High school

[Sarah]

Okay, this has been bothering me for years (I don't know why I never thought before to ask about it here):  Onscreen--whether small or wide--high school is always portrayed as a den of inequity, bullying, violence, cruelty, and excessive cliquery.  Now, my tenure in high school was brief--I left never to return in December of my sophomore year--but I never, ever witnessed the kind of behavior I see on TV shows and in movies.  Oh, sure, occasionally there was some extremely mild harassment of an oddball, but it never went very far and was never widespread (indeed, a bully could always count on the censure of his/her peers and would usually be shamed into relative courtesy very quickly).  But I never witnessed the automatic viciousness that one so regularly sees in movies/shows, and, believe me, according to the stereotypes, I should have been on the receiving end of it.  Instead, I got along reasonably well with students across all the high school divides and was even, in my own small way, somewhat popular or, at least, more or less cheerfully tolerated.

Now, in case you're wondering, no, I didn't grow up in Mayberry.  My sojourn in high school ran from 1971 to 1972 and took place in New Paltz, New York.  A kinder, gentler time, perhaps, but not some distant nostalgic fairyland.  And if you consider, for example, the movie Carrie, you'll see the stereotype was already firmly in place in 1976/1977--and no doubt long before--so if the movies are true, New Paltz Central High School in the early seventies should have been as much of a hellhole as any other secondary school.

So, my questions are these:  Adjusting for poetic license/exaggeration, did/does your high school resemble the fictional versions you see onscreen?  Were/are the weak and weird routinely and extravagantly bullied?  Were/are the brainy derided?  Were/are the ugly and clumsy humiliated?  Were/are you specifically made to feel like shit because of your oddness (I'm assuming pretty much all of you are oddish)?  Is the fictional rendition of high school a big, fat lie for dramatic effect?  Or did I lead a charmed life?

[Andy]

everyone's favorite poker saying translated to fit this scenario:
If you don't know who the mean girl was in your high school, it was probably you.

[Sarah]

Untrue!  My first memory of coming to the defense of the underdog dates from nursery school.  It is a course from which I have never strayed.  If I say so myself.  I've annoyed plenty of people because of what they perceive to be my arrogance, but "mean" is not an epithet anyone has applied to me, at least, not as a general descriptor.

[Laurie]

I had a rough time in private school and public school. In private school, where I attended classes with spawn of Jeb Bush, Gloria Estefan, and Robin Gibb, I was the poor kid. I was miserable at Gulliver. I'm not going to go into details, but I'll say this much: It was like a Larry Clark movie. You think rainbow parties are far-fetched? Yeah... You don't want to know. I'm glad I was expelled. I punched the headmistress's grandson. He deserved it.

[Stupornaut]

The main thing I tend to take away from my high school years in the early-mid '90s when cliques come up: the preppies and the jocks tended to ignore me; it was the punk rock kids that turned out to be the jerks.

[dave from knoxville]

I think what happens is that you're seeing memories of high school as filtered through the sieve of screenwriter's high school experiences. Often, in interviews, screenwriters will say things like "high school just wasn't for me" or "I never really fit in with a crowd".

I would argue that the outsider status of some kids, particularly really creative kids who were bored by the conformity of their landscape, is actually what helped mold them into what they became later. The kind of kid (me included) who didn't have a hard time with high school, and kind of just went with the flow of societal convention, I would think, would be much less likely to write about that experience. For one thing, it would be boring as hell. There's no good drama without conflict; if I didn't experience any, it's going to be difficult for me to make up realistic re-enactments of what it was like.

Just think if the Screenwriter's Guild was over-run with a disproportionate number of conservative evangelicals: how would the "typical" Hollywood view of high school change? Or if a cluster of former lunch-ladies suddenly got a lot of modern-day Breakfast Club scripts green-lighted?

To understand art that attempts to reflect the masses, it's more important to understand the artist than the mass.

Seems to me, anyway.

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

My high school was an evil fuckhole and if I ever achieve some insane degree of power I'm going to buy it and explode it.

[dave from knoxville]

My high school was an evil fuckhole and if I ever achieve some insane degree of power I'm going to buy it and explode it.

To understand art that attempts to reflect the masses, it's more important to understand the artist than the mass.

[chrisfoll577]

my middle school experience was like a cross between 'heathers', 'revenge of the nerds' and 'lockdown'. the social dynamic consisted of the football and basketball jocks, theater kids and the other popular rich douches ruling the roost verbally and socially tormenting the the more awkward of us followed by the future criminals and sociopaths physically intimidating us unfortunates afterwards. needless to say i lived out my most insecure years dodging the prisses and the thugs with the teachers never intervening. i was even more horrified to learn years later that the beloved 'cool' drama teacher who was the ringleader of the tormentors turned out to be a child molester.

as for high school i made the escape to a private all boys jesuit high school where it was more like 'dead poets society'.  highly competitive, testosterone charged, and rife with sexual frustration.  despite the drawbacks i enjoyed my time there where it was socially acceptable to bury your head in virgil, augustine or joyce and actually learn something without worrying about cliques, girls and bullies.

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

My high school was an evil fuckhole and if I ever achieve some insane degree of power I'm going to buy it and explode it.

