Plenty of kids in Japan, birthplace of sushi, bring it to school. No, its never as good fresh, but it certainly keeps for a few hours.
Of course, I think sushi has issues with women, so I would never support it.
Ally Sheedy’s character is named Allison.
I was an Allison in HS (despite being male), and it’s always irked me that she had to change into a Claire in the end in order to be ‘suitable’ and ‘attractive’. (And she was a lot more attractive before getting prettied up.)
I’m 37, I saw this movie in college with a guy who thought it was a wonderful, accurate depiction of high school life. I thought it was stupid. He said that the people in his high school were just like that. That wasn’t at all my experience. The characters seemed more like adult stereotypes of teenagers (or maybe Hollywood stereotypes of teenagers) than anyone I ever had contact with. A scoop through my high school would have turned up far more minority students. There wasn’t anything like the level of social isolation that this movie showed. People interacted all the time, for all kinds of reasons. Kids who played sports, for example, went to church with me, were in Girl Scouts with me, lived down the road from me, and worked after school jobs with me. They certainly weren’t part of a totally different subculture.
It’s possible that 5 years made a huge difference in social structure. It’s also possible that it was a regional thing. The movie is supposedly set in Chicago, I think, and the guy in question was from Indiana. I grew up in Alabama. I had never heard the term “Breakfast Club” in that context. To me, a breakfast club was just that, a group of people who meet regularly for breakfast, usually at a diner or restaurant. There were several in the town I grew up in that I knew about, and probably more. I had also never heard of school detention on a Saturday. My date assured me that both of these were absolutely standard, and acted like I was from another planet that I was unaware of them. (No, that relationship did not end well.)
I didn’t like it enough to remember it well enough to comment on specifics. But I thought it was a stupid, overrated movie.
Born in 1980 here and all my schools had Saturday detention. At most of em it was if you did something worse than regular detention.
And of course they’re stereotypes! That’s the whole point of the movie. At the beginning all we (and they) know is the stereotypes, and yet they bond and come together and get to know each other. Heck, my school wasn’t cliqueish at all, but I still recognized the types.
“The Breakfast Club” is only used in the title of the movie; they never refer to themselves by that name.
I agree, I definitely think it’s a regional thing. In his teen films, Hughes usually depicted a Chicago suburb (fictional town called Sherman or Shirmer?), one that seemed to include some pretty wealthy folks alongside some of more middle- and working-class backgrounds. Not surprisingly, it’s the wealthier families whose kids are considered more “powerful” in the school’s social structure. Claire, Andrew and possibly Brian are closer to the top strata; Allison (and DUH on me for not remembering that, LOL!!!) and Bender seem to fall somewhat on the bottom. In environments like this, kids often fall into tightly-knit groups that don’t interact with one another very willingly or happily.
My school was just like this, unfortunately, so I guess that why the film resonates. One’s own experiences will color one’s opinion of any film. I don’t think TBC was intended to represent every single high school’s social structure throughout the United States, LOL. At least I hope not!
Did Allison really turn into a “Claire”? I’m not sure she did, any more than Claire turned into a “Bender” (hee) when she gave up her diamond stud. Allison’s “transformation” seemed like more of a visual cue, a way of showing her new openness. She was no longer hiding beneath the mop of dirty hair, oversized black clothing, or thick, dark eye liner – and she was willing to let Claire help her. (Allison: “Why are you being so nice to me?” Claire: “Because you’re letting me.”)
So sure, it was obvious that Andrew would suddenly realize how pretty Allison is, just as in older films where a secretary removes her glasses resulting in the “why, Miss Smithers, you’re beautiful!” cliche. But the transformation was also about the bonding between Claire and Allison. Makeover as a friendship mating dance. 
I loved this movie. It did reflect my high school life, or at least partly.
I saw Bender as the obnoxious loser who turns out to be scared kid underneath. Like when the teacher (forget his name) has him cornered in the closet and wants to start a fight (“Take the first swing! I’m begging you!”). Bender looks shocked. He looks crestfallen by all the cruel things that the teacher is saying. It’s like Bender would wish that just for once, someone give him the benefit of the doubt (even though he’s all full of outrageous bravado and obnoxious bullshit). He wants someone to believe in him; to accept him—to go against everything that is presents to the outside world and treat him as if he is worth something and has some potential.
