the breakfast club character analysis essay

Brian Johnson (Anthony Michael Hall)

Character analysis, odd man out.

Brian (Anthony Michael Hall) has the misfortune of being the Nerd Stereotype in this story. Even though everyone else pairs up at the end, Brian's left alone—and he has to write the essay explaining "who they think they are" for the others, while they all skip the assignment.

Hughes—who probably identified with Brian to a fair degree—was just trying to be realistic when he wrote this part. Having Brian pair up with Claire would've seemed like fantasy wish-fulfillment to audiences. (But what about Allison? Wasn't she in Brian's league?)

So, this dude winds up with the short straw. But he also learns a lot and pens a manifesto. Maybe that's breaking even, eh?

At the beginning of the movie Brian articulates the lesson he—and presumably everyone else—has learned:

BRIAN (voiceover): Saturday, March 24, 1984. Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois, 60062. Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did was wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us—in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Correct? That's the way we saw each other at 7:00 this morning. We were brainwashed.

By the time, the movie ends, they've realized that each one of them is all of the above— a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. They all can relate to each other's experiences. Or, at least, Brian's realized this—since he wrote the essay.

Revenge of the Elephant Lamp

When we first see Brian, his angry mother is needling him to do homework while he's in detention and not waste time. Brian has to deal with this kind of academic pressure constantly. He tries to explain he's not a huge fan of his parents, but Bender argues that his parents are worse:

BRIAN: [...] I don't like my parents either, I don't... I don't get along with them... their idea of parental compassion is just, you know, wacko! BENDER: Dork... BRIAN: Yeah? BENDER: You are a parent's wet dream, okay? BRIAN: Well, that's a problem!

In fact, all this pressure to be a model student is the reason why he's in detention in the first place. As he reveals later on, in a tearful speech, he flunked shop class after he built a lamp that didn't work—the lamp was supposed to look like an elephant, and it would light up when you pulled the trunk. But Brian accidentally built a non-functioning lamp: pull the trunk, nothing happens.

This totally messes up his GPA and jeopardizes his chances of getting into the very top tier of colleges. So he brings a flare gun into school intending (apparently) to shoot himself with it. But the flare gun goes off in his locker, leading him to receive detention.

So, it's a peek into just how pressured Brian feels, to put it mildly—he's been penned into this academic, grade-obsessed lifestyle, yet he hates it. He doesn't like the way he appears when he's locked into this hyper-competitive academic mode. But the tension between who he is and who he's expected to be causes him to make this half-baked suicide attempt.

The other kids finds this concerning at first—thinking Brian intended to kill himself with the gun—but amusing when they find out it was a flare gun that accidentally went off. Brian has to laugh too. So, thanks to all this academic pressure, he's managed to look pathetic and ridiculous and kind of crazy all at once—remember, all that Bender's in detention for is pulling the fire alarm.

So, in the end, Brian's explored his emotional issues, smoked marijuana with Bender and the others, cried in front of everyone, written everyone's joint-essay for them, and failed to get with either of the girls. But the human insight he's gained is what's really important, right? Maybe?

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W hy's T his F unny?

“The Breakfast Club” by John Hughes Film Analysis Essay (Movie Review)

The following discussion post is dedicated to The Breakfast Club , a 1985 movie by John Hughes. The plot, setting, and theme of this coming-of-age drama reflect the cultural context of American suburbia in the 1980s and traditional stereotypes of high school students. The movie’s primary setting is Shermer High School in Illinois, which is a typical example of a suburban public school managed by a strict principle, hating teenagers and idealizing the good old times. The principal symbolizes the cultural identity of Baby Boomers with their outdated, oppressive values, while the students represent the free-spirited children of the 80s heavily influenced by popular culture as seen from their appearance. The plot demonstrates the conflict of generations, cultures, and values during one day of mandatory detention.

The Breakfast Club is also known for its vivid portrayal of teenage stereotypes presented to the audience at the beginning of the movie: a Jock, a Princess, a Criminal, a Brain, and a Basket Case. Most of the stereotypes are negative, but the narrative reveals the characters’ true identities and personal struggles hidden behind the labels assigned to each of them. The central theme of the movie is the pressure that peers, parents, and popular culture place upon teenagers. For instance, Claire (a Princess) is tired of being perceived as a popular girl with wealthy parents, while Brian (a Brain) struggles with social isolation due to his academic success. Multiple references to popular culture support the theme, with David Bowie’s lyrics used as the opening quote explaining the relationships between different generations. The movie offers an overview of teenage issues, culture, and stereotypes that might still be relevant today and teaches people not to be ashamed of their identities.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Bibliography

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Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — The Breakfast Club — Psychoanalysis Of Film The Breakfast Club: John Bender

Psychoanalysis of Film The Breakfast Club: John Bender

• Categories: Film Analysis John Berger The Breakfast Club

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Published: Apr 29, 2022

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Table of contents

The breakfast club, john bender, erik erikson’s view, marcia’s identity status, relationship with parents and siblings, role of friendships and romantic relationships.