To understand art that attempts to reflect the masses, it's more important to understand the artist than the mass.

That would be a good piece of art, wouldn't it?  I was just thinking of doing it for fun.

[Beth]

High school was miserable for me. I went to three different schools. I was pulled out of public school after I quit the ballet company I was in--which my mother must have taken as a bad sign-- and put in the most horrific private school. The things that went on there were insane. It might have mirrored Laurie's experience a bit.

I was kicked out of there because they were doing me "more harm then good" (code for "you don't fit this school". I looked like the epitome of the "outcast" stereotype, shaved head, eyeliner, black lipstick, Bikini Kill paraphernalia--I probably thought I was so cool. The only thing I found solace in was the yearly school musical.

At any rate, they shipped me off to an all-girls, arts-focused boarding school, where I had a great time, got back into ballet , and straightened myself out. I didn't make friends with any of the girls, but I was close with my teachers. I remember one teacher saying to me, "don't worry, when you get to college you'll find people who are a lot like you--you'll make friends."
 And I did. Also, I'm sure that saying good-bye to my fishnet shirts and black lipstick has helped tremendously in that endeavor.

Looking back at my post, that's actually a pretty cliche experience. I could be a character on One Tree Hill or something.

[Sarah]

Damn, I guess I have led a charmed life after all.  Still, I honestly don't recall seeing much cruelty, and, as I said, I was on speaking terms with kids from all kinds of cliques, even though I was firmly in the weird/brainy misfit camp.  I remember more teachers being assholes to students--especially poor ones--than students being assholes to each other. The cheerleaders, who are so often the villains onscreen--you know, the ones who would get their hair done for dances, who slathered on makeup, who pursued fashion as though their lives depended on it--weren't even mean to girls such as I who went through school sans bra, makeup, or benefit of razor and took pride in not wearing a different outfit every day.  I know I would likely have been granted immunity regardless because I could talk rings around the lot of them, but none of my shyer, less articulate peers suffered unduly, either.  In fact, even the one girl I remember as getting rather gently picked on from time to time--and often with reason, for she was an unpleasant, sharp-tongued, arrogant little nut case--was generally treated with good-natured tolerance.

Maybe the fact that New Paltz during the years in question was a hippie capital of the Northeast had something to do with it:  even jocks and red necks were softened by all the groovy love and peace swirling around in the atmosphere. 

[John Junk]

My junior high school experience was closer to the cliche high school experience.  We had like 6 super-local elementary schools poured into one regional junior high school.  I had like 30 kids in my elementary school class and 200 in my junior high class.  It was a big change and I was apparently from the smallest, poorest (relatively speaking) part of town, and some of the cross-town upper-middle-class (as opposed to my lowerish-middle-class status) kids cared enough about these and other distinctions to actually make it an issue and to stomp on my young spirit.  I was a little arrogant and class-clowny when I came to junior high and I pissed off the wrong kids and just got stomped, emotionally.  But mostly just by this one guy who turned out to be gay, and was basically a mean girl with a penis.  When I look back at it now, that was a totally girl dynamic.  This guy hated me specifically and did things like stole my journal and recited passages to me and then wouldn't fight me when I challenged him to it.  That journal thing was pretty much the worst I've been humiliated ever, and it sounds like other people on the board have had it much worse.

But all that was like some kind of alternate universe nightmare, because two years later literally everyone I had had issues with was like my buddy in some capacity.  High school for me was probably similar to your experience, Sarah.  I was pretty well accepted and now looking back I could've probably even gotten laid if I had any sense of self confidence at the time.  Dazed and Confused was really popular, grunge got popular and so I was recognized as being in the avant-garde of the Seattle fashion sense with my years of Converse and plaid wearing.  Our football team was pretty shitty so these guys had no platform to grandstand on, so instead they smoked pot with everybody else.  Some of the cheerleaders were morons, but some of them were really great people and popular because they were smart, kind, interesting, and good at cheerleading.  I heard completely torrid and F'd up stories, some of which are probably true, but nothing really crazy happened in the crowd I ran with. 

Anytime there would be something like a secret drinking party it always seemed like people were trying to create the party from Sixteen Candles but instead it was a lower-income version of the kids' party in Superbad.  If anything, mine was a Judd Apatow teen-hood, not a Larry Clark one.

The End.

[<<<<<]

The horrors of high school were a little more insidious and subtle than outright bullying from my standpoint.  I did not get bullied myself, namely because most of the bullies did not deem me an easy target, even though I have always been a thin guy.  My problem was primarily that I grew up in a poor family that was not from around the area originally.

Definitely fit the bored/creative loner tag Dave mentions and actually did wind up relatively popular in a weird way.  Still maintain a mild amount of resentment for that town, though by and large it is something I have long moved on from, to bigger and better things.

[<<<<<]

I could've probably even gotten laid if I had any sense of self confidence at the time.

I can definitely relate to that.  Though if I could go back and do it again, I don't think I would have done it differently because there literally wasn't a single girl in my school that I thought was even remotely cool.

Not that I have overly high standards or anything, I meet girls all the time I wish I could have known in high school.  Seems like pretty bad luck to not have had even a single weird/cool girl around.  I might have turned out a slightly different person.