Spring Breakers is a 2012 American comedy crime film written and directed by Harmony Korine and starring James Franco, Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine, and Gucci Mane. Gomez, Hudgens, Benson and Korine portray four college-aged girls who go on spring break in St. Petersburg, Florida and meet an eccentric local drug dealer (Franco) who helps them in a time of desperation, and their eventual descent into a world of drugs, crime, and violence.[6][7][8][9][10]
Korine had devised the concept over several years prior to production, with fleeting ideas about the plot and what should transpire. His initial desire was to create a "sensory film" that was more about feeling than action and placed little importance on narrative or plot, the idea for which came later.[11] Once Korine developed the story's backbone, which takes place around the American spring break period, he traveled to Florida to write the screenplay. Production began in 2012, on an estimated budget of $5 million, making it Korine's second most expensive feature film to date. It is also one of Korine's first theatrical works to receive a wide release.[12]
College students Brit, Candy, and Cotty often spend their time partying while their friend Faith attends a religious youth group. As their classmates head to spring break, they are stuck behind due to a lack of money. Desperate to make the trip, Brit and Candy, after getting high on cocaine, don ski masks and rob a local restaurant using hammers and realistic-looking squirt guns. They are assisted by Cotty, who drives (and later burns) the getaway car stolen from one of their professors. Cotty, Candy, and Brit divulge the details of their crime to a horrified Faith, who keeps quiet about it.
According to Harmony Korine, he wrote the film partially to make up for his own spring breaks, as he had been fully devoted to skateboarding, and therefore missed out on what he saw as opportunities for hedonistic pursuits.[19] Korine has referred to the film as a "beach noir".[18]
The film score to Spring Breakers was composed by Cliff Martinez and Skrillex, marking the first scoring assignment for the latter.[25][26] Skrillex was contacted after Korine sent music supervisor Randall Poster links to the electronica artist's music on YouTube. "I'm accustomed to being the oldest person at a gig," said Poster, "but when I went to see Skrillex at Roseland this year, it was dramatic. There were a lot of kids that looked like they were 15 years old. But I loved it. I truly loved it."[27] Magneto Dayo released the song "Spring Breakers", featuring Sage Odessa, which references the film and real life spring break experiences.[28]
Spring Breakers has generated debate and controversy among critics, with some regarding the film as sexist due to its objectification of women, while others viewed the film as a feminist or female-empowerment film. In regard to the former perspective, The Guardian suggests that the film "reinforces rape culture" and "turns young women into sex objects,"[71] while other reviewers state that it "pushes booze-and-bikini hedonism to the extreme,"[72] as the "camera glides up, down, and around these women's bodies like a giant tongue".[73] According to Rolling Stone, the film presents "a kind of girl-power camaraderie that could almost be called feminist," a result of the director's intent to "do the most radical work, but put it out in the most commercial way (...) to infiltrate the mainstream".[74] In his review of the film, Richard Roeper wrote "Korine's camera is nearly an intrusive weapon as he lingers over the soft, limber bodies of Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, and his wife, Rachel Korine.... I think that's sort of the point. When a pre-med student on spring break loses her top, drinks to the point of passing out, and grabs a willing lugnut by the ears for six hours of anonymous fun, is she setting the woman's movement back 40 years, or taking charge of her life like any man would do at that age?"[55]
Korine's camera is nearly an intrusive weapon as he lingers over the soft, limber bodies of Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson and his wife, Rachel Korine, as four lifelong friends who spend at least as much time caressing one another as they do in search of male companionship. There are moments when you feel as if someone's going to tap you on the shoulder and say, "What are YOU looking at?" I think that's sort of the point. When a pre-med student on spring break loses her top, drinks to the point of passing out and grabs a willing lugnut by the ears for six hours of anonymous fun, is she setting the woman's movement back 40 years, or taking charge of her life like any man would do at that age?