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Film Analysis and Interpretation

The Breakfast Club Analysis

Analysis: the meaning of the breakfast club  is that most adults look down on young adults, when sometimes the young adults can be better than the adults..

Examples that support my The Breakfast Club analysis:

At first, the characters look down on each other

– The teacher sees himself as better than the students – The jock sees himself as better than Bender – The princess sees herself as better than Bender – The nerd sees himself as better than Bender – Bender sees himself as better than the others – Ally Sheedy sees herself as better than the others because she doesn’t have to be there – But the janitor is the one who bests them all by messing with them by pointing out that the clock is fast – The teacher looks down on them all

The adults are shown to be flawed even though they see themselves as superior

– The teacher is caught breaking the rules – Bender’s father is abusive – The jock’s father is overbearing – The nerd’s parents are overbearing – The princess’ parents equate money with love – Ally Sheedy’s character’s parents ignore her – Even the title, “The Breakfast Club,” shows how they are viewed as young

The characters have a breakthrough and realize that everyone is flawed, especially themselves

– They each show their humanity and admit their flaws – They dance to the song, “We Are Not Alone” – They connect with each other, and the nerd’s essay represents them all – They not only see themselves as equal, but they realize that this epiphany actually makes them better than the adults

Camera angles

– Inside the library, the camera shots are mostly downward on the kids – When the kids get together, the camera points at them equally – In the end, the camera angle is upward at Bender when his throws his arm in the air to declare victory

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The Breakfast Club

By john hughes, the breakfast club symbols, allegory and motifs, pot smoking (symbol).

The pot-smoking the students engage in is a symbol of rebellion. Midway through The Breakfast Club , Bender risks leaving the detention room to collect a bag of cannabis from his locker. While Bender is confident in his mission, the other detention students who accompany him are afraid Vernon will catch them. When given the option to join Bender in smoking a joint in the library, Claire and Brian are the first to leave their desks. Andrew is far more reluctant to take part, knowing that Vernon will only dole out more punishment if he discovers them taking drugs during their detention. However, Andrew soon goes off with the others. While high, Andrew marches through the library room, dancing, doing cartwheels, and running up the walls. With these gestures, Hughes further emphasizes the rebellious nature of the students' pot-smoking.

Cigar Burn (Symbol)

The cigar burn on Bender's forearm is a symbol of parental abuse. During the lunch break, Bender teases Brian because the balanced lunch he unpacks would seem to indicate that Brian has stereotypically perfect parents who nurture and support him. When the students ask Bender about his own parents, Bender does an impression of his father, portraying him as mean-spirited and violent. However, Andrew believes Bender is lying. To prove the accuracy of his impression, Bender shows the group a round patch of scar tissue on his inside forearm. He explains that it is from a lit cigar that his father seared into his skin as punishment for spilling paint in their garage. The group goes quiet as they take in this symbol of physical abuse.

Elephant Lamp (Symbol)

The elephant lamp project that ruins Brian's grade point average is a symbol of hubris—excessive self-confidence. Late in the film, Brian confesses to the group that he was given detention because a flare gun went off in his locker; he also explains that he was considering using the flare gun to commit suicide because he has a failing grade in shop class. Brian explains that he enrolled in shop class because he believed it would be an easy A, but it proved to be his most challenging class. When Brian's elephant-shaped ceramic lamp wouldn't turn on, he was given an F on the project. Having gone into the class believing his intelligence was superior to the average "dumb" shop student, Brian must come to terms with his excessive self-confidence upon receiving the unexpected failing grade.

Claire's Diamond Earring (Symbol)

The diamond earring Claire gives Bender is a symbol of devotion. Toward the end of the film, Bender mocks Claire's sadness by asking her if her rich father gave her the diamond stud earrings she wears as a Christmas present, adding that his last Christmas gift was a carton of cigarettes. In this scene, the earrings are contentious objects that represent Claire's economic privilege over lower-class students like Bender. However, Claire gives Bender one of her earrings as she says goodbye in the parking lot at the end of the movie. Now that the two have admitted their attraction to each other, Claire shows her devotion to Bender by dividing the pair of earrings, symbolizing their bond by keeping one for herself and entrusting the other to Bender, who puts the stud in his earlobe.

