M's Musings on THE BREAKFAST CLUB

The Breakfast Club.  Written and Directed by John Hughes.  Ft.  Emilio Estevez, Paul Gleason, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy.  Universal, 1985.

When asked point blank, a good friend of our stated that one of her most frequently watched movies of all time was this:  The Breakfast Club.   I have never seen it, and it seemed like an excellent choice for a Friday night.

When I went to high school, breakfast club was a free place to get breakfast before class to help lessen the divide between rich kids and poorer kids and to ensure healthy, stimulated minds as we started our day.  Besides the fact that I know that T volunteered in that capacity, I have no idea what went on.  I never participated.  That said, I wonder if that kind of club, which would mostly stereotype based on economic status, might be less clique-y and more congenial than others.  Who knows.  Maybe T will enlighten us.

I couldn't believe the built up melodrama in this.  This, the penultimate teen movie, that, in many senses, spawned a genre and CREATED a new demographic... did things that high school movies continue to do, but also things that I would say, are done far less in school movies today.

The emphasis on parents and home relationships was far more important, in all cases, then who was dating who, who was pregnant, and who wasn't getting laid.  It was fascinating how lines were drawn and then removed by creating a new little group which had to establish its own pecking order without the benefits of larger group support.

In many ways, through trying to break down stereotypes, I think this movie enforced them.  But, it was attempting a criticism of society larger than high school in a way I did not expect.  I spent most of my high school career thinking about life AFTER high school, and how to shape my adulthood in such a way that it replicated very little of my high school experience.  No real solutions offered, I guess, except acknowledging others across "clique" lines, and looking for similarities instead of differences.

I liked the way that the film refused to move into flashbacks, etc, but tried to follow a progression throughout a single day.  There was minimal set changes and the whole thing seems to have been shot on location.  It made the film have a theatrical quality, with most relationships being described instead of shown.  I think teen movies have moved away from this technique, to some extent.

The characters spoke for themselves, slowly building up layers of depth that moved beyond the surface.  The role of the educator, and adults more generally, is denigrated.  Teachers aren't out to save lives, they are just out to punish and destroy.  The teens needed each other in order to sort through their issues and establish a set of shared characteristics that made them unique from the adults that create the false boundaries of high school life.  As I said, it all seemed very theatrical.

This movie really appealed to the angst in me.  It created a teen culture that was well cemented by the time I plugged through high school in the early 2000s.  Our 10 Things I Hate About You and Dawson's Creek, I think, in so many ways, are a reply to this film.  I understand the whole genre better after taking this trip down memory lane.  I suppose Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller will make their own appearances on later entries.  So angsty!