Rushmore

Is Max a normal teenager?

After watching the montage of Max and his hobbies at the start of the film Rushmore, I believed Max was a good, smart boy who would never do anything wrong.

At the start of montage we see a journal of some kind where there are stickers of bees covering the front page. This could represent Max as being a 'busy bee' because of all the clubs he is shown to have been involved with. Also the other saying - 'the bees knees' could show that Max was very proud of himself and sees himself as being the best at everything. This is not typical as a teenager as most stereotypical teenagers would be shown as lazy and not to be involved in many activities like Max. Although it could just simply show his interest in the bees keeping club.

In each of the shots of Max he is always wearing his school uniform or part of it. The uniform is a traditional Ivy League uniform although he wears a red berry in most of the shots as well.  This, to me is not very typical of a teenager - a teenager would be wearing different clothes for the activities.

He is head or founder of every club which is not very normal and seems to want to fit in, when actually he is standing out to the rest of the people. The first scene is of him as a member of the Yankee Review. In this shot Max is shown in the middle of the other students; standing out. We are also shown that he is the publisher of the review which shows us he likes to be involved and be an important role to the activities. Yet most stereotypical teenagers would not agree to be the in such a high role for clubs. Another example of Max being the center of attention and authority is when the shot is shown him President of the french club. He is dressed with a red berry and sash of him, which tells us he is every enthusiastic; which is not what a normal teenager would not be wanting to get very much involved unlike Max.

Another usual hobby of a typical young person would have would be coin and stamp collecting. This is associated with more older people rather than youths; as it is quite a relaxing and single hobby. This tells us that maybe Max likes to do this for his own enjoyment as there are no other members of this group.

His social life is connected to his clubs and hobbies and through the montage he is only seen with one other boy, who looks a lot younger than him. Teenagers normally socialize with the same age group as them, yet Max is with younger boys and girls. Also in the Kung Fu shot the other smaller children have higher ranking belts, yet Max is on a yellow belt, showing that he is probably not very good at the sport or lower than him.

Through examples from the collage of shots in the beginning of the film Max comes across as a busy OCD boy, shown in the clip of the Lacrosse Team; the 'jocks' are watching intensely at the game, like any other young teenage boy would be doing, yet Max is organising the equipment. From this he seems to wanting to be older; more like a parent or teacher than a young boy.