Gordie gives Chris support when he is confronted by the Cobras with the knife trying to take the credit of the dead body. Instead of just running away like Teddy and Vern, Gordie stays back to defend Chris because he knew he needed help, and his strong-willed personality wasn’t going to let him back down. The mise en scene of the gun vs the knife helps portray the importance and strength that friendship has, with the gun (symbolising their friendship) being stronger than the knife (friendship being stronger than the enemy). The acting of Gordie shows how serious he is about supporting his friend in what they believe in and how much Chris means to him and the way he is willing to risk himself to go back and support to Chris. The director wants the audience to learn about how vital companionship is when you are in a situation where you need support.

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In the ‘Romeo + Juliet’ film direct by Baz Luhrmann, Mercutio offers support to his close friend, Romeo, when he was getting beat up by Tybalt. Mercutio shows his strong friendship with Romeo by displaying this support to him by jumping into the fight when Romeo was struggling and risking his own life for him. This is quite similar to Gordie in ‘Stand By Me’ showing support to Chris when faced with the trouble of the gang trying to attack him with the knife.

This is demonstrated because Gordie and Chris have great influence on each other, as they talked about school next year, and Gordie going to be able to do college courses whilst Chris and the other boys will have to do the shop courses with the ‘dumber’ people.

Chris tells Gordie that he needs to do the college courses with the smart people to not waste his life and hopefully become a writer despite his father’s pressure. Gordie ended up taking the college courses and choosing to pursue his writing. This moment in their friendship pushed Chris to take the college courses aswell, to get out of the town and make the effort to become something, getting him a good education resulting in him becoming a lawyer doing something good with his life building a different reputation from his family.

The editing of showing where the Gordie years after the adventure holding the news paper showing that Chris had become a lawyer shows, along with the voice over at the end of the film telling the audience about Chris’ career informs the audience the impact the Gordie had on who Chris had become.

Gordie and Chis pushed each other to become the best version of themselves instead of listening to or following in the parents’ footsteps. Therefore, this is what the director wanted the audience to take away – the importance of friendship with how is has such lasting impact on your identity and who you become.

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In the Growing Up in Australia stories it is demonstrated that friendship influences who you become. In ‘Nobody Puts Baby Spice In A corner’ Miranda Tapsell talks about how her friends at her school had told her she had to dress up as Scary Spice simply because of her skin colour. Instead of giving in, Miranda’s mother helped her to push to do what she wants instead of what others want her to be. This event in her life helped contribute to the strong person she is today who knows who she is and wont change for others. This relates to Stand by Me as the event of Chris talking to Gordie about his future affected who he became and what he did in life.

When the boys in the group (Gordie, Chris, Vern and Teddy) each take turns of keeping look out for coyotes while the others get sleep displays their loyalty. The acting shows the trust each boy has in their friends loyalty in wanting to keep them safe, The way the boys who are comfortably and peacefully sleeping demonstrates that they have no doubt in the guarding person and feel no need to be worried or have restless sleep.

The acting shown by Vern also is shows that although he was scared to do his turn of keeping watch he continued to push through for his loyalty to the boys and completed his ‘shift’. From this scene the audience learns the great level of loyalty each member of their group has for each other, whilst they are still young boys who like to have muck around, they still take loyalty very serious and have lots of trust.

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This loyalty shown on an adventure can also be found in the text or film of Tomorrow when then the war began. Where teens Corrie, Lee, Homer, Fiona, Robyn, Ellie and Kevin have to be loyal to one another after coming home from a camping trip to find out they’re the only ones not held captive by an invading power. In stand by me the boys were loyal to protect their friends from coyotes, which the teens in tomorrow when the war began had to show loyalty to protect each other from the foreign invaders.