The Breakfast Club.

I’m not going to provide a summary here, because most of the storyline will be told within the analysis, and, well, to be honest, if you haven’t seen it…….why?!?!?

I’ve got to begin, however, with a little piece on John Hughes – like the Creator, but with teenagers in high school in the 80s. Where would our lives be without Weird Science, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, Ferries Bueller’s Day Off, Some Kind of Wonderful and, of course, my favourite, The Breakfast Club. Hughes made this highly criticised genre of teen romance and comedy a triumph – and it is has stuck ever since.
    Briefly, five teenagers, who attend Shermer High School, Illinois in 1984, are forced to do a Saturday detention. They are of the usual respective stereotypes in a school situation, but they soon realise their stereotypes aren’t what define them. They pass time fighting, telling stories, dancing, arguing and smoking marijuana. Hughes made a simple situation, as detention, which everyone can relate to, a focus point for forcing the audience to live through their own memories as those characters. Through stereotypes, Hughes reached out to a wider audience, each of us could see ourselves as one of the characters. From personal experience, or just good observation, Hughes realised that, at the time, teenagers were living in a society where the generation gap was decreasing but more and more of them spent less time with their parents, as they were too busy working. The teenagers in the film are so different, but all have the same teenage qualities for the time – unsatisfying home life, a disconnection with one or both of the parents, not wanting to go to school and finally, desperate to fit in/be cool.
      Once the teenagers are seated in the library, Principal Vernon, sets them their challenge for the day – to each write a letter, detailing who they think they are. The audience can immediately see that Vernon has very preconceived judgements of the students, as do we. We aren’t told by Hughes which stereotypes fit which person, but he doesn’t need to, it is blatantly obvious. The letter read by Brian at the beginning of the film details which cliques these teenagers come from – there is the Brain (Brian), the Princess (Claire), the Athlete (Andy), the Basket Case (Allison) and the Criminal (Bender).
      However, lets begin with Principal Vernon, as the supporting characters do get overlooked in this film occasionally. Vernon comes across as this very hard nosed, no nonsense, voice of authority. He always appears angry, perhaps because he has to spend his Saturday baby-sitting teenagers in detention. Immediately, his arguments with Bender give an insight to the audience that both of them have been in this situation before. To begin with, Bender is the character with the most to say – his constant comebacks forces further detentions from Vernon. However, his outbursts in front of the principal only come across as a need to impress the others.
     When the teenagers are finally left alone for the majority of the film their antics reveal their true selves, along with a little of their background history. Bender is the spark for most of the events throughout the film. His instant dislike of Andy can only be seen as envy, but Andrew’s life isn’t as great as it seems. Andy and Claire clearly know each other before this detention, from school, as they are both used to the better end of social life at Shermer. Clearly, neither of them are used to being in trouble like Bender and I believe that is where some of the conflict lies – they just want to get through detention and go back to their lives. However, their attitude at the beginning of the film is of stark contrast to their opinion at the end.
     We see Brian as the peacekeeper throughout the whole film, especially between Bender and Andrew and Bender and Vernon. The viewer realises that this is what Brian must do at home – always trying to be the best, not for himself, but for his parents – to keep them happy. From the short scene when his mother drops him off in the car at the beginning of the film, it is clear Brian is under huge pressure to succeed academically.
      Home life is the big talking point throughout the film. It is humorous to see Bender taunting Brian as being a parent’s ‘wet dream’ – thinking that everyone could only hope for a child as hardworking as Brian. To be honest, Bender is the one that does kick off most of the conversations about peoples’ parents – making the audience think that it is his way to talk about his own life at home – if he asks about the others’ parents then they will then ask about his.
      Through another argument with Andrew it is revealed that Bender is clearly a victim of child abuse (he reveals a cigarette burn on his forearm), which forces sympathy not only from the characters around him but the viewer also. We finally see the reason why John Bender is the way he is – it is pure rebellion, anarchy is what he is used to so therefore he thrives on it, used to the hustle and bustle, while stirring up trouble.
