The Visual Aesthetic of Teenage Social Hierarchy

By Jack Miller, Edited by Emma Smith

What comes to mind when you think about Hollywood’s standard representation of the American teen? Maybe it is the sturdy jock, clad in a varsity jacket. Perhaps it’s the popular prom queen, decked out in glinting formal wear. Or possibly it’s the rebel who ditches class, donning dark leather and spiky jewelry. Nearly every Hollywood portrayal of high school teens builds on existing stereotypes to help audiences place characters into distinct social groups. Whether it’s the people they hang out with, the after-school activities they do, or the things they value, high school-aged characters often separate into explicit social titles like “jock” or “nerd.” While these clique-driven categories may seem restrictive, countless films have used them to actually highlight the consequences of social divides. John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club (1985), one of the most rewatched teen films of the 80s, tells the story of five drastically different teens who are forced to serve the same Saturday detention. Each character is a different, easily recognizable archetype that the audience is already familiar with, from jock to nerd to popular girl, rebel and outcast. The grouping of vastly different characters makes more compelling their eventual realization that they have more in common than they thought. Created nearly two decades later, Mean Girls (2004) follows a similar narrative arc as Cady Heron becomes a member of the popular social group, The Plastics. She eventually realizes from the top of the social food chain that the divide between cliques at her high school is causing dissolution and tension. Both The Breakfast Club and Mean Girls utilize dialogue and action to place their characters into specific social hierarchies, but it is the visual aspect of costuming that becomes the most revealing in denoting characters are part of a specific social group. If the “jock” wore a cardigan and glasses or the “nerd” sported a football jersey in these films, their styles would not demonstrate the prominent and visible social divides within high schools that are being highlighted. The outward presentation of characters in The Breakfast Club and Mean Girls helps audiences place individuals within a larger social hierarchy. These films then use their visual presentation of social divisions to eventually expose the fallacies of high school’s hierarchical systems.

Filmmakers may choose to utilize the way a high school-age character acts or talks to associate them with a particular social group, but nothing helps determine where a character feels they belong as much as what clothes they wear to school. Take, for example, a quote that has woven its way into pop culture from Mean Girls. Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried), a member of the most popular group in school, the Plastics, chirps up at the lunch table: “On Wednesdays we wear pink” (11:53). The quote garners its meaning–and tremendous pop culture relevancy–because it makes clothing extend beyond the physical. The act of wearing pink for the Plastics is not the donning of specifically colored clothes but the proud declaration of membership in the most socially revered group at school. It becomes a tradition, a uniform, a broader symbol for their popularity and position atop the high school social food chain. 

The very concept of a high school food chain is reflective of high school’s unique opportunity for interactions between disparate social groups. Creators like Hughes as well as Mean Girls writer Tina Fey and director Mark Waters benefit from this. As Elissa H. Nelson–an expert on 1980s Hollywood and CUNY Bronx Community College associate professor–writes, “as people get older, their regular social associations are with individuals who share similarities . . . In high schools, however, teens can mix with people from a range of social strata, classes, and educational levels.” In very few other real-world environments do individuals witness such a broad range of social experiences happening under one roof. Hollywood seeks to incorporate the uniqueness of the setting into its fictional narratives because it can cast a wide range of compellingly distinct characters. And in a film, unlike real life, costume designers get to control every action and every piece of clothing a particular character wears. This means that each outfit plays a part in representing the social group a character belongs to.

In Mean Girls, Mary Jane Fort, the film’s costume designer, opts for a bold first introduction to the Plastics by choosing to dress them in ultra-stylized gym clothes. Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert) wears her blue P.E. shirt cropped; Karen Smith has somehow found a way to cut off her shirt’s sleeves and turn it into a tank top; and Regina George (Rachel McAdams), the leader of the group, is pointedly wearing a sparkly “R” necklace that pops against the plain shirt fabric (7:27). In a sea of other students who are gearing up to engage in the typical, sweaty athletic activities of a P.E. class, the Plastics immediately stand out as more obsessed with how they present themselves. Mimicking how popular individuals are noticed by others in real world high schools simply by their recognizable appearance, Waters aims to steer the audience’s attention to the Plastics and their wardrobe by keeping the camera’s focus on them. It’s as if their distinctive outfits demand to be given priority in the frame’s composition, mirroring the way fashionable outfits stand out against more common attire. Rather than capturing Regina’s introduction like most other scenes in the movie, she is filmed in slow motion as she is carried like royalty and then set down by a group of five boys. The change in frame rate highlights her bright necklace and clean, poised appearance. Fort has taken a giant leap to suspend reality in conjunction with the manufactured slowness of the scene: Would Regina not want to safeguard her necklace in a gym locker? Would a P.E. teacher allow their students to cut the fabric of the required class uniform? How does Karen’s shirt-turned-tank top look so perfect–did she cut out those sleeves with scissors on her own? All these questions are ignored for the sake of highlighting the Plastics’ social status. They turn their gym outfits, which are usually baggy and meant for performance, into chic representations of who they are. Their unique, carefully presented style choices denote a desire to stand out and be seen as fashionable and popular. 

In stark contrast to the Plastics’ outfits, which scream stylized and trendy, the less popular and more rebellious Janis Ian (Lizzy Caplan) is dressed in a baggy top that boldly reads “RUBBISH” when she introduces herself to main character Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan). While the large block letters draw attention, it is unclear what exactly Janis is trying to say through her fashion choice–is she declaring that the reader of her shirt is rubbish? That she sees herself as such? Fort’s decision to introduce Janis with a loud but ambiguous style helps juxtapose her social grouping with that of the Plastics. While the Plastics turn their gym uniforms into conventionally appealing outfits, Janis opts to make hers a more undecipherable statement. The Plastics desire to be understood as popular through clothing that is tight and trendy; Janis doesn’t desire to be understood at all. This paints her as a rebellious character from the moment the audience meets her.