Brian's Essay (Symbol)

The essay Brian writes on behalf of "The Breakfast Club" is a symbol of defiance. When the students' detention begins, Vernon tells the students that they must write a thousand-word essay on the subject of "who you think you are." The essay is supposed to prompt the students to address the overconfidence that led each of them to break school rules and end up in Saturday detention. However, the students ignore the essay assignment, preferring to forge bonds with each other. At the end of the film, Vernon picks up the one essay that Brian writes on behalf of the group. In a few short lines, Brian takes issue with the premise of the essay, and tells Vernon that they have discovered they are each a brain, a princess, an athlete, a basket case, and a criminal. With these labels, Brian mocks Vernon's reductive view of each of them and defies his authority by refusing to act contrite.

The Breakfast Club Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Breakfast Club is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Study Guide for The Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club study guide contains a biography of director John Hughes, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Breakfast Club
• The Breakfast Club Summary
• Character List
• Director's Influence

Essays for The Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Breakfast Club, directed by John Hughes.

• Back to Normal on Monday?: Stereotypes in The Breakfast Club

Wikipedia Entries for The Breakfast Club

• Introduction

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What About “The Breakfast Club”?

By Molly Ringwald

Earlier this year, the Criterion Collection, which is “dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world,” released a restored version of “ The Breakfast Club ,” a film written and directed by John Hughes that I acted in, more than three decades ago. For this edition, I participated in an interview about the movie, as did other people close to the production. I don’t make a habit of revisiting films I’ve made, but this was not the first time I’d returned to this one: a few years back, I watched it with my daughter, who was ten at the time. We recorded a conversation about it for the radio show “This American Life.” I’ll be the first to admit that ten is far too young for a viewing of “The Breakfast Club,” a movie about five high-school students who befriend one other during a Saturday detention session, with plenty of cursing, sex talk, and a now-famous scene of the students smoking pot. But my daughter insisted that her friends had already seen it, and she said she didn’t want to watch it for the first time in front of other people. A writer-director friend assured me that kids tend to filter out what they don’t understand, and I figured that it would be better if I were there to answer the uncomfortable questions. So I relented, thinking perhaps that it would make for a sweet if unconventional mother-daughter bonding moment.

It’s a strange experience, watching a younger, more innocent version of yourself onscreen. It’s stranger still—surreal, even—watching it with your child when she is much closer in age to that version of yourself than you are. My friend was right: my daughter didn’t really seem to register most of the sex stuff, though she did audibly gasp when she thought I had showed my underwear. At one point in the film, the bad-boy character, John Bender, ducks under the table where my character, Claire, is sitting, to hide from a teacher. While there, he takes the opportunity to peek under Claire’s skirt and, though the audience doesn’t see, it is implied that he touches her inappropriately. I was quick to point out to my daughter that the person in the underwear wasn’t really me, though that clarification seemed inconsequential. We kept watching, and, despite my best intentions to give context to the uncomfortable bits, I didn’t elaborate on what might have gone on under the table. She expressed no curiosity in anything sexual, so I decided to follow her lead, and discuss what seemed to resonate with her more. Maybe I just chickened out.

But I kept thinking about that scene. I thought about it again this past fall, after a number of women came forward with sexual-assault accusations against the producer Harvey Weinstein , and the #MeToo movement gathered steam. If attitudes toward female subjugation are systemic, and I believe that they are, it stands to reason that the art we consume and sanction plays some part in reinforcing those same attitudes. I made three movies with John Hughes; when they were released, they made enough of a cultural impact to land me on the cover of Time magazine and to get Hughes hailed as a genius. His critical reputation has only grown since he died, in 2009, at the age of fifty-nine. Hughes’s films play constantly on television and are even taught in schools. There is still so much that I love in them, but lately I have felt the need to examine the role that these movies have played in our cultural life: where they came from, and what they might mean now. When my daughter proposed watching “The Breakfast Club” together, I had hesitated, not knowing how she would react: if she would understand the film or if she would even like it. I worried that she would find aspects of it troubling, but I hadn’t anticipated that it would ultimately be most troubling to me.

