Nothing says the 1980's like a John Hughes film. You would probably find it very difficult to find someone who hasn't seen a John Hughes.
Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, and
The Breakfast Club are iconic films for not only the 1980's, but for teenagers all across America to this day. I mean John Hughes really does seem to capture the way ALL teenagers seen their parents and cliques in High School, right? Parents suxx, my life is hard, you're a bully, blah, blah, blah. This might have been true back when Reagan was President, but for me I never had a problem in High School with how I got along with people or how I got along with my parents. This is why
The Breakfast Club does nothing for me and I kind of really dislike the film because I can't relate to any of these characters because my home life wasn't shit.
All these kids had the stereotypical cliques, the jock, popular girl, nerd, badass, and the loner. You see these stereotypes in every movie that shows High School students, but for me in High School I never was really apart of a set clique. I played football and was the Captain of the wrestling team much like Andy in the film, but I got good grades like Brian, and I hung out with a lot of the loners in school who are still some of my best friends. So on the John Hughes scale where do I fit in?
This film really angers me because I see no point in it. These 5 kids send an entire day discussing their shitty home lives, how their parents are bringing some of them to their breaking points, how they thought about suicide, the effects that bullying, teenage sex, drugs, the whole shabang. This is usually deep conversation that many only have when they are around the ones that they truly feel safe and comfortable with and these 5 share their inner most secrets with complete strangers! Then none of them even learn anything from these deep emotional conversations! They leave and go their separate ways and will continue to be the same fucked up individuals they were from the very beginning of the film. Bender will still be the trouble maker, Brian will still get good grades, Claire will still be rich and popular, Andy will still wrestle, and Allison will still be weird even after her charity Claire makeover. No one changes and I don't see how that is good for a film. These five will continue to talk shit about one another and be terrible people like none of their thought provoking conversations ever took place so then why did this film need to take place?
I was also very bothered by the Claire and Allison makeover at the end of the film. It really grinds my gears when you have an outcast like Allison change into something she is not because that is what society says a girl needs to look like. I mean why couldn't they focus on her awesome drawing skills? Why does it always have to come back to lipstick and eyeliner. Like the reading says, " However rather than tolerating or celebrating the differences between the women of different classes, the film actualizes the promises made by the ads aimed at women in the 1980's, saying that anyone can become a member of the upper class as long as she acquires and correctly uses the right stuff." Allison is probably my favorite character in the film because she is less like any rel clique in High School. She knows about the world, like when she talks about running away, she's free spirited, she isn't tied down to the pressures that the other cliques have, and she speaks her mind. But as soon as she gets that makeover she is just like all the other pretty girls out their and her identity is erased by of course, THE RICH UPPER CLASS!
I don't get this film, I don't know why people like it, and I will probably never watch it again. On a completely unrelated rant why is it called
The Breakfast Club? They never eat breakfast! And why is Andy, a wrestler who needs to maintain his weight, eating 3 sandwiches, a bag of chips, a box of cookies, a gallon of milk, an apple, and a banana if he has a meet in a week? Anyway I can see what John Hughes was going for with the 1980's social classes, but for me it just came out all wrong.
Sincerely Yours,
Someone who does not enjoy
The Breakfast Club
I understand why you didn't like the film but I think the main reason many people do enjoy it (especially younger people, girls most likely) is because they do relate to it or they do know people like this in high school or they do relate to the struggles of the characters. I do agree with you though, about the makeover of Allison. It will never stop annoying me that they changed her into rich girl clone ack
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on many points you make here in your blog post. High school wasn't rough for me as well. I had a lot of friends from different "cliques", I hung out with athletes, punks/outcasts, and popular kids. And my high school class really came together as one big group in our junior and senior years. To me, these cliques really only existed in movies such as this because NOT every high school acts the same and has the same people attending it.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes I hate how they all seperate at the end, but they all don't live together so I also didn't expect them to all leave together. But hey maybe they could've blown off their asshole parents and all walked away on the football field? Or bring up that awesome party Andy mentioned and invited everyone to it? Who knows, but the end of the film does leave everyone hanging.
I'm not a big fan of Hughes at all. This is the only one of his movies I can actually stand. But I do like this one, and not because I ever related to it. Pretty much the opposite--I never even knew anybody like any of those people, and suddenly they were supposed to be universal. Mostly, it's that, especially rewatching it with you guys, I noticed that it does yield to fairly complex analysis, it's possible to read it more than one way, even conflicting ways, and the cinematic and structural choices, all the claustrophobic close-ups and the confined space they're in the whole time, are at least worth looking at, especially for film students. Relating or not relating with the characters doesn't get us very far in the long run, but looking at Hughes cinematic choices and/or the class and gender issues as the reading does, just might.
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