Viking Night: The Breakfast Club
By Bruce Hall
August 30, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
There’s Always Something to Complain About - it’s the motto of being a teenager, as well as the fundamental building blocks of a John Hughes teen drama.
When you’re 17, everything sucks, everyone is stupid, nobody can tell you anything you don’t already know, nobody understands you (because nobody else has ever been 17) and you’re probably bulletproof, too. Adults will tell you that your feelings are not unique, because it’s the same torture everyone else has to go through. Families come to loggerheads because kids think they’re smarter than they are and the parents, despite having been teenagers before, seem to have forgotten what it’s like. That’s some pretty fertile dramatic ground but for the longest time, teen oriented movies were like shop class safety films. Or trivial romps like Beach Blanket Bingo and Corvette Summer. So while The Breakfast Club is not the first film that tried to portray teenagers realistically, it was one of the few up to that time that even tried. The problem is that like the children it so lovingly idolizes, The Breakfast Club excels at calling out problems yet falls well short of realistic solutions.
It starts from the get go with a quote from the David Bowie song “Changes”. That’s right; immediately the film seeks to portray children as some kind of oppressed cultural minority. In the background, a defiant young voice reads from a rambling student manifesto as Simple Minds bang away on their iconic theme song. It’s like a set of marching orders being handed down to a theater full of obedient drones and brother, my peers and I ate it up. Unfortunately it’s hard to win a battle when the fight is never really defined, and general anxiety is not something you can fight your way through in 97 minutes. But we’re sure gonna try, so let’s meet our combatants.
The place is Shermer High school in Shermer, Illinois. The time is Saturday, March 24, 1984, 0700 hours. The bout will be detention style, one round, single fall, eight hours long. In this corner is our reigning champion. Standing at six feet tall and weighing in at 187 pounds, he is the Principal of Pain. He is the Sultan of Shermer. From parts unknown I give you the one, the only - Principal Richard Vernon (Paul Gleason). I had a nemesis like him when I was a kid. He was a bully; an emotionally battered husk in a cheap polyester suit who got off on acting superior to a building full of children. In that sense, Vernon is less a distinct character and more a composite of every judgmental, intolerant adult on the planet. Richard is a surefire garden variety Dick, and he’s not very popular with the kids. Speaking of kids, let’s meet Dick’s opponents.
If Vernon is a composite, John Bender (Judd Nelson, clearly well into his twenties) is a straight up stereotype. Specifically, School Bully #4 with Red Bandanna. Bender acts out against the world in destructive ways that ultimately damage only himself. He dresses like a cross between a lumberjack and a cab driver. He loves the sound of his own voice, and he uses it to get under your skin, whether he likes you or not - and chances are, not. His goal is to start an argument with you so that he can surreptitiously whine about his own disillusion. And it’s all because he hates his dad. And his name is Bender, because...you know, he “bends” the rules. Yes, the entire movie is equal parts compelling and obvious. But let’s continue.
Andrew Clark (Emilio Estevez) doubles as both the Clean Cut Overachiever and The Jock. Andy is handsome, charming and fit - just like his haircut. He eats his vegetables, says his prayers and he always sticks up for the little guy. You’d love for him to date your daughter, except that Andrew’s Dad lives vicariously through his son’s athletic career, meaning the boy isn’t entirely well adjusted. He’s in detention for taping a guy’s ass cheeks together in gym class, which is a pretty lame stunt for a guy that supposedly knows Judo. Still, having grown up in Texas I’m well acquainted with meatheads who are programmed to win one for Daddy. It’s very sad, but very true.
Claire (Molly Ringwald) is The Princess, or “bitch”, as it is sometimes pronounced. When she’s introduced, she’s sitting in the front seat of a climate controlled BMW, squirming in her calfskin boots as she bemoans the injustice of detention. Her father offers to buy her a pony but she scowls, gives him the back and stalks into the school, leaving a trail of frosty footprints behind her. I’m also well acquainted with the Spoiled Rich Girl who floats when she walks and eats hand rolled sushi for lunch out of little Japanese bowls with ebony chopsticks in her hands and a disinterested sneer on her lips. If this were a slasher flick, she would die right after the black guy. But this isn’t a slasher flick, so she doesn’t die - she just keeps on bitching. Also, there are no minorities in this movie. At all.
Brian Johnson (Anthony Michael Hall) is The Brain. I suspect he would have been called “The Nerd”, but Revenge of the Nerds came out the year before, so no dice there. Brian is soft spoken and meek, but very intelligent, well read and involved in all the major academic clubs. He dresses like Bill Gates, mutters like an Asperger’s patient and probably spends his free time trying to build Kelly LeBrock out of spare computer parts in his bedroom. Allison Reynolds (Ally Sheedy) is the “Basket Case”, or what they might have called “Goth” if this movie had been made five years later. She’s introverted, stand offish, and dresses the way Natalie Merchant would if she sang for The Cure. She’s also artistic, emotionally complex and comparatively well adjusted - so of course her primary purpose seems to be to show us how wrong it is not to dress like everyone else.
And on this day they’re all sentenced, for various offenses, to spend eight hours in detention thinking about the future. Dick is just there because when you sentence a kid to detention, the irony is that you have to serve the punishment along with them. Bender gleefully spends most of the film exploiting this hole in the Shermer High legal system. But eventually, the kids come to be alone. And like most kids, they immediately establish class boundaries, and do their best to act like different animals, despite all having the same stripes. As they reluctantly get acquainted, they begin to find common ground and come to decide that they have a common enemy. But the problem is, the film does a poor job of nailing down who and what it is. With the cast trapped in the school library most of the film, the story kind of plays out like a teenage Twelve Angry Men, but the only thing on trial here seems to be a system that dares place boundaries around its young people.
Too bad, because it isn’t that these kids don’t have real problems. Andrew’s father puts too much pressure on his son to succeed. Claire’s parents are bored and wealthy, and use their daughter as a weapon against each other. Brian’s family is determined for him to use his Big Brain to become the family cash cow. But while all kids occasionally struggle with their parents, The Breakfast Club presents this in a context that makes it look like an Upper Middle Class White Kid problem. That’s not a crime; just a fact. Not only this, but the message seems to be that it’s okay to pity yourself because you’re not alone. Really? That’s it? How about offering some solutions? That seems more realistic than painting your teens as a ragtag group of emotional mercenaries marching to some imaginary synth pop beat - armed with nothing but tears and ready to fight an enemy that has no face, and no name.
That’s not to say that this film doesn’t deserve considerable praise. The script has a great ear for the way kids did (and mostly still do) speak. The interaction between the characters feels (mostly) realistic, and you get sucked into their conversations unexpectedly because most of their observations are things we all consider from time to time, regardless of age. Despite some flaws of content I will say that I do think the film succeeds in the broadest possible context. The story pits the anguish of youth against the faceless monolith of adult indifference, and illustrates how hard it is to bridge the gap. That’s kind of a no brainer. “Welcome to Earth”, as Will Smith says.
But if you listen carefully, The Breakfast Club does offer at least ONE salient idea. It may be that the only way to peaceably coexist with someone is not just to talk to them, but to get to know them. It’s not an easy thing to do, but if a Jock can get along with a Brain can get along with a Criminal, a Princess and a Basket Case, then maybe anyone can. Instead of feeling sorry for yourself, turn and face the strain. Maybe Mr. Bowie was right.