It can be hard to remember how scarce art for and about teen-agers was before John Hughes arrived. Young-adult novels had not yet exploded as a genre. Onscreen, the big issues that affected teens seemed to belong largely to the world of ABC Afterschool Specials, which premièred in 1972 and were still around as I came of age, in the eighties. All the teens I knew would rather have died than watch one. The films had the whiff of sanctimony, the dialogue was obviously written by adults, the music was corny.

Portrayals of teen-agers in movies were even worse. The actors cast in teen roles tended to be much older than their characters—they had to be, since the films were so frequently exploitative. The teen horror flicks that flourished in the seventies and eighties had them getting murdered: if you were young, attractive, and sexually active, your chances of making it to the end were basically nil (a trope spoofed, years later, by the “Scream” franchise). The successful teen comedies of the period, such as “Animal House” and “Porky’s,” were written by men for boys; the few women in them were either nymphomaniacs or battleaxes. (The stout female coach in “Porky’s” is named Balbricker.) The boys are perverts, as one-dimensional as their female counterparts, but with more screen time. In 1982, “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” which had the rare distinction of being directed by a woman, Amy Heckerling, got closer to an authentic depiction of adolescence. But it still made room for a young male’s fantasy of the actress Phoebe Cates striding topless in a soft-porny sprinkler mist.

And then Hughes came along. Hughes, who grew up in Michigan and Illinois, got work, after dropping out of college, writing ad copy in Chicago. The job brought him frequently to New York, where he started hanging around the offices of the humor magazine National Lampoon . He wrote a story called “Vacation ’58”—inspired by his own family trips—which secured him a job at the magazine and became the basis for the movie “National Lampoon’s Vacation.” Another story caught the eye of the producer Lauren Shuler Donner, who encouraged him to write what became “Mr. Mom.” Those movies helped him get a deal with Universal Studios. “The Breakfast Club” was to be his directorial début; he planned to shoot it in Chicago with local actors. He told me later that, over a July 4th weekend, while looking at headshots of actors to consider for the movie, he found mine, and decided to write another movie around the character he imagined that girl to be. That script became “Sixteen Candles,” a story about a girl whose family forgets her sixteenth birthday. The studio loved the script, perhaps because, in form at least, it had more in common with proven successes—“Porky’s” et al.—than it did with “The Breakfast Club,” which basically read like a play.

A meeting was arranged, we hit it off, and I filmed “Sixteen Candles” in the suburbs of Chicago the summer after I completed the ninth grade. Once we were done shooting, and before we began filming “The Breakfast Club,” John wrote another movie specifically for me, “Pretty in Pink,” about a working-class girl navigating the social prejudices of her affluent high school. The film’s dramatic arc involves getting invited and then uninvited to the prom. In synopsis, the movies can seem flimsy—a girl loses her date to a dance, a family forgets a girl’s birthday—but that’s part of what made them unique. No one in Hollywood was writing about the minutiae of high school, and certainly not from a female point of view. According to one study, since the late nineteen-forties, in the top-grossing family movies, girl characters have been outnumbered by boys three to one—and that ratio has not improved. That two of Hughes’s films had female protagonists in the lead roles and examined these young women’s feelings about the fairly ordinary things that were happening to them, while also managing to have instant cred that translated into success at the box office, was an anomaly that has never really been replicated. (The few blockbuster films starring young women in recent years have mostly been set in dystopian futures or have featured vampires and werewolves.)

I had what could be called a symbiotic relationship with John during the first two of those films. I’ve been called his muse, which I believe I was, for a little while. But, more than that, I felt that he listened to me—though certainly not all the time. Coming out of the National Lampoon school of comedy, there was still a residue of crassness that clung, no matter how much I protested. In the shooting script of “The Breakfast Club,” there was a scene in which an attractive female gym teacher swam naked in the school’s swimming pool as Mr. Vernon, the teacher who is in charge of the students’ detention, spied on her. The scene wasn’t in the first draft I read, and I lobbied John to cut it. He did, and although I’m sure the actress who had been cast in the part still blames me for foiling her break, I think the film is better for it. In “Sixteen Candles,” a character alternately called the Geek and Farmer Ted makes a bet with friends that he can score with my character, Samantha; by way of proof, he says, he will secure her underwear. Later in the film, after Samantha agrees to help the Geek by loaning her underwear to him, she has a heartwarming scene with her father. It originally ended with the father asking, “Sam, what the hell happened to your underpants?” My mom objected. “Why would a father know what happened to his daughter’s underwear?” she asked. John squirmed uncomfortably. He didn’t mean it that way, he said—it was just a joke, a punch line. “But it’s not funny,” my mother said. “It’s creepy.” The line was changed to “Just remember, Sam, you wear the pants in the family.”

