The Bling Ring

The Bling Ring is a teen drama based on real life events. It follows the lives of a group of teenage friends that burgled many celebrity homes around California throughout the duration of several months. It is a teen drama because the main characters go to high school, which is one of the main locations in the film, and many conventions that are used stem from this aspect.

Some of the main conventions that are used in the film include:

Relationships

In The Bling Ring, relationships for the main characters are complex. The main protagonist, Marc, secretly admires his best friend: Rebecca. This combined with the fact that she was his only friend at the time resulted in him being willing to participate in burglary and theft to maintain their relationship. This suggests that nowadays teens will go to extreme measures just to be accepted and have friends. However, the darker side of friendships is also demonstrated in the film. For example, when they were caught stealing they all turned on each other and were willing to let others pay the price instead of owning up to their misdeeds. 

Partying

Throughout the film, the protagonists are frequently seen partying at various social establishments such as nightclubs. These places provided the teens with the audience to show off their stolen goods to, and through this people complimented them and gave them positive attention. This in turn fueled their will to continue stealing from celebrities. Despite the conventions of teens being addicting to partying in the film, the majority of the people at these functions are adults. Both this and the teenagers' determination to have a good time by participating as much  as they can suggests that they want to grow up to quickly. However, their failure to act like adults and own up to their crimes when they were caught shows that they are far from being respectable adults.

Fashion

Fashion is one of the main causes of the group's wrongdoings; they had to steal in order to obtain the most desirable clothing and accessories. It all stemmed from a combination of idolisation of celebrities like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan and an urge to be liked and therefore accepted by people. It was as if stealing their clothes would result in them obtaining the same status as their rightful owners, and the positive comments from people regarding the stolen items encouraged them to continue stealing. In addition to this, the fact that they received an abundance of friend requests on social networks like facebook suggests that this generation of teens have warped morals when compared to older generations.