Is Max a stereotypical teenager?

, rushmoreIt is made pretty obvious from the start of the montage that Max does quite a few more extra-curricular activities but when you scratch the surface and actually think about it he does way more clubs than any 'stereotypical' teenager would do. The media portray a specific image of teenagers. They make out that a vast majority of teenagers drink, smoke, do drugs, hang around on parks in the evenings, terrorise old people, commit crime such as shoplifting, are antisocial to others in the community, have unprotected/underaged sex, do graffiti and wear hoodies and joggers. The song 'Teenagers' By My Chemical Romance reflects how some adults would look at teenagers. TV shows such as The Inbetweeners and Skins reflect different ends of the teenage stereotype;

The montage opens with max opening a red book with bee's on the front of it, this could relate to him being a busy bee, or the bee's knee's, or the fact one of his clubs is a bee-keeping club and maybe that's his favorite club. The clip then shows Max turning over a page to show him being an editor. Its as if the way the book is presented its how Max wants us to see him, from his point of view, as he's controling turning the page and that could reflect to how he feels in reality, that he has control over how we see him and how he does his clubs but that he really doesn't have the control/power he desires. The clips of him doing the out of school clubs are quite short per club, but the image that is portrayed is enough to give the audience the idea of his role in the clubs. It could also show that because the pace of the montage is quite fast that his life is fast paced too, with not much spare time.
You could denote from the 'French Club' that Max doesn't have any friends his own age, and likes the power. This can also be shown through him wearing a red beret and everyone else wearing blue, red is a more powerful colour than blue and it singles him out as clearly being more important than the others. He is also wearing his blazer, when none of the others are. It could almost show the dynamics that a teacher has with a student ( lads wearing shirts, him wearing shirt,tie,blazer) and that he feels in charge of this club as though he were teaching a class. The sash (in the colours of the French flag) also singles him out and represents power, like the Queen is sometimes seen wearing a sash. He clearly feels a high sense of self- importance. The shot is from a high angle in order to get all the people in, the lads in this shot are static, and grinning as if this was a photo being taken. Which could reflect his life how he wants us to see it through this montage is a bit posed, as its bigging him up in every possible way and there could be lots of things that we dont have a clue about because he hasn't shown us. It also reflects on Max's quirky side that he is interested in culture and in his 'pretend world' of clubs he'd like to be the french president.
  

They also put pressure on teenagers as year after year they say that 'Gcse's are getting easier so teenagers are getting bad results' which isn't true, as GCSE's aren't easy. I think the image put across by the media is a very negative. I think that it is obvious from the beginning of the montage that Max doesn't fit into that stereotype.

Looking at the type of clubs Max goes to he clearly has a lot of time on his hands. He does about fifteen out of school clubs, which isn't very realistic but it gets the point across that the director wants to make; That he doesn't really have a life other than these clubs. The more times we watched this montage, the bigger the gap was between Max and a stereotypical teenager as its not just the fact he does a lot of out of school, its the type of clubs he does like being the 2nd Chorale Choirmaster and the Bombardment Society Founder. That reinforces my view on him as being a bit of an outcast, he may just go to these clubs because he has no friends and he feels like he is in control, espcially as the kids that go to his clubs are all younger than him so they obviously look up to him and respect him because of his age.  

If you look at it from another perspective, e.g his teachers/parents it shows that he is clearly enthusiastic about his education and is trying his best to do well in school. It shows that he is independant and has a lot of interests and in his eyes he's probably having a great time because he gets to do all of these out of school activities, and making friends that would be outside of his lessons (because of the age). Max clearly is unhappy with his social status as in the 'Model United Nations - Russia' club he is the Russian leader, which links back to political context as America and Russia were the two biggest econimies in the world before China overtook Russia. The reason he chose to be the Russian leader as maybe he feels like he isn't accepted and appreciated in America so he'd rather be leader of the othher largest economy to show them he is worthy and they have missed out.  

Therefore in my opinion, I don't think Max is a stereotypical teenager.