My mom also spoke up during the filming of that scene in “The Breakfast Club,” when they hired an adult woman for the shot of Claire’s underwear. They couldn’t even ask me to do it—I don’t think it was permitted by law to ask a minor—but even having another person pretend to be me was embarrassing to me and upsetting to my mother, and she said so. That scene stayed, though. What’s more, as I can see now, Bender sexually harasses Claire throughout the film. When he’s not sexualizing her, he takes out his rage on her with vicious contempt, calling her “pathetic,” mocking her as “Queenie.” It’s rejection that inspires his vitriol. Claire acts dismissively toward him, and, in a pivotal scene near the end, she predicts that at school on Monday morning, even though the group has bonded, things will return, socially, to the status quo. “Just bury your head in the sand and wait for your fuckin’ prom!” Bender yells. He never apologizes for any of it, but, nevertheless, he gets the girl in the end.

If I sound overly critical, it’s only with hindsight. Back then, I was only vaguely aware of how inappropriate much of John’s writing was, given my limited experience and what was considered normal at the time. I was well into my thirties before I stopped considering verbally abusive men more interesting than the nice ones. I’m a little embarrassed to say that it took even longer for me to fully comprehend the scene late in “Sixteen Candles,” when the dreamboat, Jake, essentially trades his drunk girlfriend, Caroline, to the Geek, to satisfy the latter’s sexual urges, in return for Samantha’s underwear. The Geek takes Polaroids with Caroline to have proof of his conquest; when she wakes up in the morning with someone she doesn’t know, he asks her if she “enjoyed it.” (Neither of them seems to remember much.) Caroline shakes her head in wonderment and says, “You know, I have this weird feeling I did.” She had to have a feeling about it, rather than a thought, because thoughts are things we have when we are conscious, and she wasn’t.

Thinking about that scene, I became curious how the actress who played Caroline, Haviland Morris, felt about the character she portrayed. So I sent her an e-mail. We hadn’t seen or spoken to each other since she was twenty-three and I was fifteen. We met for coffee, and after we had filled each other in on all the intervening years, I asked her about it. Haviland, I was surprised to learn, does not have the same issues with the scene as I do. In her mind, Caroline bears some responsibility for what happens, because of how drunk she gets at the party. “I’m not saying that it’s O.K. to then be raped or to have nonconsensual sex,” Haviland clarified. “But . . . that’s not a one-way street. Here’s a girl who gets herself so bombed that she doesn’t even know what’s going on.”

There was a time in my early twenties when I had too much to drink at a party and ended up in a bedroom sitting on the edge of a bed with a producer I didn’t know, lightheaded and woozy. A good friend, who had followed me, popped her head in the door a couple of minutes later and announced, “Time to go now, Molly!” I followed her out, trying not to stumble, and spent the rest of the night violently ill and embarrassed—and the rest of my life grateful that she had been there, watching out for me, when I was temporarily incapable of watching out for myself. I shared the story with Haviland, and she listened politely, nodding.

Haviland, like me, has children, and so I decided to frame the question hypothetically, mother to mother, to see if it changed her point of view. If one of our kids had too much to drink, and something like that happened to one of them, would she say, “It’s on you, because you drank too much”? She shook her head: “No. Absolutely, positively, it stays in your pants until invited by someone who is willing and consensually able to invite you to remove it.” Still, she added, “I’m not going to black-and-white it. It isn’t a one-way street.”

After our coffee, I responded to an e-mail from Haviland to thank her for agreeing to talk to me. Later that night, I received another note. “You know,” she wrote, “the more I think of it this evening, oddly, the LESS uncomfortable I am with Caroline. Jake was disgusted with her and said he could violate her 17 ways if he wanted to because she was so trashed, but he didn’t. And then, Ted was the one who had to ask if they had had sex, which certainly doesn’t demonstrate responsible behavior from either party, but also doesn’t really spell date rape. On the other hand, she was basically traded for a pair of underwear . . . Ah, John Hughes.”

It’s hard for me to understand how John was able to write with so much sensitivity, and also have such a glaring blind spot. Looking for insight into that darkness, I decided to read some of his early writing for National Lampoon . I bought an old issue of the magazine on eBay, and found the other stories, all from the late seventies and early eighties, online. They contain many of the same themes he explored in his films, but with none of the humanity. Yes, it was a different time, as people say. Still, I was taken aback by the scope of the ugliness.

