Pump up the volume was a great movie. Who doesn’t love their average teenage rebellion movie? Pump up the volume actually consisted of a consistency that the media links with the behavior of teenagers. In pump up the volume, the protagonists radio show is on almost every night, and a majority of the school listens to it. This one kid who came from another state had the perfect opportunity to lead a rebellion through a radio show without getting caught, and he did just that. As a teenager, it is usually our first instinct to rebel!
Every single teen in that movie had different characteristics. There was one girl who was sick of being pressured to go to Yale, and another guy who wasn’t even in high school because he got kicked out. He’s basically a mess, but that’s not the point. Both of these individuals have completely different situations, but were influenced by the radio show. They did not do the same thing to rebel, for the girl took all her Yale gear and put it in the microwave. The boy… just kept doing things that would keep him out of high school! This can be known as the individual differences theory.
The main character sent a hostility missile into his high school for corruption almost every single show, so you can imagine the amount of attention that was brought to it by student listening. Even teachers who didn’t listen who understand that the problem was now because that foolish radio show host. This is actually hilarious, because nowhere throughout the movie does a teacher actually tune in live to listen. They usually listen to it as a tape recording of the show is played in school! Stone age teachers didn’t know how to use their stone age technology? The world will never know. Ultimately, the radio brought attention to the importance of being who you want to be and the problem of the corruption in the school. This can be known as the agenda setting theory.
It as if the radio show was a stress stimulant to every single person listening to it live, for they all honestly had some dramatic thing going on. Different issues, but yet all just make them stressed out. They enjoyed listening to it, so it usually links up with happiness! However, another kid just ended up committing suicide after calling the radio show. The radio show couldn’t convince him his life was valuable, so he took it. This shows that different people used the radio show differently; uses and gratification theory.
REBELS INFLUENCED BY REBELS. If only one kid watched that radio show, he would’ve been the only kid trying to rebel? FALSE! This kid would have influenced at least one more kid on rebellion…and so on… and so on. Social learning theory can prove that one person learning by observing another person and it is actually pretty true throughout this movie. They have their own view of the world, but it is not being crafted by this radio show (in a great way though). Being able to do what they want,what they love, listen to no adult, REBEL, REBEL, REBEL! Isn’t just so much fun going off the cultivation theory in which people views are shaped by the media.
I love that in this movie, the kid who seemed as if he wouldn’t have the radio show was doing it. He didn’t use it for social dominance, but used it to escape. He was escaping from all the foolishness Arizona was carrying. This escape was beautiful, for he expressed himself in a way that he couldn’t in a public on the radio show. Beautiful.
The Sand Pit 