We’ve all seen the cafeteria scene.
It’s a staple of just about every angst-ridden high school coming-of-age movie ever conceived. “Mean Girls.” “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.” “The Edge of Seventeen.” “Superbad.” “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.”
You name it. They shot it.
As the scene goes, the protagonist-with-a-lot-of-heart-but-little-confidence — who, more often than not, just moved to the area — sidles apprehensively into the cafeteria on the first day of high school. There, before our protagonist’s anxious eyes, lies an overwhelming mass of post-pubescent humanity:
The jocks, the band kids, the choir kids, the theater kids, the chess club, the math club, the cool kids and castaways and cliques.