“A Dog’s Tale” has a boy watching his mother turn into a dog. “Against His Will” features an “ugly fat” woman who tries to rape a man at gunpoint in front of the man’s wife and parents because she can’t have sex any other way. “My Penis” and “My Vagina” are quasi-magical-realist stories written from the points of view of teen-agers who wake up in the morning with different genitalia than they were assigned at birth; the protagonist of “My Penis” literally forces her boyfriend’s mouth open to penetrate him, and the male in “My Vagina” is gang-raped by his friends once they discover he has one. (The latter story ends with him having to use the money he saved for new skis on getting an abortion.) The “Hughes Engagement Guide” is an illustrated manual on how to protect yourself against women. It gives examples of women “bullshitting to not put out,” and teaches readers how to do a “quickie pelvic exam,” how to detect “signs of future fat,” and how to determine if a woman has any ancestors of different races, based on what her relatives look like—there is an accompanying drawing of an Asian person and an African-American—and on and on.

The October, 1980, issue included a piece, co-authored by Ted Mann, titled “Sexual Harassment and How to Do It!” The guide explains, “If you hire a woman from another field or with a background that is not suited to the duties she is to assume, you’ve got the glans in the crevice, or, if you prefer, the foot in the door.” It continues, “Not only will her humility prepare her for your sexual advances, it will also help steel her for her inevitable dismissal.” There are sections describing different kinds of secretaries based on their ages, and how best to reward and punish them. (The older ones are “easier,” the younger ones “preferable.”) There’s even a section on arrest: “Sometimes even guys with cool sideburns and a smooth line of patter get arrested for sexual harassment and are issued summonses.” It goes on to suggest different methods for cozying up to the police officer.

It’s all satire, of course, but it’s pretty clear that it’s not the chauvinists who are being lampooned but the “women’s liberation movement.” Women had begun to speak out, in the mid-seventies, against harassment in the workplace. (The beloved movie “9 to 5,” in which three women get revenge on a sexist boss, was released in December of 1980, two months after the Hughes-Mann piece ran.) Mann is now a writer and producer who has been nominated for seven Emmys, most recently for his work on the Showtime series “Homeland.” I sent him an e-mail asking what he now thought of the piece he wrote with Hughes. He replied that he didn’t remember ever having written it. “It looks like one of our art director Peter’s desperate page fillers,” he explained, referring to Peter Kleinman. “It wouldn’t fly today and it never should have flown then,” he went on, adding, “These were degenerate cocaine days.”

I can’t vouch, personally, for any cocaine days that John may or may not have had. When I knew him, he never expressed an interest in doing drugs of any kind, including alcohol—with the exception of cigarettes, which he smoked constantly.

John believed in me, and in my gifts as an actress, more than anyone else I’ve known, and he was the first person to tell me that I had to write and direct one day. He was also a phenomenal grudge-keeper, and he could respond to perceived rejection in much the same way the character of Bender did in “The Breakfast Club.” But I’m not thinking about the man right now but of the films that he left behind. Films that I am proud of in so many ways. Films that, like his earlier writing, though to a much lesser extent, could also be considered racist, misogynistic, and, at times, homophobic. The words “fag” and “faggot” are tossed around with abandon; the character of Long Duk Dong, in “Sixteen Candles,” is a grotesque stereotype, as other writers have detailed far more eloquently than I could.

And yet I have been told more times than I could count, by both friends and strangers, including people in the L.G.B.T. community, that the films “saved” them. Leaving a party not long ago, I was stopped by Emil Wilbekin, a gay, African-American friend of a friend, who wanted to tell me just that. I smiled and thanked him, but what I wanted to say was “Why?” There is barely a person of color to be found in the films, and no characters are openly gay. A week or so after the party, I asked my friend to put me in touch with him. In an e-mail, Wilbekin, a journalist who created an organization called Native Son, devoted to empowering gay black men, expanded upon what he had said to me as I had left the party. “The Breakfast Club,” he explained, saved his life by showing him, a kid growing up in Cincinnati in the eighties, “that there were other people like me who were struggling with their identities, feeling out of place in the social constructs of high school, and dealing with the challenges of family ideals and pressures.” These kids were also “finding themselves and being ‘other’ in a very traditional, white, heteronormative environment.” The lack of diversity didn’t bother him, he added, “because the characters and storylines were so beautifully human, perfectly imperfect and flawed.” He watched the films in high school, and while he was not yet out, he had a pretty good idea that he was gay.