      As time passes we see relationships form – especially when Vernon declares a break and chooses Allison and Andrew to go get refreshments for them. Allison also has this no nonsense attitude and when Andrew tries to lie to her about the real reason why he is in detention she sees right through him. From then on, they are both more open with each other – their relationship is cute, he sees past her big parka and her hiding behind her mass of hair and admires her. She seems to get him – she gets that Andy does anything that everybody asks of him, he just can’t seem to stand up and say no.
     Claire and Bender’s relationship was fiery from the beginning. She despises him, purely through lack of knowledge or experience, but her romance with Bender is inevitable. He teases her about her virginity but seems shocked by the fact that she is impressed about Brian’s honesty about being a virgin also. We do question Claire’s reason for rebellion in kissing Bender at the end of the film – she lives in a home where each parent uses her to get back at the other – taking Bender home as a potential boyfriend would perhaps be the kick that both parents need for Claire to gain a reaction. It is a shock to the system when Bender tells her exactly what he thinks – she is so used to her friends sheltering her and telling her what she wants to hear. That is the Princess in her.
     The most interesting and in-depth part of the film is when they all sit down and finally open up to one another. Allison, my favourite character, reveals that the reason that she is in detention is that she really hasn’t got anything else better to do. We realise that her life is summed up by this statement – her family/home life must be really miserable and she may be a loner or have little friends. Claire doesn’t really get along with her as Allison’s compulsive lying manipulates Claire into revealing the truth about her life. She does thrive on peoples’ reactions and that is why we see her watching people more, observing, taking in how people act.
Brian and Allison are very similar, compared to the others – as in that they both are familiar with loneliness and being seen as the outsider. Brian’s reason for detention is also made clear in this scene – he had bought a flare gun to school, with suicidal intent – why? Because he got an F. It is that much pressure he feels he is under.
        Andrew is also clearly under pressure from his family, particularly his father. From the outset we see his father’s influence on Andy’s life – he is heavily pushed by his father to succeed – so much so that Andrew reveals that he wishes his bad knee would just give way altogether so that his dad would leave him alone. Each on the verge of tears, we can’t help but feel sorry for them.
       It is amazing to see how the course of detention changes them – even though Bender harasses the others through most of the film, the others do stick up for him in certain moments in the film, especially when Vernon is out for John’s blood. I think Principal Vernon is the common enemy – they see him as a reflection of one of their parents – not really understanding them or interacting with them like human beings. This change is portrayed through the letters that Brian wrote – the audience will notice that there are two letters – one at the beginning of the film and one at the end. The letters are the basis for the changes throughout the day.
       I think the thing that I found the most refreshing about the film was it’s simplicity – it doesn’t need the numerous locations, all the different clothes, props and unneeded characters that we see in most modern trashy teen romance films. I loved Judd Nelson – his witty comebacks, nonconformist attitude and honesty, along with a family background I couldn’t help feeling sorry for. Most of all I loved Allison (the freak) – she made me laugh at times when I felt that I shouldn’t be laughing. She didn’t even need to speak to be humorous. He romance with Estevez is cute, more so than Ringwald and Nelson’s. Her transformation bought her to the limelight, but it was great to see Andy’s admiration of her before her makeover, making the audience question why Hughes included that at all. I first watched it as a young teenage girl and it somehow confirms our faith in the opposite sex – Estevez proved that that are guys out there that do love girls for who they are, not necessarily how they look.
      Each character feels, in their own way, that they are different, alienated within society. In their own lives they have been abused, ignored, neglected or bullied. This film still resonates today – aimed directly at the kids. The movies proves that teenagers do spend so much time fighting something/someone they don’t know – hating and disliking people that they have never spoken to. It also provides a message to the adults – spoken mainly through the thoroughly wise character of Carl the janitor – kids remember who step on them, humiliate them in their course of growing up. The appreciate the people who help them but never truly forget the people that made their lives hell. This is echoed by the David Bowie quote at the beginning of the film.
     The Breakfast Club ends as it began, blasting out Simple Minds’ ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’ but instead of this being a message to the parents, warning them not to forget or neglect their children, it is a message to each other. Detention ending means the ending of the life they possibly want to lead – in essence they are going back to reality, where they don’t talk to each other and stick to their cliques. The audience is left to wonder whether they will be friends the next day. For me, I like to think that perhaps they do change the way things are at their school – that they make the difference.
     Thank you John Hughes – thank you for documenting virtually every teenagers life on screen.