I always hoped that perhaps, perhaps Bender would get out of that self-defeating loser rut he was in and go to college or something. But I just saw a version of the show on AMC or something which showed “DVD notes” and it stated that Hughs predicted that Bender would never be more than he was then; that he’d never get past all the bullshit. And that makes me really sad. I wanted him to shed the loser mantle.
I didn’t think Claire was a negative character. She was just out of her element. And in her own little rut—afraid to admit to her stuck-up friends that she also had befriended the “weird” kids. How pathetic is that?
I didn’t see any of the characters as negative. They were just trying to survive the hell that is known as high school. My favorites were Allison and Bryan (whom I most identified with).
I think that the voiceover at the end, (when Bryan is reading their combined “essay”), he calls them “The Breakfast Club.”
Actually in Anthony Michael Hall’s character’s homework, he signs it “The Breakfast Club”, IIRC.
I was born in 1980, and I loved this movie. I still do. It’s a great movie and yes it has stereotypes, but the fun part is they grow beyond the stereotypes. The Estevez character admitting that it was wrong to tease the kid, but he did it anyway was just a very touching part and showed how the movie was going to move a bit beyond the stereotype.
ARGH! Yes, of course, yosemite and ISiddiqui, you’re absolutely right. Totally forgot about that – how embarrassing, it’s practically the last line in the film.
But hey, it’s Brian. He’s a nerd, of course he’d coin such a geeky phrase! 
I’m still not seeing the deep, powerful message here. If they really accepted each other as all worthy, then why didn’t they all contribute their fair share to their punishment? OK, I can accept that with five students, you’re going to get one odd man out on the romance angle. I still don’t like that it was the nerd, of course, but I can accept it. But why did he also have to shoulder all the responsibility, too? It’s like the message is that you don’t need to suffer the consequences of your actions, you can just pass them off on someone else. Nobody accepts Brian as a person, they just accept him as a peon who saves them a little time.
I always saw the message as being that they don’t really accept each other as equals, at least not for more than a day. They all know (and Claire says flat-out) that come Monday it’s back to their ordinary high school lives and they’re not going to be buddies. Their day of detention may change them, but it doesn’t change them that much and it certainly doesn’t change the world they live in.
I too was always troubled by Brian getting stuck with the essay and Alison’s makeover winning over Andrew, but (sadly) neither is unrealistic.
Bender’s treatment of Claire is also disturbing, especially in light of their subsequent romance, but Claire never struck me as a victim. She’s obviously not afraid of Bender, and she has a good sense of her own value as a person. She knows he’s not as shallow as he thinks. I also must suspect, as Bender does, that she is at least partially motivated by a desire to use him to get back at her father.
Oh, and Claire’s sushi would have been fine as long as it didn’t get hot. I eat three or four hour old sushi all the time. The stuff they sell at my neighborhood grocery is set out at noon and is supposed to be good until midnight, although I’ve noticed that around 5 pm they put “30 yen off” discount stickers on all the boxes.
Ummm what The Punkovya said…
boring, stupid, and insipid…
I think alot of whether or not you identified with TBC, is based on where you grew up.
I grew up about 20 minutes from the high school they filmed TBC at, and speaking as a member of the Class of '90, it was a pretty accurate caricature of a NW Chicago middle class/upper middle class suburban high school. The stereotypes of the various cliques in TBC rang at least partially true for most kids in my school.
I’ve always thought it was (for me, at least) the defining teen movie of the 80’s, but then again, I was always able to identify with Hughes’ movies, because of where his movies took place (for instance, I practically grew up in Northbrook Court, the mall filmed in Wierd Science, IIRC).
I don’t think it was meant to be all that deep…it was just some average suburban kids trying to survive high school and all the baggage it comes with.
