The Breakfast Club: Social Cynicism or Uplifting Change?

John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club is considered by many to be a film essential to cultural American youth, although perhaps on a second viewing of the film social undertones are utilized in a precise manner in order to provide for a debatably ambiguous ending.  John Hughes movies in particular focus on class conflict and the portrayal in the discrepancy in individuals from different respective classes.  All of the class characters are described in the movie as “a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal.”

            Although it is quite difficult for me to make this judgment since I was not in High School in the 1980s, the landscape for school cliques seems to have changed allowing for more social mobility and freedom between class barriers.  Without needlessly reminiscing about High School experiences, I have a feeling that I was not the only person in my age group who was not restricted by social class or personal skills I had in order to make friends.  It seems as though times have changed slightly and that back in the 1980s the class barriers and structures were much more rigged, forcing barriers between kids of different economic classes and their respective personal skills.  The Breakfast Club accurately depicts these boundaries in social class by pitting the lower class individuals “the criminal and the basket case” against the higher class “princess and jock,” while the brain is left somewhere in the middle.  From the films beginning, it seems as though the divisions were quite clear in where the kids sat, the princess in the front, the brain behind her wishing for attention, the jock next to the princess, the basket case in the back and the jock moving the brain to take his inevitable spot behind the princess.  It becomes from this point on that this boundary of rigged social class is challenged through the kids having forced contact with one another.         

            The overarching motif is held up yet again in 1980’s movies as the kids gain unity through their shared animosity towards the authoritative adult.  In rebelling against the twisted adult, it incites the kids to share their similarities and individual feelings of self-loathing as they sit in their circle after their shared joint.  As all of the kids take turns telling one another their views on school cliques and their antics they also share about their own home lives and parental pressures.  After this outpouring of personal reflection, the question is raised on whether or not these new formed friendships would last until Monday, and the princess answers a truthful “no.”  As the barriers are immediately brought back up and all of the lower economically classed individuals hurl insults at her, including the jock, who despite his social class is economically more middle class.  While at the end of the film the kids seem to get rid of the barriers and end up pairing up with one another (the geek inevitable is paired romantically with school work, go figure).  The question however is still raised whether or not these kids will rise above these social boundaries and share their friendship with one another openly for the whole school to see.

            In my opinion, I don’t think the kids will remain friends after that day for a few reasons.  First of which being on how quickly the boundaries were raised as soon as the princess disagreed with the rest of the group and honestly said they would not remain friends.  The second reason being the story of the minor character of the janitor.  The janitor who early on in a very quick shot was seen in a trophy case as an individual of prestige, I’m going to assume athletics just for the fact that if it were for academics he would have a higher status job.  In assuming this I relate the janitor to the Andy’s jock character as parallels.  It’s at this point where the athlete does not rise above his social class to become friends with different individuals and karma reflects it.

            As cynical a movie as I read it, The Breakfast club proved to have various lighter moments


until all of the characters go their own separate ways off in to the distance, it reflects quite accurately


the depiction of 1980s class barriers and how the lifestyle of youth really was.

Desperately Seeking Susan: Women’s Struggle

            Desperately Seeking Susan is an interesting film in which we as the viewers and characters project on women who and what they are.  The viewer also is taken through post-modern aspects of 1950’s in order to show how women have transformed over time.

            As second wave feminism swept across America in the early 1960’s and throughout the early 80’s, preceding opinions toward ideas of female sexuality and gender roles were challenged.  Desperately Seeking Susan was a film that clearly depicts a woman’s shift from a typical mannerly housewife to a free-spirited woman, that character being Roberta Glass.  From the first scene we share with Roberta, the viewer understands that Roberta is a typical suburban housewife that is almost stifled and subservient to her dominating husband.  However, Roberta shows an interest in the periodic encounters two lovers share through the personal section of a New York newspaper.  As Roberta is mistaken for this free-spirited character named Susan, she begins to completely embody Susan and it becomes apparent to the viewer, not only do men idealize the free-spirited Madonna figure: but women do as well. 

Roberta herself begins to find solace in this character she discovers.  As Roberta hits her head and forgets her true identity, she begins to take on the image and character of Susan, a sexualized woman who is not held back by social boundaries.  Even though Roberta had ideas of freeing herself from her stagnant and unfulfilling lifestyle, as the viewers saw as her husband found feminist literature and self-help books, Susan’s image was what ultimately freed her.  As Roberta begins to dress more “scandalously” and also become more assertive, the universal message revealed is that without social restrictions even the 1950’s housewife could transform in to this sexualized and empowered woman.  Despite being mistaken for a prostitute and having people discriminate against her because of forced preconceived notions, Roberta is in more control of her own life than when she was with her husband.  Roberta’s entire transformation would not have been made possible without the character of Susan, who serves as a model for new feminist freedom.  One aspect that provides the viewer with more information on Roberta is her last name.  Roberta, whose last name is Glass is endowed with this last name to show the mirror image of Susan, opening the boundaries up for all women to follow the archetype of the free woman.

