Recently I took the time to watch "The Breakfast Club," and it was a pretty eye-opening experience (seriously you should watch it). Now, this movie revolves around an unlikely group of strangers meeting for a long detention on a Saturday morning at Shermer High School. The film starts out seemingly simple enough. You meet each of the main characters saying goodbye to their parents, or in John Bender’s case defiantly strutting towards the school. You have Claire Standish telling her father she doesn’t really think she deserves to be in detention on a Saturday, only to be dismissed by her father who promises to take her shopping afterwards. Next is Andrew Clark, a star wrestler who is reprimanded by his father because this detention might ruin Andrew’s “ride” to becoming a champion wrestler. Brian Johnson is next who is chided by his mother asking if this is going to be his first or his last detention. He promptly answers the last and hurriedly leaves. The last person to enter the school is Allison Reynolds, who goes to say goodbye to her parents only to be left in the dust as the car speeds away. The detention begins with a sermon from Vice Principal Richard Vernon, who assigns each student to write an essay about who they think they are for being in detention. Instead of writing that essay, what happens next is arguably one of the greatest journeys of adolescent self-discovery and self-awareness in the history of film.
John Bender is the catalyst character of this movie. He begins acting up during the detention and the others judge him based on his overall aura of questionable behaviors whether it be talking shit to the Vice Principal or leaving the library to go get marijuana from his locker. He calls the others out on their stereotypical traits as well, which incites Claire to burst out in a fit of frustration about her parents and what their dysfunction does to her.
She states that her parents are on the brink of divorce and use her to get back at each other. She feels responsible to try and keep her family together. Andrew jumps in next and describes about the pressure his dad gives him to be the best at wrestling, which is part of the reason he’s in detention. His dad told him a lot about how he used to do a bunch of stupid things in high school for the laughs and support of his friends. Andrew felt that he should do the same to live up to his father’s expectations. So he decided to beat up another student and tape his butt cheeks together, reflecting on how much torture and humiliation he put that student through. That’s all he could think about was that as well as how his friends just stood by, laughed, and cheered him on. Brian is also pressured by his parents, but to keep up his GPA. The reason he is in detention because he brought a flare gun to school with thoughts of killing himself but the gun went off in his locker. Allison’s parents don’t even acknowledge her existence. She came to detention because she had nothing better to do. John Bender is regularly abused by his parents. This group comes to realize that they all have more in common than they originally thought regardless of the different backgrounds they come from. They find out that people are more than their stereotypes and each of them is “A brain, and an athlete, and a basketcase, a princess, and a criminal.”
Now an important question to ask is, “This film is made thirty years ago, so how does this impact me now?” Stereotypes are still very present in today’s society, even if they don’t necessarily take the same form as they did in the 80’s. We still have some older stereotypes about jocks, preps, nerds, etc., but now we have new stereotypes as well like stereotypes about weeabos, LGBTQ people, a newfound resolve about what roles men and women should play, or stereotypes about what people from various countries around the world including our own are like. I myself am guilty of stereotyping people and judging them without knowing who they really are every now and then, but after watching this movie, I’ve learned and re-solidified that everyone is more than their stereotypes and that I can’t just pick and choose which people I want to apply that statement too. I’m not saying it’s wrong to be a flamboyant gay man, a “white gurl,” or a waifu obsessed weeb, but I think it’s important to remind everyone, including myself, that every person has their own story that is way more involved than anyone can possibly know or any stereotype can describe. That’s a life lesson that’s important regardless of what decade it is.
