I don't know...in a way TV and movies have done a fairly slipshod job portraying the American high school experience, or at least MY high school experience. Maybe it was just the school I went to (not exactly Phi Beta Kappa material) but there was a clear distinction between the "in" crowd (sports players, preppies) and the "outcasts" (punk kids, the brains) that was noticeable from the start. The rich kids and sports stars ran the school and individual classes and that apparently gave them free reign to make everyone else's life hell for their amusement. It was pretty sickening to a 15-year-old kid who had just graduated from a Catholic middle school where everyone knew everyone and the whole school went to everyone's birthday parties, etc. For my first two years in Northeast High I was a huge punk rock dwarf with Nirvana emblems on every flat surface and Fugazi stickers all over my locker; and as a result I was quickly tormented on a daily basis. They also disliked the fact that I hadn't gone to the "normal" middle school which was (and still is) the roughest school in Maryland with regard to drug arrests (yes, there are 12-year-old crack pushers) and class disruptions. I made the soccer team freshman year but all that served to do was to give the jocks and preps easy access to me because I had to feign "oneness" with them for the sake of the team and whatnot. It was kind of fascinating because I could actually see the inner working of the "popular" machine, but most of the time I was just fighting not to get locked in the bathroom by the other 20 kids on the team. By the beginning of sophmore year I realized how big of a farce the whole social scene was so I just removed myself from it as a whole and sat by myself at lunch and read books and started a band. Eventually I got tired of being a hermit so I made some new friends and for whatever reason the "in" crowd was now more than willing to except me now that I knew what an arbitrary bunch of arses they were (not to sound snobby but I think my band had something to do with it because we were the most popular act in town). Needless to say I wasn't going to get burned twice, but it was a sweet revenge. With that sappy story in mind, I think Hollywood has actually been alot nicer to the cliques than they deserve. Anyone who went to a US high school and found themselves on the wrong side of the game can tell how depraved and evil most of these kids are. On TV the it appears the whole school is one big family united in the promulgation of school spirit. I had friends beaten up for wearing Marilyn Manson shirts (this was three years ago...just before he got hugely popular and these self-same jocks took to wearing his picture), I had brand new hats crumpled and thrown in toilets simply because the preppies found it offensive that I didn't think they were funny or smart, people had car windows shot out because they made fun of someone's girlfriend, etc. I'm not saying all this because it warped me for life and whatnot but its just somewhat distressing that the scenes of American high schools that people across the world are seeing involve actions and feelings that are largely, if not totally absent from reality. Like I said, maybe this doesn't happen to this degree everywhere, but I'll bet its pretty close. Signing off... Steve C> +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "jelly-filled danishes" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+