Who are we? That's a pretty open question isn't it? Think about it, what defines you as a person? Is it the clothes you wear? Is it the type of car you drive? Is it who you hang out with and who you know? Unless the answers are Fubu, an Infiniti G35, and Vince Young, respectively, the obvious answers are all 'no', or at least they should be. Every one of us has, at some point, instance, or moment in their life where they either consciously, or unconsciously, had to find out who they were, and what type of person they were. I mean, that is a given. Some people find out who they are at an earlier point as opposed to others. Some people find out who they are early in life; others still haven't found what they're looking for.
Me and my brother are perfect examples of what I mean. He knows what he wants, while I am still a little more of a, uh, free spirit. I mean, the hardest thing that I usually do on the weekend is set up the washers in the drive way and fill up the coolers with ice for the beer and help grill out (seriously). Sure I watch a shit load of football on the weekends that if I never saw another game this year, I would still have seen enough football for a year, but that's beside the point. I bring all this up because, well, I got to thinking, besides the Karate Kid, the Breakfast Club, is perhaps the quintessential teen movie of all times. As a matter of fact, it was named the Top Teen Movie of all-time. Hell, even rottentomatoes have given it a 100% score. Just to give you some perspective, as of today, Borat is at 95%, and I am willingly to bet that Borat will be the best movie of all-time; even better than Snakes on Plane. But anyway, back to the Breakfast Club, does any other movie delve into the topics of stereotypes, influences, and perceptions better than it? Go ahead, think of a better movie that does that…waiting…….waiting…………still waiting. See, I told you. The sociological ramifications of that movie, consciously and unconsciously are immense.
For those who haven't seen the movie The Breakfast Club, I ask you one question? Where the hell have you been? I mean, seriously, just like the other most awesomely kick-ass movie of the 80's, The Karate Kid, everyone has seen it. Hell, I am pretty sure my dad has even seen this movie like 3 times, and usually the only thing he sees is Dancing with the Stars (thanks to Emmitt Smith), Unsolved Mysteries, Everybody Loves Raymond, and old school porn (don't ask how I know, ask my brother Boner, he can give you a better idea). Of all the great 80's movies, the Breakfast Club is probably the best. Don't get me wrong, I love the 80's movies such as Revenge of the Nerds, Better off Dead, Howard the Duck, Top Gun, and all of the Porky's movies, to go along with the Breakfast Club, but, what puts it over the top is this: of all those movies, and just about every other movie released in the 80's , there are some redeeming qualities to The Breakfast Club, it is a very introspective movie, extremely personal in regards to characters and lets the general public know that, surprise, teenagers have more on their minds than sex, booze, and gambling, even though movies like Porky's and ROTN, and even Risky Business gave a different idea. By now, you should know how much I love listing and ranking things, so off the top of my head, top 10 80's movies of all time:
10: 16 Candles: the Donger.
9. Spaceballs: the Schwartz.
8. Top Gun: the MIGs
7. Airplane: the movie lines
6. Eddie and the Cruisers: the music
5. Just One of the Guys: the tits
4. Back to School: the Triple Lendy
3. The Karate Kid: the crane kick
2. The Breakfast Club: the cast
1. Coming to
Before you kill me and complain about how I left off so and so movie, please bear with me that is just off the top of my head, I promise some day I will tackle the Top 13-17 80's movies of all time. And you will get a better and more thorough analysis from me, so just chill out and quit bitching, ok AJ? Good.
Back to the Breakfast Club, if you haven't seen the movie, or it's been a while since you last saw it, let me give you a quick recap. First, the movie centers around 5 principle characters, Andrew (the jock), Ally (the weird chick), Claire (the princess), Brian (the nerd), and Bender (the rebel). There are 2 other characters that I should fill you in on real quick, Principle Vernon and Carl the janitor.