I was into the Breakfast Club at the time, but now its earnestness makes me cringe; watching it now, I can’t help feeling it’s supposed to be good for me, that I’m supposed to learn something from it. It’s a good movie with a good conceit, but the characters are too neatly stereotyped to really be universal; it stands as a pretty accurate depiction of a very narrow — but still true and valid — type of high school experience.
I’m surprised no one commented on what’s probably the movie’s cheapest caricature(s): Principal Vernon and his alter ego, Carl the Janitor. Vernon is an embittered, authoritarian prick who resents the students for not adoring him, while Carl, despite his seemingly “lowly” occupation, is the “eyes and ears” of the school, dreams of being John Lennon and seems to waft through life like a paunchy, middle-aged Fonzie. Even as a self-absorbed teen, I felt that Vernon wasn’t getting a fair shake, that his being offered to me was a form of sucking up: “See, grown-ups really are just small-minded, petty tyrants who like to punish you! You knew it all along, you smart thing you!”. I always wanted to write a script that showed the Breakfast Club from the point of view of Vernon and Carl; those two deserve to have their humanity restored.
Yes, yes.
Saturday, March 24, 1984
Shermer High School, Shermer, IL 60062
Dear Mr. Vernon:
We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was that we did wrong. And we did was wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay on who we think we are. I mean, what do you care? You see us as you want to see us–a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal, correct? Well, that’s how we saw each other at 7 o’clock this morning. We were brainwashed . . .
But what we did find out is that deep down each one of us is a brain, a jock, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Does that answer your question?
Sincerely,
The Breakfast Club
Not that I watched the movie a lot or anything.
I always thought Brian wanted to do the essay; to me, it seemed he was taking obvious pleasure in writing it while everyone else was off getting made over and making out.
Something I appreciate about the movie is the dropping-off sequence in the morning, showing all the characters getting to detention. Allison leaning over to peer into the window and the car just peeling off really got to me.
Didn’t Allison get out of a nice shiny new white Cadillac, and have very wealthy parents? I seem to remember that that was one of the big points of her character - her parents were too busy with their social and business lives to pay any attention to her. I remember what she said about them: “They ignore me.”
Rilchiam,
I grew up in the 80’s and I loved The Breakfast Club. My suburban Ohio high school of 1800+ (98% white) students was very clique-ish, and the archetypal characters in the movie were quite honest caricatures - which is why this movie resonated with so many people. The truth in my school was that if you could get one of the popular people alone and actually have conversation with them, you might develop a tenuous rapport with them that would vanish as soon as one of their friends entered their line of sight. Kids are shallow and cruel.
John Bender was my favorite character, and he had some of the best lines I’d heard in a movie until Jules from Pulp Fiction. I think his so-called misogyny can be more accurately described as misanthropy. How can you ignore how badly he treated the other male characters?
Lamar Mundane,
Really bad form quoting Rilchiam’s entire post in your 2-line reply.
Essentially an ABC after-school special with bigger stars and four-letter words. Pretends to be “deep” but can’t hold a candle to something like Fast Times at Ridgemont High which I think is smarter, more accessible, funnier, and richer in detail of HS life.
I was also going to mention that I liked The Breakfast Club so much that it was the first movie I paid to see twice in the theater.
Face it. The Breakfast Club is the worst, most overrated movie made by a lousy, overrated director. Look at the directing credits of John Huges, it cries out “CrapFest”.
[ul][li]Sixteen Candles (1984),[/li][li]Breakfast Club, The (1985),[/li][li]Weird Science (1985),[/li][li]Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986),[/li][li]Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987),[/li][li]She’s Having a Baby (1988),[/li][li]Uncle Buck (1989),[/li][li]Curly Sue (1991)[/ul][/li]
As much as people don’t like to hear that TBC sucks, FBDO isn’t much better. I don’t know why I don’t like them, I was the target age market when those movies were released and they NEVER connected with me in any way. And now they are regarded, for some mind boggling reason, as “classics”. Talk about watering down the meaning of the word…
Say what you want about Hollywood, but at least ‘they’ were smart enough to stop John Hughes from directing after 1991.