High School Confidential

By Hannah Berkman

	Hannah Berkman is co-Editor-in-Chief of the Briarcliff Bulletin at Briarcliff High School.

Anyone growing up in today’s world has been exposed to enough prom references in pop culture to know basically how planning the event should go.

We’ve seen the trials and tribulations of Cameron and Joey as they plot to get Bianca to go to prom with them in the movie “10 Things I Hate About You.” We watched countless suntanned boys execute over-the-top gestures, most of them involving candles and limos, to ask their manicured counterparts to the prom on “Laguna Beach.” Ren won our hearts over in “Footloose” when he fought the authorities to protect the senior prom in all its holiness. We breathed a sigh of relief when Spicoli finally made it to the prom, despite his teacher’s attempts to keep him away, in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”

One common theme rings throughout all these pop culture staples. Prom is a huge deal, and planning it should be no less of an affair. At Briarcliff High School, this seems to be true as well.

There are undoubtedly elements of prom that must be planned months in advance. Finding a limo cannot be put off till June. Rates are ever-increasing, and availability is decreasing. Briarcliff students have not lost any time in organizing and booking their limos. However, they’ve also begun the processes of finding dates and dresses even earlier than last year – for an event that isn’t until June.

Whispers of “so-and-so’s already asked so-and-so to prom, and his ex-girlfriend doesn’t even know yet” started around February break. Back in March, such exchanges had become full-blown, out-loud conversations about those who have yet to find dates.

It’s easy to shrug and say that prom is silly and doesn’t mean anything.

It’s easy to be one of those people who act like they are above the anticipation of that one night at the end of their years in Briarcliff schools. It’s easy to say that prom is overrated. Prom is an event that sets itself up to be ridiculed as the most mainstream, corny American tradition that high school students regularly experience.

And yet, in renouncing prom, we are engaging in a practice that is possibly even more typical of teenagers than the fanfare itself. Without making the effort to make prom enjoyable, without trying to work it out in a way that fits our personal styles, those among us who renounce prom are participating in the single most conventional attitude that we as high school students are practically born with: feigned apathy.

When things don’t end up exactly how they were planned, the automatic reaction of people our age is to spit out something along the lines of “whatever, I don’t care.” (Although this phrase usually includes more harsh language that this newspaper can’t print.) Do we really not care or are we just copping out because we feel defeated by circumstances we think we can’t control?

Luckily, many of the trivial concerns we occupy ourselves with, such as prom dates and limos, are merely tests of personal attitude. So the person you wanted to go to prom with is taking someone else. So a junior has the same dress as you. So your group of friends is going in two different limos. The typical response of people in these situations is to turn against prom, to say that it is an overrated night that doesn’t have any bearing on our years in high school. And though prom may be built up to be more than it should be, we effectively rule out any possibility of having fun by assuming such a conventional attitude.

When it comes down to it, prom is just as much fun as we make it. If we feign apathy, pretend it doesn’t matter to us, and secretly sulk about everything that went wrong, we are doomed to go through the same motions of our miserable predecessors who renounced prom. But if we choose to enjoy it, to make the most of prom, we can not only surprise ourselves at how easy it is to make an attitude adjustment, but also we can have an incredible time. In the case of prom, but also so many life experiences, we really will get out what we put in.

Americans have long enjoyed watching people our age sweat over prom and whatever else comes our way because in the years of SATs, college admission, and innumerable physical and emotional changes, it’s easy to get “dazed and confused.” So perhaps the wisest advice we can listen to would be from someone who has not yet hit such an erratic stage. ‘Tween pop star Hannah Montana sings to thousands of 12-year-old girls at her concerts that “life’s what you make it.” Prom is revered as the ultimate celebration — a sendoff from our primary school education and to a certain extent, our childhoods.

We can choose to diminish its importance, or we can celebrate it.