Anyway, each one of our 5 principle characters is in detention on a Saturday morning for various reasons. Andy is there because he assaulted a kid and duct tape his butt cheeks together. Claire is there because she skipped school to go shopping, Brian is there because he brought a flare gun and it went off in his locker causing property damage, and Bender is there because, well, he is pretty much always on someone's shit list. You may ask what about Ally? Well, I said she was weird, how weird? Well, she went to detention because she had nothing else better to do. So thus you have the 5 people in detention. Principle
The beginning of the movie shows all the characters meeting for the first time. They don't hang out in school. In other words, it wasn't like Bender and Brian were kicking it behind the school smoking joints while talking about quantum physics. As the movie progresses we start to see the characters talk about what happens in their lives on a daily basis and why people perceive them a certain way. Make no mistake, the characters know how they are perceived by other around them, and discuss how they aren't exactly like what people think of them. Check it, we find out Claire is a virgin, yet a tease, and doesn't want others to think of her as a prude, as is Brian, while Bender is a man-whore. Here we have a classic case of a girl being a slut if she sleeps around, while getting made fun of, and vice versa for a male.
The first part of the movie we see a struggle between the characters. Everyone already has a pre-made conception about the other person that is takes fighting and arguing with each other to finally start to tear apart some of these stereotypes.
For instance, Brian takes shop because he figures it's an easy class because he is in all advanced classes and talks about how hard the classes are. Bender asks him 'why does he think shop is an easy A?' Brian replies, "have you seen all the people taking that class?" Bender, snaps, "I am in that class." So, does that mean Brian is superior to Bender as an individual? Does that make him a genius and Bender less than that? Well, as we find out the pressures of Brian are brought upon him because he is supposed to make straight A's, and he just failed shop because a lamp he was supposed to make didn't work. Brian asks, "am I a fucking idiot because I can't make a lamp?" to which Bender replies, "no, you're a genius because you cant make a lamp"
Alright now when that's said, it sounds pretty bad, because it seems as if Bender is talking about Brian, well, if you really think about it, maybe it's not intended that way, and maybe Bender sees something that Brian doesn't. Ok, yeah, so Brian maybe can't make a lamp and Bender can, but maybe it's because intellectually making a lamp is obscure for Brian. Brian has been molded a different way than Bender that it seems because Brian can't complete a small task, he fails. Well, in actuality Bender is the idiot because for him making a lamp is impressive, not taking advanced courses, or being in different academic clubs such as Brian. It's almost like a reversal of what they see in each other. Doesn't make much sense does it? Well, you have to analyze things more than what they seem and things like that make the Breakfast Club that much better.
Let's look at Ally and Andy. These two are on separate wavelengths, one is a chick who is a habitual kleptomaniac and the other is the captain of the varsity wrestling team. As the movie goes, Ally doesn't have anything better to do, so she goes to detention. Andy duct taped some kid's ass together, so here they are in detention. Well, as far as character dynamics go, Ally is great; she is dark, mysterious, and interesting all at the same time. As I mentioned she is a kleptomaniac, so she steals a lot. She has stolen various items from the group throughout the day and later it's all revealed. Andy plays the role of a tough guy, sticking up for Claire when Bender is assaulting her, basically being the "jock" of the group, complete with the milk for lunch. Anyway, in the closing moments of the movie, we see that the reason Ally is like that is because her parents ignore her, as a person. She can pretty much do whatever she wants, and they still won't pay attention to her. Thus, the reason why she steals and tells lies, and even why she showed up somewhere she didn't need to be in the first place; because she can. Andy has the same type of problem, but his is more athletically related than it is as a kid. His father pushes and pushes him to thinking that he has to be the best in everything he does, even if it means humiliating people in order to win approval from a parent; case in point, taping the kids' ass together so he could feel his dad approval of him. Is that Andy or Ally's fault? No, but they have trouble convincing their parents otherwise, and there we see a similarity between 2 of the least likely characters.
