It does not capture the teen angst of a generation.
It captures the teen angst of all past and future generations.
Re-watching "The Breakfast Club" as an adult did more for me than I thought it would. As a writer, I am envious of what John Hughes was able to do in his directorial debut. (Yeah, I know that it's technically "16 Candles", but he did this one first, okay.)
The scene that seems to resonate most with people is this one:
And it's beautiful. It shows all the differences between these so-called stereotypes that people just don't see. Here's the thing: this is always true. It's not just true in high school, it's true in college too, though people just don't care about it as much.
High school is such a concentrated place where we all see each other and care about what everyone thinks about one another.
One of my favorite moments in the film is when the janitor turns to Mr. Vernon and tells him that he probably does care what the students think about him, and that's the sad truth of this movie. People care what people think about them.
We just do.
It's why we wear makeup, it's why we dress a certain way, hell, it's why we think the way we do.
Of course, this isn't to say that everyone is like this, but I think its safe to say that a lot of us start out that way, especially in high school.
One of my favorite authors, Tommy Wallach wrote a book called "We All Looked Up". I was so mad at the ending that I physically threw the book across my dorm room.
It wasn't because it sucked.
It wasn't because I didn't agree with it.
It was because it was so unbelievably incredible that I just wanted to consume myself into the book forever.
It was the exact representation of teenagers' feelings in high school as they face the world that adults like to call "real", as if the world we've been living in for the past 18 years was fake.
It's Tommy's book that so reminds me of "The Breakfast Club", but I have to say, I read Tommy's book as an adult. When I watched "The Breakfast Club" I was a teenager.
I didn't like the latter. It was too real. It was everything I was feeling at the moment, and I didn't like the fact that it displayed that for me.
I just wanted it to not be true.
Now, I can look back at that time with happiness because it's over, and watching "The Breakfast Club" made me realize that.
We shouldn't trivialize what high schoolers go through because it's one of the worst times of our lives.
So, watch "The Breakfast Club" because it still resonates, it's so important, and give high schoolers a break.
