The Breakfast Club film contained a wide variety of communication. Within this essay, the various types of communication and behaviors within the film will be discussed. Key terms will be pointed out and highlighted, as well as described in relation to the examples extracted from the film. To begin with the film started out with a communicationclimate that was both tense and without verbal communication.
This was mainly due to the variance in membership constructs of the characters involved. The character’s included the brain Brian,Andrew the athlete , the criminal Bender, the princess Claire, and the basket case Allison. There was a great deal of interesting non verbal communication taking place between these people. Theirreactions and responses to each other demonstrated perceptual errors, which would be shown as the story progressed.
The genderconflict styles also played a role. The girls both tended tolisten, rather than hold the attention of the others. This wasespecially true in Allison’s case, who never spoke. Allison was introduced in the movie as the basketcase. Allison showed that she was obviously insecure, seating herself facing away from the rest of the room (avoidance).
She would notspeak out. She was nonassertive, when asked what she wanted shewould not respond (impervious response). She would only sit and smile to herself. You could categorize her in to the passive aggressive label perfectly. She didn’t like herself (low selfesteem), or others. She was both futile and helpless.
The onlyway she displayed her anger was by giving a whimper. She obviouslyhad a lot of pent up feeling, for she reveals a lot later in the movie through self disclosure. Allison obviously lacked therespect of others, for she had no friends whatsoever prior to hertime spent in this detention. She also used manipulators she chewed her nails, and played with her hair. Brian was another case of insecurity.
The influence of selfconcept was strong with Brian Johnson for he had no sense of self. He could not meet the standards of his desired self and wastherefore unhappy with himself as a person. He quivered at the non verbal communication projected by Benders’ glare. Brian used passive aggression and was non assertive. An example of these iswhere Bender starts acting up.
Brian said weakly ” I think weshould just do our papers. ” Any suggestion Brian made throughoutthe movie was met by disconfirming responses such as verbal abuse,impervious responses, or interruptions. Clair was the “Prom Princess”, she had a high self esteem, andwas assertive. As well she was highly emotional throughout thefilm. An example of her emotional language was her straightforward statement to Bender “I hate you” This was after he hadbroken a promise not to laugh at her. Clair also had the habit ofusing the defense mechanism of compensation.
She made up for her lack of general skills and abilities by turning the discussion to how popular and rich she was. Andrew was the jock. He was an athlete who was assertive,confident, and had high self esteem. His problem was that hecouldn’t think for himself, and was in that way passive.
He showed aggressive behavior when Bender acted as if he was goingto urinate on the floor. Andrew turned and said “you whip it out your dead before the first drop hits, the floor. Two hits, mehitting you, you hitting the floor. ” He again demonstrated direct aggression later on in the movie during another conflict with bender. He said “if we weren’t in school I’d waste you. ” Andrew had made a perception error.
He saw bender as a “bum”. He said tobender “only weed burners smoke dope”, which classified Bender asa drug using bum. Andrew was ignorant to the fact that Bender hadany feelings, as if drug users didn’t have any. Later on Andrewrevealed his ability to be empathetic.
He showed empathy when he put himself in the place of the nerd he taped. Andrew had taped upsome guys but. Afterward he thought about it. He put himself inthat kids place, and looked at the humiliation that the kid musthave had to face. Again Andrew showed his compassionate side withAllison. He asked her what was the matter with her.
He used .