Claire is the teen princess, she is the chick other girls hate and all the guys want to bone. Her life is screwed up socially and with her parents. There are plenty of us who can relate to that. Parentally speaking, her parents use her to get back at each other when they are fighting with each other. If he mom says she can't do something, her father will say yes because it will get the other mad. Imagine having this go on your entire life. Having conflicting ideas and thoughts from your parents because they are so wrapped up in spiting the other. As Bender mentions, "You know how you said before, how your parents use you to get back at each other? Wouldn't I be outstanding in that capacity", well, that comes true, later though. Socially, Claire has to keep up an image and a sense that whatever she does will be looked at through a social microscope that she has to act a certain way, even if she doesn't want to. As she best puts it when the others are talking to her an egging her on, she says "I hate it. I hate having to go along with everything my friends say." I know I've been in the same boat. There are people who think a certain thing, or say a certain thing and deep down, you might not agree, but on top, you have to agree with it or you would feel persecuted or ostracized from your friends. Every person in the world has probably done that and felt one way, even if it wasn't the best idea.
We've mentioned Brian already as a nerd, because well that's what he is, but it's that stigma that makes him contemplating suicide, in a matter of speaking. Yeah, he was never going to do it because it was a flare gun, but it wasn't about just being a 'nerd', it was like being a nerd with a purpose. He wouldn't kill himself because he has too much going for him, but he wanted to give the impression that he would do it so the stigma of being a nerd would leave him. People wouldn't just think of him as a nerd, but as a psychological imbalanced person, which is probably a lot better than a nerd. As it turns out, he failed in both attempts and now is just called the nerd who brought a flare gun to school and couldn't even pretend to kill himself the right way. As in life, some people are book smart; some people are street smart, which one is better? There is no right answer, it's all subjective to each person and what circumstances are around them. People look at Brian because he is smart, but also because he is dumb, and no matter what he does, this is hard to escape. Like Bender said, "he's genius because he can't make a lamp". Obviously, Brian is very intelligent, yet he also is very insecure. He can't handle failure, and everyone has failed at one point in life, I mean I failed Organic Biology in college, but that was because I never went to class, the our teacher only had 3 fingers, and we would always give him the "surf's up" sign to him. But, think about it, there's a classic line from Brian where he says, "I can't have an F, I can't have it and I know my parents can't have it! Even if I aced the rest of the semester, I'm still only a B. And everything's ruined for me!" Imagine feeling like that, it's almost as if the pressure on him to succeed outweighs the rewards of him actually doing so. Point is this, everyone fails, I have, you have, we all have, yet those failures in life and how we respond to those failures that determine who we are.
Finally, we have Bender. In my opinion, he is one of the best movie characters of all-time. A lot of us could really relate to Bender in some way, form, or fashion. He does show an image of a tough guy who breaks all the rules and does pretty much what he wants. One of the characters asks him, "Why is he such an asshole". Bender, replies because he is just "being honest". He doesn't really sugarcoat things or tell what people want to hear; he is brutally honest, and extremely sarcastic. He has home issues that he doesn't want to talk about, like when Andy asks him about his home life, and he replies, this is what he hears from his father: "
Stupid, worthless, no good, goddamn, freeloading son of a bitch. Retarded, big mouth, know-it-all, asshole, jerk. You forgot ugly, lazy and disrespectful. Shut up bitch. Go fix me a turkey pot pie. No dad, what about you? Fuck you. No dad, what about you? Fuck you. Dad, what about you? Fuck you."
I was fortunate enough to grow in a house where my parents were like that at all, they were pretty much the best, except when they wouldn't give my brother Chris some milk, but I honestly knew of people like that who were in the same type of situation. I couldn't imagine being in their shoes or even in that type of environment. See, the reason Bender comes off as this asshole is not because his parents are treating him like shit and that's all he sees, but because he has all these issues that he has going on with him and he doesn't want to talk about them, so in order to make him feel better, he makes others feel worse. As the movie goes on and on, you start to see a different side of Bender, right up to the climatic kiss between him and Claire. She even ends up giving him one of her diamond earrings he was making fun of earlier in the movie. Now, for some hot-shot, stoner, that doesn't sound like something someone would do, yet, maybe once you get to know someone and eliminate borders, you can start to view someone in a different light.