“Pretty in Pink” features a character, Duckie, who was loosely based on my best friend of forty years, Matthew Freeman. We’ve been friends since I was ten, and he worked as a production assistant on the film. Like Emil, he’s out now, but wasn’t then. (It’s one of the reasons I’ve often posited, to the consternation of some fans and the delight of others, that Duckie is gay, though there’s nothing to indicate that in the script.) “The characters John created spoke to feeling invisible and an outsider,” Matt told me recently. They got at “how we felt as closeted gay kids who could only live vicariously through others’ sexual awakenings, lest we get found out with the very real threat of being ostracized or pummelled.”

John’s movies convey the anger and fear of isolation that adolescents feel, and seeing that others might feel the same way is a balm for the trauma that teen-agers experience. Whether that’s enough to make up for the impropriety of the films is hard to say—even criticizing them makes me feel like I’m divesting a generation of some of its fondest memories, or being ungrateful since they helped to establish my career. And yet embracing them entirely feels hypocritical. And yet, and yet. . . .

How are we meant to feel about art that we both love and oppose? What if we are in the unusual position of having helped create it? Erasing history is a dangerous road when it comes to art—change is essential, but so, too, is remembering the past, in all of its transgression and barbarism, so that we may properly gauge how far we have come, and also how far we still need to go.

While researching this piece, I came across an article that was published in Seventeen magazine, in 1986, for which I interviewed John. (It was the only time I did so.) He talked about the artists who inspired him when he was younger—Bob Dylan, John Lennon—and how, as soon as they “got comfortable” in their art, they moved on. I pointed out that he had already done a lot of movies about suburbia, and asked him whether he felt that he should move on as his idols had. “I think it’s wise for people to concern themselves with the things they know about,” he said. He added, “I’d feel extremely self-conscious writing about something I don’t know.”

I’m not sure that John was ever really comfortable or satisfied. He often told me that he didn’t think he was a good enough writer for prose, and although he loved to write, he notoriously hated to revise. I was set to make one more Hughes film, when I was twenty, but felt that it needed rewriting. Hughes refused, and the film was never made, though there could have been other circumstances I was not aware of.

In the interview, I asked him if he thought teen-agers were looked at differently than when he was that age. “Definitely,” he said. “My generation had to be taken seriously because we were stopping things and burning things. We were able to initiate change, because we had such vast numbers. We were part of the Baby Boom, and when we moved, everything moved with us. But now, there are fewer teens, and they aren’t taken as seriously as we were. You make a teen-age movie, and critics say, ‘How dare you?’ There’s just a general lack of respect for young people now.”

John wanted people to take teens seriously, and people did. The films are still taught in schools because good teachers want their students to know that what they feel and say is important; that if they talk, adults and peers will listen. I think that it’s ultimately the greatest value of the films, and why I hope they will endure. The conversations about them will change, and they should. It’s up to the following generations to figure out how to continue those conversations and make them their own—to keep talking, in schools, in activism and art—and trust that we care.

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By Tad Friend

By Jackson Arn

Morning Bonds: the Dynamics of Social Interaction in the Breakfast Club

This essay about “The Breakfast Club” explores the profound dynamics of social interaction among a diverse group of high school students during a Saturday morning detention. Through the lens of five archetypal characters, the narrative unfolds to reveal the clash between societal expectations and individual identity. As stereotypes crumble, the characters open up, forging genuine connections that transcend high school cliques. The confined setting of the library serves as a microcosm of social hierarchy, highlighting the stages of interaction from hostility to mutual understanding. The film also into the impact of authority, personified by Assistant Principal Vernon, prompting reflection on its role in shaping teenage identity. In essence, the essay unveils the shared vulnerabilities that bind these characters and emphasizes the enduring humanity connecting us all.

How it works

In the annals of teen cinema, few films resonate as deeply as John Hughes’ 1985 classic, “The Breakfast Club.” The movie stands as a poignant exploration of the dynamics of social interaction among a diverse group of high school students. Set against the backdrop of a Saturday morning detention, “The Breakfast Club” delves into the complexities of teenage relationships, peeling back the layers of stereotypes to reveal the shared vulnerabilities that bind these characters together.

The film introduces us to five archetypal high school students: the brain, the athlete, the basket case, the princess, and the criminal.