With spring break just around the corner, Faith (Selena Gomez), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens), Brit (Ashley Benson) and Cotty (Rachel Korine) have managed to save a total of only $325, well short of the funds needed for a week's worth of hotel stays and beer-bonging. Desperation is the mother of felony, as the girls demonstrate when they rob the local chicken shack, smashing up the joint with hammers while pointing water guns at employees and customers.
So what is spring break today? In this film it is not the literal MTV-sponsored parties that take over and infect various beach locations across the American continent, although that version of spring break is certainly evoked for its imagery. In this film spring break is escape; spring break means we are all stars in our self-recorded iPhone films; spring break means all inhibitions are off the table, replaced by copious drugs and young flesh.
MIAMI BEACH, FL - MARCH 17: People eat at a restaurant along Ocean Drive on March 17, 2020 in Miami Beach, Florida. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered all Florida restaurants statewide to reduce their capacity by 50 percent, and all bars and clubs to close for 30 days starting at 5 p.m. Tuesday in order to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Miami Beach, which is in the middle of spring break, extended the closure order until 11pm tonight as business owners prepare to comply with the new orders as the country battles COVID-19. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)Joe Raedle/Getty Images
CLEARWATER, FL - MARCH 18: People gather on Clearwater Beach during spring break despite world health officials' warnings to avoid large groups on March 18, 2020 in Clearwater, Florida. The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images
The new study out of Ball State and Vanderbilt used GPS smartphone data to track the movement of a sample of more than 7 million U.S. college students to investigate the impact of spring break travel on the spread of COVID-19.
Using the data, they were able to pinpoint which cell signals seemed to go \"home\" to college campuses. They then tracked changes in their location during time periods known to correlate with their respective university-sanctioned spring breaks, to evaluate where students traveled and how they got there.
In the weeks following spring break, many colleges saw a rise in the number of students testing positive for the novel coronavirus. In many of these schools, the annual spring break between the end of February and early March was found to roughly precede the cancellation of classes due to the coronavirus that rolled across the country beginning in late March.
While young adults tend not to be severely affected by the novel coronavirus, experts say they may have spread the virus to other people when they returned from break, with the influx of potentially infected spring break travelers leading to an uptick in coronavirus cases in communities surrounding campus.
\"During this past spring, another alarming observation was that not all college students were following public health recommendations,\" said Dr. Alok Patel, Columbia University pediatrician and ABC News medical contributor. \"There were numerous reports of large parties, spring breakers not physically distancing, and many not wearing masks.\"
\"We are studying the impact of university students' spring break travel on COVID-19 spread in the county of their university,\" said Dr. Paul Niekamp, one of the researchers who led the study. \"However, many students left their university area after the cancellation of in-person classes and returned home. Therefore, there is likely a spatial spillover effect that we are not capturing.\"
In order to participate in the 2024 Hybrid PBSB program, during Week I, March 3-8, or Week II, March 10-15, law students must have access to the internet (Wifi), a cell phone/landline phone, and a laptop/desktop computer daily and throughout their spring break week (Monday through Friday).
Most campuses have spring break travel programs of some sort. They might be called alternative breaks or mission teams. They usually involve community service work of some kind. Here at OWU, we value our Service Teams as part of the OWU Connection because we believe that engaging in intentional service and reflection with people of diverse faiths, philosophies, and perspectives deepens our understanding of ourselves and each other, even as we work to improve the world around us.
"If I get corona, I get corona," Sluder said. "At the end of the day, I'm not going to let it stop me from partying. I've been waiting, we've been waiting for Miami spring break for a while. About two months we've had this trip planned, two, three months, and we're just out here having a good time."
"It's really messing up with my spring break. What is there to do here other than go to the bars or the beach?" said Brianna Leeder. "And they're closing all of it. I think they're blowing it way out of proportion. I think it's doing way too much."
In an interview Thursday on "Fox & Friends," Florida Governor Rob DeSantis also had a message for spring breakers: "The message I think for spring breakers is that the party's over in Florida, you're not going to be able to congregate on any beach in the state."
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