      The character of Susan is based directly on pop singer Madonna’s persona.  Madonna, who made a name based on reinvigorating on Marilyn Monroe’s image, utilizes it to make a social statement in Desperately Seeking Susan.  Madonna, a polarizing figure of the 80s and 90s uses her blonde bombshell image to break down barriers allowing women to talk about sex openly and disregard social taboos prohibiting any talk of sex.  Madonna does this through her sensual, yet intelligent persona to convey her ideals and arguments against social double-standards.  Jane Miller in her article Traces of Struggle and Desire said “Foreboding, prophecy, intimation, insinuation: these borders or barriers are dangerous, brutal. One must not make a mystique of them, but rather survive to celebrate art as their representation.”  Madonna did not shy away and has made it easier for women to express their sexuality openly.  Many of the steps taken to change social opinion have been made through movies such as Desperately Seeking Susan and although some men such as Roberta’s husband may not have been receptive to Roberta and accepting of her new ideals, many men such as Dez did.

            One thing in particular that grounded the movie was that there was a solution to the traditional antiquated man, and that socially updated man was fulfilled by means of the character Dez.  Unlike most men in the film, Dez does not immediately sexualize the women he meets and instead gives them a fair chance by not judging women immediately.  This character in particular had shown that not only had women become accepted of feminist thinking, but men had as well, which provides for a forward-thinking and overall empowering representation of society. 

Purple Rain: Synergy Success Story

Prince’s Purple Rain is considered by many to be an aesthetic masterpiece, not only in terms of plain beauty, but for its success in business to synergy marketing.  Simultaneously Purple Rain uses synergy as well as aesthetic lighting to give the movie a post-modern tone.

            In terms of synergy which is somewhat similar to vertical integration, wherein the thought process is: ‘if there’s good music then there people will pay money to see the movie.’  In this case it certainly worked as Purple Rain went on to gross over $80 million, while the album sold 20 million copies worldwide.  Purple Rain had gathered this business plan from other films such as Footloose, Saturday Night Fever and Top Gun that had made money for both the film and subsequent album.  Leonard Goldberg, the producer of War Games said "If you get a really hot soundtrack and you can get MTV playing it all day long you're in business.”  As a counter argument and overall pattern many albums had a rise in success based off of their music video.  R. Serge Denisoff and George Plasketes say in their article Synergy in 1980s Film and Music: Formula for Success or Industry Mythology? that “The new stress on music videos created an anomic, or at best a confused situation.”  Primarily popularized by Prince nemesis, Michael Jackson, music videos set the standard and boosted the success for an album based off of the relating music video.  The music video, Thriller became a number one box office hit and boosted the album of the same name to be the greatest selling album of all time.  Purple Rain shares post-modern ties to The Beatles and James Brown.      

            Not only did Purple Rain maintain the 1980’s trend of post-modernism, but also Prince as an artist.  As a music film, it contains similar lighting to earlier music films such as The Beatles Help!  Similarly, both films share many of the same gentle lighting and pure aesthetic quality in order to provide the audience with a gentle, fun tone.  Many of the color schemes lay similar as both use soft colors, such as white, blue, or light green, allowing the audience to not only enjoy the movie’s undoubtable fun aesthetic, but also provide the audience with eye candy while listening to some of their favorite songs.  As a film Purple Rain certainly has a pure aesthetic style, although that proves to be one of the only reasons (along with the relating album) that made it a hit.               

            Ok, here’s where I have to vent and I’m even breaking my typical formal tone to do so.  As a film I think Purple Rain offers little if next to nothing. I think that it provides the audience with some nice lighting while hearing a couple of Prince songs.  As for the revolutionary gender bender look Prince had, many artists had that look before him such as David Bowie, Michael Jackson or any other number of 60s-70s rock stars.  In the film gender I believe had played little part aside for Prince being the middle ground to the misogynistic Morris Day character and the female Apollonia.  As a regular film viewer I feel as if the movie would have been more successful as a piece if it tried to evoke a visceral feeling by taking a David Lynch surrealist approach and completely entrenched the audience in the mysticism that is Prince.  Even if Prince had wanted to make a concert video and released it I think that would have at least provided the audience an opportunity to feel what it had been like to go to a Prince concert.  Prince also could have just made something similar to The Beatles Help or Pink Floyd’s The Wall which utilized successful synergy and made each film a box office success.  All in all, the movie was released to make more money while giving the audience a sub-par piece of film while attempting to sell more records: which worked.

            I’m going to be honest; this was one of the first times I’ve ever watched a movie for the second time and still had absolutely nothing to say about it.  Throughout the movie I was looking for some sort of inkling of character development or layering, or significance to the dialogue or a layered theme pertaining to humanity or the human experience, but there is no one to be found.  Many say that the film had been nominated and even won an Oscar for the film score (which was well-deserved), but the film was also nominated for two Razzies.  The film in my opinion was primarily made to rival the “King of Pop’” and his classic Thriller music video, although I must admit the lighting was nice and conveyed the tone of the film very well.