Initially, these students appear to be a motley crew with nothing in common, but as the day unfolds, their interactions reveal a deeper connection. The narrative is a testament to the power of shared experiences, as these seemingly disparate individuals navigate the challenges of adolescence together.

One of the central dynamics explored in “The Breakfast Club” is the clash between societal expectations and individual identity. Each character embodies a stereotype that society often imposes on teenagers. However, as they spend the day together, the façade of these stereotypes begins to crumble. The brain, Brian, is not just a nerdy overachiever, but a young man grappling with academic pressures and parental expectations. The athlete, Andrew, is more than a jock; he is burdened by his father’s relentless demands for success. The basket case, Allison, conceals a mysterious past beneath her eccentric exterior. The princess, Claire, struggles with the weight of familial expectations, while the criminal, John, harbors a desire for acceptance.

As the characters open up to each other, sharing their stories and vulnerabilities, the morning detention becomes a crucible for the forging of genuine connections. The film challenges the audience to question preconceived notions about identity and to recognize the universal struggles that unite us all, regardless of social labels. It is through this process of self-disclosure and empathy that the characters in “The Breakfast Club” form bonds that transcend the limitations of high school cliques.

The dynamics of social interaction in the film are further underscored by the setting itself—a confined space that serves as both a physical and metaphorical battleground. The library, where the detention takes place, becomes a microcosm of the social hierarchy present in the broader high school environment. The characters move through various stages of interaction, from initial hostility to reluctant camaraderie, and finally, to a sense of mutual understanding.

Moreover, “The Breakfast Club” explores the concept of authority and its impact on social dynamics. The character of Assistant Principal Vernon, who oversees the detention, represents the authoritarian figure synonymous with the high school experience. His rigid enforcement of rules and attempts to maintain control mirror the societal pressures that contribute to the students’ struggles. The film prompts viewers to reflect on the role of authority in shaping teenage identity and the consequences of perpetuating societal expectations.

In conclusion, “Morning Bonds: The Dynamics of Social Interaction in The Breakfast Club” provides a captivating glimpse into the intricacies of teenage relationships. The film’s enduring appeal lies in its ability to unravel the layers of social stereotypes and reveal the shared humanity that connects us all. As the characters navigate the challenges of a Saturday morning detention, they discover that their morning bonds extend far beyond the confines of high school cliques, leaving an indelible mark on the landscape of teen cinema.

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SPE 105 A Group Analysis of The Breakfast Club

Molly Ringwald says that elements of The Breakfast Club haven’t ‘aged well’

The Breakfast Club star Molly Ringwald has shared her mixed view on the cult classic, nearly 40 years after its release.

Ringwald was one of the most notable big screen personalities in the 1980s, namely for starring in John Hughes’ teen films such as Sixteen Candles (1984) and Pretty in Pink (1986).

In The Breakfast Club , she starred alongside Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy, as a popular student named Claire who was one of five high school pupils forced to attend detention on a Saturday.

The film is widely considered one of Hughes’ best works and a classic of the teen film genre.

However, in a new feature in The Times , Ringwald, now 56, has shared her feelings about the film as it stands in 2024, claiming that there are some factors that “haven’t aged well”.

“I don’t enjoy watching myself on screen. I only rewatched The Breakfast Club , which came out in 1985, because [my daughter] Mathilda wanted to see it with me,” she explained.

“There is a lot that I really love about the movie but there are elements that haven’t aged well – like Judd Nelson’s character, John Bender, who essentially sexually harasses my character.

“I’m glad we’re able to look at that and say things are truly different now.”

Though Bender and Claire eventually share a kiss towards the end of the film, juvenile delinquent Bender repeatedly harangues Claire about her virginity status as well as looking up her skirt at another moment.

Ringwald is not the only cast member who has criticised elements of the film in recent years.

When speaking with The Independent in 2020 , Ally Sheedy noted that she “never liked” the scene where her character, a socially awkward student named Allison, gets a makeover to be more conventionally attractive.

“Listen, it was Hollywood in the Eighties. They wanted to take the ugly duckling and make her into a swan. As far as I was concerned, that wasn’t what I was doing with that character, but that was what they wanted.”

Sheedy also responded to Ringwald’s 2018 personal essay about rewatching the film through a post-#MeToo lens.

“I think it’s a good thing to interrogate this stuff,” Sheedy said. “It’s a very good thing. And seeing which parts of it are still relevant or dated and how it speaks to some young people and not to others.”

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