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.
You bring up an observation that I'm surprised we haven't really discussed in class for The Breakfast Club: the beleaguering of authority. It probably hasn't been brought up at length because we mostly discussed it in other movies (especially E.T.), but when you pointed out the resistance against the principal in this film I find myself thinking that this film offers a different sort of dynamic for that relationship. There is a disillusioned sense of being forever caught within the confines of your early life, one of this film's most cynical assertions. You see a principal who probably was no less rebellious than The Breakfast Club members, and who is now their antagonist but similarly moored in Saturday morning boredom so many years later. You see a janitor who looks like he was high-profile during his high school career but is now mopping the corridors, urging his son to strive for academic greatness. And you get the sense that Emilio Estevez's character is bent on the same fate of a failed athletic career and a destination of lower middle class or working class in the same town that he currently resides. The conflict between rebel and authority is cyclical, and it may actually offer a counter to the reading's assertion because this cycle assumes that achieving a higher class is not as worthwhile as it may seem. Then again maybe it still supports the reading, perhaps these are examples of failures who never achieved a higher class, and their roles are to discourage people from getting stuck in the cycle by seeing how undesirable the consequences are. I don't know which scenario is more cynical.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the students will not remain friends at the end of the movie. There are too many hints in the movie that they won't. I also like how you mentioned parallels with the principal in the movie. I also agree with Jack that the principal is very much on the same page as the students in his animosity and rebellion against having to be in detention. The scene where the janitor catches him looking through the basement files really solidified this for me. In this scene the principal goes from flaunting his authority in almost a rebellion to the job he has found himself trapped in, to being caught and having the janitor hold authority over him.
ReplyDeleteThe students, like the principal and the janitor, don't seem to be set up to be friends in the end. If anything the minor adult characters convince me more of the rigidity of the social and class structure of the school and make the whole movie take on a more apathetic and rebellious (but ultimately accepting) view of the current clique and class that the students find themselves in.
I'm not sure if times have changed and class structures in high school have gotten more fluid or less important either. I'm not sure that they were ever that universal to begin with (one of my main issues with Hughes, the way his very narrow suburban worlds somehow came to represent something universal, when they really weren't). It's certain that the 1980s zeitgeist was far more materialistic in general though--we have plenty of evidence for that (though I think we're still that way. We're just more used to it. Try to be the kid at school without the latest tablet or smartphone these days). Your points about the principal probably being once as rebellious as these kids were and Carl being a scary possible future for at least one of them are well-taken. More direct use of the reading would have strengthened this. You allude to some of it, but not explicitly.
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