For a moment, let's take a look at the main characters that we have: an athlete, a stuck-up, a weird person, a nerd, and a rebel. I don't care who you are, or where you went to school, that's pretty much every social clique that you can think of. Think of your high school years, doesn't that pretty much fit every group that you can think of? I remember these groups so vividly that I can literally tell you the first and last names of the people who were in what group. When I was in high school I never really made a conscious decision to go and hang out with someone who I didn't think had something in common with me. Is that bad on my part? Is that ignorance? Is it social exclusion? I don't know if you can say it was ignorance, but yeah, it could have been a case of social exclusion, if that's a thing. At the very least, it was short-sightedness of my part.
See, the beauty of this movie is that it does that, it has these 5 different characters from 5 different backgrounds and 5 different social settings and you put them together in a seemingly impossible environment and examines the interactions between all of the characters. Even though you're a criminal, you might still have things in common that a nerd does; either you're scared of something, or afraid of feeling. I know I was the same way growing up, I hung out with pretty much the same group of friends that I had in high school; mostly football players and baseball players. Even to this day, the majority of my friends from high school, and college, are all former athletes who I either played baseball with or against. I never really hung out with a different type of social group, and that is probably not a good thing to admit, and yeah, it was probably ignorant of me, but much like the rest of these characters in the movie, I wasn't interested in meeting other people; today I wish I did. I mean, I was smart, but not Brian-smart, I was, and to a point still am, cocky, but never conceited, I guess there is such a fine line. I was never a rebel, even though I did break the sewing machine in 7th grade. My parents all paid attention to all of their kids, but yet still, I much, like the characters, experienced and went through the same problems that other who I never hung out with, most likely went through the same shit, insecurities, fear of failing, and wanting to impress others. It's inevitable, we all did that and went through that.
What the movies gives us, is an intimate look at human behavior in some of the most misconstrued people; teenagers. The social dynamics of the movie and what they go through in their lives and what they realize when they start to examine them is pretty much the best summation of people. There is no way you can not examine your life when you hear people in the movie talk about their lives. We all judge people, I don't care who you are; you look at someone and you draw conclusions, that is inevitable. For instance, I look at someone and usually draw conclusions about them dependent upon what they look like, what car they drive, and how they act. Is that right on my part? Probably not, but it's true. If someone were to do the same to me, I guarantee I would get all sorts of conceptions and perceptions from here to
I don't know what the purpose of this blog was to do; I initially started off with the greatness that is The Breakfast Club. I wanted to write a blog about how allsome it is, but the more I got to thinking about it, the more to thinking about how much of an impact that it had on me as a kid growing up and how much it really touched other people. Yeah, it gave us one of the greatest casts ever assembled, some of the best one-liners in movie cinema, and one of the best songs of the 80's, Dont You Forget About Me but what it also did was forced us to look at ourselves and in a way put us in their shoes. And that might be a stretch, it maybe didn't put us in their shoes, but it did force us to look at ourselves and thinking about certain stereotypes that we have about ourselves, how we portray them, and more importantly, no matter how obscure we are, how different we are, there are others out there who probably feel and experience the same thing.
The only complaint that I had with the movie is that we never found out what happened when people went back to school on Monday. Did they continue to be friends? Were Claire and Bender and item, even though it would have been like oil and water? What about Andy and Ally? Did they still stay the same way we saw them at the end of the movie? What about when Brian saw Andy, or Claire in the hallways? Could he tell his nerd buddies that he is friends with them? It's things like that make you wish there was a sequel to it, but the closest thing we got to a sequel was St. Elmo's Fire, which wasn't the same. I guess it's John Hughes intent that because most of thewalls between the various characters and stereotypes were broken down in the film, that what ever you think happens to them, whether it be Claire and Bender still together or not, that what you perceive at the end of the day is what determines happens to the characters the following school day. So, it's plausible for them to think that they were still together, maybe one day a sequel will be release during the kids 20 year high school reunion, maybe it'll be called, The Dinner Club, we'll never know. I guess some things are left up to us to make our own judgments and conclusions about things we don't fully grasp….
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