The Breakfast Club similarly depends on how the costume designer, Marilyn Vance, dresses the teen characters to emphasize distinct parts of their personalities. Though the audience eventually confirms the characters’ social standings through dialogue, by only looking at them in the opening minutes they can start to piece together where their interests and social loyalties lie. Claire (Molly Ringwald), for example, is dressed in a brown leather jacket and matching gloves as she sits waiting for the others in detention to enter the library. On its own, the outfit isn’t necessarily a clue as to what group she belongs to. But when other students start coming in, the outfit stands out as more trendy and upscale than the others, painting her as someone highly concerned with appearance–a member of more popular social standing. 

Brian (Anthony Michael Hall), meanwhile, enters with khakis and a sweater, clothes that are more formal than the typical high school student and markedly preppy. This correlates with his interests in academics and the tendency for his peers to view him as a “nerd.” John Bender (Judd Nelson) comes strutting in wearing a thick coat, a red scarf draped over his shoulders and black sunglasses covering his face. The act of wearing sunglasses indoors marks Bender as out of line with social norms and traditions. Bender also dons fingerless gloves and stocky boots, completing an outfit that showcases his desire for social rebellion rather than conformity. These three specific characters serve as examples for how presentation through dress immediately associates each individual with a particular social clique.

However, The Breakfast Club and Mean Girls are not only applauded for their clear portrayals of the social divides perpetuated within high schools. They are films that eventually topple the notions of these social hierarchies. In Hughes’ 1985 work, the five characters engage in open and honest dialogue about the pressures they face to conform to expectations. A contumacious social rebel like Bender and a straight A student like Brian really aren’t so different from each other, the group realizes. Though Bender’s parents are harsh and physically violent, Brian’s parents are demanding in a different way, hounding him over his grades. At the outset of The Breakfast Club, there was not only a theoretical divide between the stereotypical nerd and rebel characters but a tangible one too. Khakis and a sweater present Brian as put together, classy, and maybe a little bit unpopular. Bender’s choice of wearing sunglasses inside and his grungy fingerless gloves suggests his rebellious spirit. Perhaps Vance’s choices were made to emphasize the broader moral of Hughes’ work. The teens realize that assuming values based on social presentation can become dangerous. As American film scholar Timothy Shary writes in Teen Movies: A Century of American Youth, “One day of honest conversation has exposed the fallacies of facades they’ve erected to cope with their doubts, and the film ultimately suggests that all teens (and adults) could be unified in alleviating their collective angst if only they would abandon their fixation on assumed identities” (70). In some ways, the audience has not been primed for this conclusion. The five people who walked into the library at the start of the day looked so different from each other that it seemed impossible they would grow past their differences. The clothing they wore likely symbolized years of membership on a particular level of the social hierarchy. But within a day, they are able to relinquish those memberships, which were really just “fallacies of facades.” Social divisions are not real or tangible beyond external expressions. What keeps Bender from wearing khakis is a psychological mindset. What keeps Brian from wearing sunglasses inside is the same social-clique driven lie. Indeed, as his voiceover at the end so clearly claims, “we were brainwashed” (3:32). But if clothing items can be used to divide, so too can they be used to unify. Bryan does eventually wear Bender’s glasses inside (56:06). As the teens learn more about each other, the rules about what they can and can’t wear and who they can and can't be grow to become less fixed. External expression becomes a collective effort rather than a divisive one.

Similarly, in Mean Girls, the social hierarchy is broken through an external object. Even though Cady has won Spring Fling queen, she decides to share the crown awarded for the title (1:28:42). While the scene is iconic because of Cady’s rebellious gesture, the use of a fashion object being broken works to impart a greater level of symbolism onto the scene. The crown is the result of Cady’s popularity and is as sparkly and noticeable as the Plastics are in the high school. But just like the Plastics, it is flimsy and, well . . . literally made of plastic. When it is broken and Cady tosses it to people of all social statuses and rungs of the teen social hierarchy, there is a physical demonstration of the film’s message that popularity comes at a cost. In this way, external markers of expression become more than aesthetic–they become symbolic of societal barriers being broken. 

Many dismiss teen films as simple and stereotypical portrayals of high school life. To put it more harshly, Frances Smith writes in Rethinking the Hollywood Teen Movie: Gender, Genre and Identity that “Part of the critical dismissal of the genre’s aesthetic and narrative concerns can be traced to the teen movie’s frequent designation as ‘trash’” (2). However, from a more in-depth look at how the use of wardrobe impacts symbolic representations of the social hierarchy overlaid onto students’ lives at school, there are clear visual intentions at play in the work of filmmakers like Hughes and writers like Tina Fey. Costume designers such as Mary Jane Fort and Marilyn Vance aim to outfit characters with styles that emphasize these intentions. Whether it is pink on Wednesdays, sharing sunglasses during a Saturday detention, or splitting a plastic crown into many pieces, the clothing characters wear and the objects they carry matter.

Works Cited 

Nelson, Elizabeth H. The Breakfast Club: Youth Identity and Generational Conflict in the 

Golden Age of Teen Film. Routledge, 2019.

Shary, Timothy. Teen Movies: A Century of American Youth. 2nd ed, Columbia University 

Press, 2023. 

Smith F. Rethinking the Hollywood Teen Movie: Gender, Genre and Identity. 1st ed., 

Edinburgh University Press, 2017.