The Breakfast Club is a collection of high school students who attend a Saturday detention for each of their indiscretions. The movie introduces us to the characters as the stereotypes that each student considers the other: the Nerd (Hall), the Beauty (Ringwald), the Jock (Estevez), the Rebel (Nelson), and the recluse (Sheedy). Also, we are introduced to another stereotype; the mean overbearing teacher. Paul Gleason (the KING of all character actors) is Mr. Vernon, the teacher in charge of Saturday detention.
While in detention, Mr. Vernon gives them a simple assignment. They must write an essay about “who you think you are.” Each person has a good idea of what the other is. Yet, through several discussions and arguments, they learn that they have more similarities than at first sight. The Rebel, John Bender, initially focuses his anger at Andrew the Jock and Claire the Beauty. His outward hatred towards their “good life” masks his hurt about his own life. In reality, Claire just wishes her parents gave a damn about her, and Andrew wishes he had the guts to stand up to his overbearing father. All three seem to think Brian the Nerd is the “perfect son” and doesn’t have the same problems. My only character complaint is that Allison the Recluse is not developed nearly as well as the other cast members. Her problems are more self-created in order try to get attention but at the same time, keep people away.
Each has his or her own problems and as insignificant as they might appear, to a teenager, they are everything. This is what this movie captures the best. If anything, the teenage years are a time of self-consciousness and angst. When we look back at it, it seems a little ridiculous. Yet, at that point in our lives, it is important. Parents don’t get it and teachers don’t get it.
The movie does an outstanding job of deconstructing the stereotypes of the kids. However, The Breakfast Club misses a chance to do the same with stereotypes about adults. Mr. Vernon is almost comical in how mean-spirited he is. The typical mean teacher who is more put off by kids than anything. During a scene with Mr. Vernon and the custodian, Carl (Kapelos), Hughes begins to get inside the character of the teacher. When he bemoans that the students have changed, Carl tells him “No, you’ve changed”. Hughes stopped there but he could have introduced humanity into Mr. Vernon several times by having him at least show a facial expression of regret for his actions. Actually, there is one brief scene. After a verbal tête-à-tête with Bender early in the movie, you see Mr. Vernon pause just for a second as he leaves the detention hall. Yet, the movie does not expound on this. I suspect that Hughes planned to develop this subplot but dropped it when he realized his target audience had zero interest in a non-stereotypical teacher.
Some critique the ending of the movie for being a little too contrived. Those people weren’t paying attention during the middle of the film. In a normal Hollywood movie, they would have all become best buddies. This movie, on the other hand, admits that come Monday, they probably won’t be friends. The biggest truth about high school is missed here. Most kids, while saying they want to be seen as more than a stereotype, will never take that risk. Come Monday, they will each return to their comfort zone rather than risk the ridicule of their “friends”. So while the ending leaves us with the idea that the Jock hooks up with the Recluse, the Rebel has found his Princess, and the Nerd, er…might have a couple of friends, we could also leave with the opposite idea. Come Monday, the Jock and the Beauty might be back with their kind, the Rebel might go back to hating everybody, and the Nerd and Recluse might still be ignored in the hallway. Yet, Hughes leaves that to us. How you feel about the ending might be due to which stereotype you most represent yourself with.
(Source: http://www.cinemablend.com/reviews/The-Breakfast-Club-440.html)
This is a useful text for me to look at as it is a 1985 film based on teenagers which shows a range of similarities and differences to how teenagers are portrayed now. This is shown as in the film teenagers are not represented as negatively as they are now. For example, there is still the typical prom which teenagers look forward to, the school princess, teenagers getting in to trouble, the school criminal which shows that the typical stereotypes of teenagers are still being used of teenagers in film. There are many similarities and differences in this teenage film based on what teenage films are like now...
The similarities of The Breakfast Club compared to films now:
* Teenage films are still showing teenagers getting in to trouble. For example, teenagers in the film The Breakfast Club are in detention for doing something wrong which is still the case in films now as in teenage films, teenagers are always being portrayed as getting in to trouble and misbehaving which results in to them getting detention.
* There is usually a jock who is shown in teenage films. This is shown through the character Andrew in the film who is a jock. This is also the case in films now as there are teenagers films where there are jocks. For example, in the film SuperBad. These are the people who are usually popular within school which is common in films and this is shown through Andrew.
Differences of The Breakfast Club compare to films now . . .
* The difference is that in The Breakfast Club, Andrew the jock is continuously threatening to kill and stab Bender but in reality nothing violent happens between them. This is different from teenage films now as teenage films now show clear violent scenes between teenagers. For example, scenes now show stabbing and violent fighting between teens whereas in The Breakfast Club this is not shown. This connotes that this is a large difference between films then and now as teenage films have become more violent. This shows that genre and society has changed as it has become more clear on what is being shown rather than films having a limit which has now gone as teenage films are more violent.
* Another difference of The Breakfast Club compared to films now is the clothing of teenagers. This is shown as in The Breakfast Club, teenagers are dresses appropriately that the audience is not made aware completely who the rebel is whereas now it is completely clear to the audience. This is shown as teenagers now in films where hoodies and dark colours which stereotypes them as violent and aggressive. However, in this film teenagers are not dressed in dark colours and are not wearing hoodies which shows that this is another difference as the characters personality is not made clear to the audience but it is up to them to work out who the rebel is. This shows that genre has changed over time as the clothing of teenagers has also changed.
Overall, this shows that the genre of films has changed over time as before there used to be less crime shown and aggressiveness whereas there is more now. This is shown as in The Breakfast Club, teenagers do not be aggressive to each other whereas now in films gun scenes are shown and stabbing and violently beating each other up. This connotes that the way in which teenagers have been represented has changed over time due to teenagers being portrayed more violently in films such as knife crime and etc.
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