Freaks and Geeks? NOT!

This week in sociology, we watched the pilot of "Freaks and Geeks". It was funny and entertaining but at the same time showed how high school was back then. "Freaks and Geeks" showed the social norm in high school. High schools in the 80s had little groups that people fit in with. It was a struggle to fit in at school while handling home life. In the show there were 3 main groups that were shown: the "burn outs"; the "geeks"; and the "bullies". The burn outs don't really care about school but they're there because their friends are there so it's some place to go. The geeks were kids who did what they were told to do but also they were physically small and weak. The bullies always picked on the geeks just because they know they can. They're meaning in school is just known as the bully. The school environment is sort of similar to todays environment but not as extreme. Back then, you really only hung out with the people who resembled you and today, you can hang out with multiple different groups. This sort of an environment allows us to be more open about different things and be more social and involved. It was very common for students to be like that but if school was still exactly like that today, it'd be weird and not fun. The culture back then and the culture now has changed. This goes with Durkheim's functional analysis theory. In current events, schools aren't like how it was back then. We may have groups and all but we still interact with everyone else. We don't just stay in one group forever but we take advantage of other opportunities. That's not how we function today. When I was younger and even still now, I watched TV shows portraying high school. When I watched "Grease", I thought high school was going to be exactly how Grease portrayed it but it wasn't. After I actually entered high school, I learned that those TV shows and movies just portrayed the stereotypical high school that people think of.