the ones that could play sports well were especially popular because their talent became extremely valuable since there wasn't a whole lot to set themselves apart from the rest of the student body. School smarts wasn't valued like it should have been. Sports? HUGE! Those who were rich? If they weren't cool, they were nothin' at school. The jocks? There were a couple, but by senior year, their popularity got surpassed by the students who had more character because they began to shine and stand out.
My first thought was A.C. Slater in Saved by the Bell. He wasn't more popular than Zach (not a jock), but he was definitely in the popular crowd.
Lebron James, Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, A Rod, Tom Brady, John Beck, Tavanari, Austin Collie... I don't think anything has changed since your high school days.
I had an atypical high school experience. I went to a private school that students needed to test in to. For example, our head cheerleader was ranked third in our class and also won Hawaii's Junior Miss scholarship pageant. We had many examples of great student athletes.
My favorite "jock" high school movie is John Tucker must die.
In Saved by the Bell the main characters always seemed to be the best sports players and they came across as the most popular kids in high school.
I was a jock / snowboarder / punk rocker? My high school was definitely cliquey but I was associated with multiples....so I can't say that i'm from one. However football just like college ruled teh sports attendance and brought in more money than all the other sports combined. Jocks can be from any sport but are most noticed for football because that is usually where the light shines.
It was weird, my school was pretty well known for the golf team and our other sports teams sucked. So, at my high school, the golf team (which had some pretty nerdy kids on it) kind of took the place of the stereotypical "high school jock". I think these types of people are seen as popular because they represent the school in many aspects. And in the case of my school's golf team the student body liked to rally behind something that was successful.
because of americans' obsession with sports, most high school kids attend sporting events and enjoy rooting for their team. sports bring all of the school together at one event and give them one thing to cheer for. and since these sports are getting so much exposure at school, the star players of the sports are often the most well-known and therefore most popular.
My high school was very different. I went to a private school that didn't have a lot of sports teams but we knew for sure who the jocks were from the surrounding schools.
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