Brian is kind of labeled as the dweeb in the movie next to the anarchic Bender and high school athlete Andrew, but I always felt he was pretty street smart, he wasn’t really a pushover at all
Brian was a Neo-maxi-zoomed-dweebee and he was just as damaged in his own way, as the rest of them.
What evidence do you have that he was street smart? That he got high? The gun that he had access to was a flare gun.
He easily fell for Bender’s shenanigans.
I don’t think Brian was street smart but he was smart and insightful.
He was a pushover. He could not stand up to his parents or Bender or Dick or anyone.
He was locked into pleasing his parents and it was driving him crazy.
He was a bit of a wise-ass in a passive aggressive kind of way. But real confrontation? No.
Street smart? He was going to try to kill himself with a flare gun! Because he couldn’t make a lamp work!
Brian was the ultimate 80s nerd that could be easily punked. Seriously, the group convinced him to do everyone’s detention assignment solo while everyone else hooked up. While I love this movie my big take away from the ending was that nice guys finish last, don’t get the girl and are often forced to work extra just to make up for everyone else’s lack of effort and interest. In other words, don’t be Brian. Don’t ever be Brian.
He signed it, ‘The Breakfast Club’ but he took it upon himself to pen a ‘fuck you’ note to the prinicpal. He elegantly explained the hypocracy of authority and painted it as juvenile. Something he and the others can now see past.
It wasn’t work, it was a youth manifesto.
“Without lamps, there would be no light.”
I remember when we saw the movie in college some people thought that the janitor was Brian’s father, because Brian talked to him and seemed to know him. It’s been a long time since I saw the movie, but I think the idea was that Brian was such an outsider and so friendless that the janitor was one of the few people he talked to.
Not that I disagree too much but I think everyone fell for Bender’s shenanigans, except maybe Allison because he never targeted her and she’s probably impervious to everything