Breakfast Club

I have seen the breakfast club three times before taking this class and then saw it for a fourth time during class and I must say that it is defiantly one of my favourite movies. Before this class, I loved it because it was a fun movie depicting teenage school life in its simplest form and it was more or less something I could relate to. I noticed only the funny quotes; close calls and random scenes that made me say “Ha! It’s funny because it’s true.” Such as the scene where all the characters are in detention and they are all just making the dumbest faces, sounds and actions with their pencils. But after taking this class and doing a bit of theory on groups and communication, I realized that the film had a bit more depth to it. It was a perfect example of how humans interact and communicate in groups. In this paper I will discuss how Schutz’s 3-stage theory, cohesion and groupthink applies to the breakfast club itself.

Will Schutz believed that there were three dimensions to group development. Those three dimensions are inclusion, control and affection (intimacy). Inclusion refers to when we are put in a group and we wonder whether we actually what to be in that group or not, whether or not the group members will accept us as a part of that group, if we will be appreciated in this group, will we commit strongly to the group and when I am away from the group, can I do well on my own? The control stage is the desire for power within the group. We seek control because we want to be winners. If we are controlled then we comply and we are willing to take orders from others. Problems with control include power struggles in decision making, leadership and sharing responsibility. Affection includes communication, openness to express feelings and the group high that brings productivity. In the film, we can see that the inclusion of the members of the group is quite unwanted in the beginning. All the characters come from different groups and some want nothing to do