Yes, agreed. At the time it set 4 points on the compass, and each viewer was allowed to invisibly sit in and see which point they were closest to (or which they fell between). Were those the only points on the HS compass? Of course not.
Mike Meyers & Dana Carvey hitting fame in “Waynes World” sketches as basement slacker types were another point on the HS compass (Judd Nelson was a slacker, but not a basement slacker). Alyson Hannigan will never be able to get away from her “band camp” line, because that was another strong identifiable point in HS. Glee has had great success because thats another one too.
I completely disagree - the paper that Brian wrote suggests otherwise. Second to last scene, Mr. Vernon standing in the empty library, after his talk with Carl the Janitor about who was going to take care of him when he gets old:
"Dear Mr. Vernon:
We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong, but we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling YOU who we think WE are. You see us as you want to see us… In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain… …and an athlete… …and a basket case… …a princess… …and a criminal.
Does that answer your question?
Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club."
The letter is the focal point of the film, as it demonstrates and illustrates the changes the students undergo during the course of the day; their attitudes and perspectives have changed and are now completely different…
So, no, they’re not necessarily going back to their cliques on Monday…
Naw, everything nowadays has to be post-apocalyptic. The New Breakfast Club would feature the jock, the nerd, the princess, the stoner, and weird chick groggily awakening in a locked chamber, expected to fight each other to determine which stereotype would become “breakfast” for an unseen cabal of dystopian overlords. Gradually, each cliché’s strengths would help them defeat one aspect of the genetically modified clone army.
I think the problem with John Hughes’ narrowly defined social cliques is that many high school students (myself included) didn’t fall into any of his categories. I wasn’t a princess or a jock or a burnout or a basket case, and I hung out with different types of people rather than just one social clique who were exactly like me.
I also hate the fact that Ally Sheedy has to get a makeover in order to get Emilio Estevez to kiss her.
As far as Molly Ringwald’s talent…she’s an actress of very limited range. John Hughes got the best out of her, but watching her in anything else is pretty painful.
In high school I formed a Breakfast Club Theory. The roles depicted in the movie are archetypes that must exist in any collection of adolescents. For example take a group of 6 jocks and keep them together on an extended camping trip or something and they’ll reform that dynamic on their own. The founding principle at that age is not what an individual IS but what they AREN’T so their identity is only preserved by contrasting themselves with those around them.
Ahhh, to be 18 and to have the whole world figured out…
When The Breakfast Club came out I was an assistant manager at a movie theater, in my very early 20s, still deciding what I wanted to be when I grew up.
I think I spent that day & the next walking in & out of the auditorium playing that movie just to catch little snippets of it. I completely identified with it. I graduated from high school in 1981.
At age 50 I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
I’d have been closest to Anthony Michael Hall, but I wouldn’t have tried to kill myself. I was pretty worried about grades and getting into a good school.
I was born between 1983 and 1986 and the idea that high school can be vicious and is filled with cliques yet we are actually more the same than we think we are is not lost on me.
[QUOTE=buddha_david;17810761 Though it probably makes no sense to anyone who didn’t attend high school between 1983 and 1986.[/QUOTE]
What makes you say that? Kids get in trouble and goof off. Kids given an assignment that they ignore til the last possible moment. People with preconceived notions of what other people are like find out that talking to them brings out more commonality than not. Hardly new concepts then or now. What’s not to get?
My take back then was they’d return to their cliques but think “We’ll always have Paris” about that day. Claire giving Bender one of her earrings symbolized that to me.
I didn’t see it at the theater when it came out early in 1985. I saw it towards the end of that year (HBO? VHS?) with my then-girlfriend. She loved it. I was just wrapping up my student teaching and didn’t feel the love. The film does get the angsty teen thing more or less right. I didn’t then, and don’t now nearly 30 years later, find teen angst interesting or entertaining. Movie teens are way more articulate and sophisticated than real teens (because they are played by people in their 30’s) and yet they manage to be just as dreary as the real thing when the topic is the experience of being a teen, itself.
Yeah, there was a reason that Hughes was the master of the teenager movie during his short career. Usually movies about teens came down on an us vs them mindset. The Breakfast Club was in many ways the first film to address diversity among teens. Granted, it was still limited, but it was by far wider than anything that had been attempted before.
More importantly, it makes the case that no matter how different we are from each other our similarities are stronger. This is a message that even most adults need to come to terms with. The message of The Breakfast Club transcends high school kids.
