Every August, students return to classrooms, buy new supplies and get used to another year of different teachers. It’s practically tradition.
But another practice returns as well: watching movies about school.
Whether it be “The Breakfast Club,” “Mean Girls,” “Spider-Man: Homecoming” or “Sky High,” Hollywood films have spent years using crowded classrooms to tell their stories.
As students move from youth all the way to college, they always come back to these films. So why is it that school movies never go out of style?
It’s simple: almost everyone can relate to them.
School happens to be one of the few near universally relatable experiences regardless of the angle from which it is perceived. It is something almost everyone has gone through, experiencing their fair share of semi-organized cliques, embarrassing situations and imposing tests.
A movie doesn’t need much explanation to fit in – it jumps right at you, puts you in the school environment, already expecting the viewer to understand.
Unfortunately, most people can think of their own personal Regina George orFlash Thompson.
That same familiarity also makes school an ideal setting for comedy and drama. “Mean Girls” turns popularity and social hierarchy into a comedy, while “The Breakfast Club” uses the simple setting of a Saturday detention to instigate a story about opposing personalities finding common ground.
Even superhero movies use school to build up their characters. In “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” Peter Parker has to worry about tests, relationships and other teenage things while still being Spider-Man. It makes him more than a hero; it makes him human.
The school setting has also evolved with its audience.
Older, more mature movies tend to focus on popularity, dating, parties and fitting into social groups. More recent coming-of-age movies explore anxiety, identity and academic pressure.
Films like “Lady Bird” and even the “Inside Out” franchise give audiences a more complex view of what it means to grow up. How conflict unfolds may vary, but the core issues remain constant: who am I, and who do I want to be?
This could be why these movies still hold the interest of college students as well as those who are grown up and no longer in that school environment. Watching a high school movie isn’t necessarily about wanting to return to school.
Sometimes it’s about recognizing a different version of yourself.
Beginning a new school year usually involves meeting new people and experiencing new things. Perhaps this is why back-to-school films have remained popular for so long.
The slang changes, the clothes change and the problems change. But the experience of trying to figure yourself out doesn’t.
As another school year begins, Hollywood’s classrooms remain open. And judging by how often people continue to rewatch these same movies, they probably aren’t gonna be closing anytime soon.
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Why back-to-school movies never really go away
Every August, students return to classrooms, buy new supplies and get used to another year of different teachers. It’s practically tradition.
But another practice returns as well: watching movies about school.
Whether it be “The Breakfast Club,” “Mean Girls,” “Spider-Man: Homecoming” or “Sky High,” Hollywood films have spent years using crowded classrooms to tell their stories.
As students move from youth all the way to college, they always come back to these films. So why is it that school movies never go out of style?
It’s simple: almost everyone can relate to them.
School happens to be one of the few near universally relatable experiences regardless of the angle from which it is perceived. It is something almost everyone has gone through, experiencing their fair share of semi-organized cliques, embarrassing situations and imposing tests.
A movie doesn’t need much explanation to fit in – it jumps right at you, puts you in the school environment, already expecting the viewer to understand.
Unfortunately, most people can think of their own personal Regina George orFlash Thompson.
That same familiarity also makes school an ideal setting for comedy and drama. “Mean Girls” turns popularity and social hierarchy into a comedy, while “The Breakfast Club” uses the simple setting of a Saturday detention to instigate a story about opposing personalities finding common ground.
Even superhero movies use school to build up their characters. In “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” Peter Parker has to worry about tests, relationships and other teenage things while still being Spider-Man. It makes him more than a hero; it makes him human.
The school setting has also evolved with its audience.
Older, more mature movies tend to focus on popularity, dating, parties and fitting into social groups. More recent coming-of-age movies explore anxiety, identity and academic pressure.
Films like “Lady Bird” and even the “Inside Out” franchise give audiences a more complex view of what it means to grow up. How conflict unfolds may vary, but the core issues remain constant: who am I, and who do I want to be?
This could be why these movies still hold the interest of college students as well as those who are grown up and no longer in that school environment. Watching a high school movie isn’t necessarily about wanting to return to school.
Sometimes it’s about recognizing a different version of yourself.
Beginning a new school year usually involves meeting new people and experiencing new things. Perhaps this is why back-to-school films have remained popular for so long.
The slang changes, the clothes change and the problems change. But the experience of trying to figure yourself out doesn’t.
As another school year begins, Hollywood’s classrooms remain open. And judging by how often people continue to rewatch these same movies, they probably aren’t gonna be closing anytime soon.