"Ya know what I got for Christmas? A carton of cigarettes! Smoke up Johnny! It was a banner fuckin’ year in the Bender house!”
A timeless quote from a timeless movie that I stumbled upon the other night while channel-surfing trying to figure out why I spend so much money on movie channels. The Breakfast Club. The definitive, classic teen movie that depicts the American High School in all of its exclusionary, fashion-conscious, cliquey angst-ridden glory. Yeah I know we’ve all seen it and the message delivered is not a subtle one. But as I found myself engrossed in the film it occurred to me that I graduated High School 25 years ago. The movie actually came out 2 years after I graduated. At that point it lightly scraped at some fairly fresh wounds. Watching it last night tore open some old ones. I would love to tell you how and why this is but I need to address those who may have not seen The Breakfast Club.
5 High School students are forced to spend a entire Saturday in detention. Locked in a Library under the tutelage of an obviously uptight and frustrated teacher they are instructed to be quiet, do an assignment and serve their sentence for yet unknown violations. The mix consisted of the 5 basic food groups of the American High School; the antagonistic “burnout” (Judd Nelson); the bookish “Nerd” (Anthony Michael Hall); the “social outcast” (Ally Sheedy); the “Jock” (Emilio Estevez) and the “Princess” (Molly Ringwald). A quiet day was not in the cards. The Burnout antagonizes everyone in the room including the teacher, the Princess checks her makeup, the Nerd does his homework, the Freak acts weird and the Jock flexes and establishes his territory. Some very interesting events occur when the teacher retires to his office. In true form to the teen movie, John Hughes brilliantly shows us that these kids are not necessarily the sum of their social parts and we see some real barriers fall and some friendships potentially formed. The most powerful facet of the movie is how Hughes gets us from point A to Z.
Some very powerful catharsis occurs when the perceived meets the actual. During the course of finding out what the individual offenses were that landed them in detention, each character in particular is confronted with what people think they are vs. what they actually are. And the movie goes so far as to suggest what many traumatized former students like myself always hoped was true; that the image that the “popular” and “cool” kids work so hard to maintain comes at a cost. The costs range from missing out on some real moments because your friends may disapprove of your choice of friends. That the image is not only artificial but also unwanted. That maybe there is guilt and shame associated with the acts of exclusion, taunting, teasing and the occasional beating. Maybe not thinking for yourself but with other’s opinion and acceptance in mind is not the way to go? Enter free will and the ability to stand up to your friends and say “fuck you, I’ll talk to who I want to!”
If that was the case millions of people today would have an alternate reality to relive their high school years.
But these kids, given the opportunity to make some real progress at one point, reveal that High School is not going to allow that to happen. Thus comes the turning point in the movie. The students realize that while they do have their differences they also share some form of pressure to please their parents and their peers. They realize that they could in fact actually be friends and hang out occasionally. They may even get to like each other. But when Anthony Michael Hall asks the pivotal question “what happens tomorrow? If we see each other in the halls tomorrow would you say Hi to me?” High school revealed its ugly head and the characters showed their true colors. The Princess flatly states that she wouldn’t. As she is being called a snob and a bitch she points out that at least she is being honest. The Jock condemns her, the burnout and the Nerd claim that they are above such behavior and the freak, well, she’s got nowhere to go but up. As much as I love this movie, what has changed in the 23 years since I first saw it I now view the film from that point on as horseshit. Hughes feels that he has made enough direct hits that he can afford a crowd pleasing ending. So he lets us believe that the Burnout and the Princess hook up, the Jock and the Freak start dating and the nerd gets into his father’s car a changed man. Horseshit.
to be continued...