Re-Presentation lesson

This lesson Mr Smith explained to us what Re-Presentation was,  then asked us to write down ur own definition of Re-Presentation, mine wasn't very easy to understand because I knew what I meant in my head, but found it hard to write it out. My definition of Re-Presentation was; 'Re-Presentation is the copy of something that is perceived to be real, but actually is acopy of something that is made out to be real by the copies. Basically, copies of copies, in a big circle.'
The actual definition we were given was;
Re-presentation; The way the media present 'something' as though it were real, it is not real, merely a copy of something.
We were also given some other definitions...
Signs; Something which communicates a piece of information e.g a road sign giving directions to where you are going
Signifiers; Multiple 'ideas' or ' feelings' behind a sign. 
All signs/signifiers belong to cultures, so people in other cultures will relate to different signs e.g wearing a wedding ring on your 'ring' finger in this country may be worn on another finger in a different country, but will still give off the same sign of ' i'm married' 

Mr Smith asked us to draw a picture of a house with the sun shining , a tree in the garden and a number from one to ten.
< This is what I drew, and it was practically the same as what everyone else drew. Most people picked the number 7 or 4 because apparantly they are the most common numbers to pick randomly. When we were asked to draw this, we thought of a typical house, tree, sunshine to draw. They are the instant signs we think of when asked to do this, whereas in other cultures they may draw tree's differently, such as people in Miami may draw palm tree's. 
Gatekeepers; The people in charge of what you can see. E.g they decide how the character may be portrayed, and they decide everything that you see on screen and the way they want the audience to interprate what they are trying to show.
Ideology; 'A beleif system' , what the maker of what you are watching is trying to portray to you.


I have used re-presentation in my magazine cover and contents, as Becca doesn't do Drama at A-level so I have created an image of Becca on something that isn't real. I was the gatekeeper in the sense that I decided what I wanted my target audience to see, I cherry picked the best photos and that affected how she was portrayed, therefore people would reckon she was like that and base an opinion an image of her that isn't real.


Mr Smith then introduced us to ' Mise En Scene ' which basically means everything you can see on screen. So not sound. 
Mise En Scene is 
Camera angle
Props
Settings
Lighting 
Acting.


Baring that in mind we then had to watch the opening scene twice of 'Rushmore' without any sound and answer these five questions, here is the clip, then my questions and answers.



1) Where is the film set?
At a christian private school in America. The lads there all looked clever so it made me think there was more than likely an entrance exam. 


2) Describe the main characters personality? 
Geeky - he worked out that equation in a matter of seconds, he was also reading the stock markets page in the newspaper
Unpopular - when he woke up after the dream it showed that life wasn't like that and he was imagining everyone appreciating and getting along with him.
Weird/Quirky - He was drinking tea from a pink teacup, which is stereotypically an english drink so the question of why he'd be drinking it in a maths lesson is put across to the reader. 


3) What is he excellent at?
Maths.


4)How do others view him?
In the first scene they think he is a bit of a hero for working out the equation. I assumed from watching it that people respect him and look up to him.


5) How was he dressed?
He is wearing a dark blue blazer ( which matched the walls behind him ) when all the other kids are wearing cream trousers and a lighter blue shirt which shows he liked to stand out and be different. 


We then watched the montage of the clubs Max is involved in three times and I noted down all the clubs he did;

Yankee Reveiw Publisher, French Club President, Model united nations Russia, Stamp & Coin club Vice-President, Debate Team Captain, Lacrosse Team Manager, Calligraphy Club President, Astronomy Society Founder, Fencing Team Captian, Track & Field J.V Decathalon, 2nd Chorale Choirmaster, Bombardment Society Founder, Kung Fu Club Yellow Belt, Trap & Skeep Club Founder, Rushmoore Beekepers President, Yankee Racers Founder, Max Fischer Players Director, Pier Cub Club.
The fact he's always in the centre of the action in these clips, and that all the kids around him are younger shows he can't get any mates in his year, or the year below maybe.