"No, dad.... what about you?"
"F--- you."
"NO, dad - WHAT about YOU?"
"F--- YOU!"
Posted on 04/01/2005 6:37:08 PM PST by qam1
Has it been 20 years since we first met the athlete, the princess, the basket case, the brain and the criminal who would redefine the teen-movie genre?
Last month marked the anniversary of “The Breakfast Club,” perhaps the ultimate teen movie. No, it's not the first modern teen flick — that title might be given to the raunchy “Animal House” or “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” But the interplay between the five archetypal characters makes it the most memorable — and amazingly, John Hughes wrote the script in two days.
Though it has aged, “The Breakfast Club” is no cultural relic. Its examination of social classes, basic human interaction and high-school dynamics continues to make it fodder for college classrooms. And its sex-free, dialogue-driven plot is a rarity in a teen market that tries to entice its viewership with as much nudity and vulgarity as it can squeeze into an R rating.
In celebration of “The Breakfast Club's” 20th anniversary and its five enduring characters, we bring you our list of “Breakfast Club” fives.
THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW
1. Before filming, Ally Sheedy (The Basket Case) and Molly Ringwald (The Princess) were to switch roles and Emilio Estevez (The Athlete) was to play the criminal.
2. John Cusack was one of the finalists for The Criminal (Judd Nelson) role, and Nicolas Cage read for it as well. Rick Moranis was originally cast for the role of Carl the janitor.
3. In the opening scene panning around the school, one of the shots shows Carl the janitor as man of the year, many years earlier.
4. When Bender (Nelson) is crawling through the rafters, he begins a joke about a woman walking into a bar. What's the punch line? There is none. Nelson ad-libbed.
5. The original cut of “The Breakfast Club” ran almost 2½ hours. Universal Pictures cut nearly an hour off the film and destroyed the negatives — Hughes recently said he has the only complete copy in existence.
WAYS IT WOULD BE DIFFERENT TODAY
1. Supervision: Five kids sitting alone in a library all day? Lawsuit!
2. Technology: Imagine the change in group dynamics if Ringwald was yakking on a cell phone and The Brain surfed the Internet on a Wi-Fi-enabled laptop instead of the group talking to each other.
3. The characters: All five are white. This isn't the real world — even in Midwestern suburbia. Some diversity, please.
4. Music: Punk and rap weren't mainstream in 1985 but they'd be all over a “Breakfast Club” remake.
5. The Basket Case: Today, Sheedy's character likely would be punk or goth. And she definitely wouldn't be a friendless outsider — these groups are nearly as common as the athlete or the brain.
WHY IT STILL MATTERS
1. “The film is brilliant in its simplicity — five students, one day, one room. It's a testament to the quality of the writing.” — Robert C. Bulman, author of “Hollywood Goes to High School”
2. “('The Breakfast Club') established a John Hughes mystique. What 'Citizen Kane' is to normal movies, Hughes was to teen movies.” — Bob Thompson, professor of media and pop culture at Syracuse University
3. “The high-school film does reflect Hollywood's perception of social class. Among suburban middle-class students, these concerns are real.” — Bulman
4. “While you were watching it, you got the sense it was saying something profound, and it was getting to some deeper truth.” — Thompson
5. “One of the reasons why the movie still resonates is that (teenagers) see themselves in the characters, even though they're exaggerated.” — Bulman
THEMES FROM THE FILM
1. When you grow up, your heart dies: A main point in “The Breakfast Club” — and, in fact, in most teen movies — is that being young is the greatest possible attribute. Even for the unpopular characters, high school is viewed as a pinnacle of vitality and the rest of life is a slow fade toward an inevitable end.
2. Us against them: No doubt, the teens see their social differences as divisive. But when it comes down to it, they band together against adults — both against their bad parents and the buffoon principal, content in his bad suit.
3. Suburban doldrums: Calling “The Breakfast Club” a teen movie is an oversimplification — it's really a white suburban teen drama. Aside from child abuse (“Do I stutter?”), the kids' problems are simple, centering mostly on pressure from clueless and overbearing parents. Doesn't quite match up with “Dangerous Minds,” does it? But even Fresh Prince Will Smith knew — parents just don't understand.
4. Social hierarchy is real: Take five marginally different people, give them different clothes and they'll fight with each other all day. Although the characters are quickly broken down, they arrive believing they can't communicate. As Bender says: “Do you think I'd speak for you? I don't even know your language.”
5. Everyone's the same inside: Despite their arguments, the characters realize they're not that different. The movie ends with all five as best friends. Of course, it's never explained just what happens on Monday.
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20 Years --- Ouch!
Wrong. She'd bring a gun to the library and kill all the rest before killing herself.
Funny thing about these goth types today. They think they're doing something new but in reality it goes a lot further back than the 80s.
Its a shame Judd Nelson turned out to be such a dork in real life.
Out of all the characters, I'm a mixture of Ally Sheedy and and Anthony Michael Hall. As I get older, I'm becoming more and more like Richard "Dick" Vernon, played all so memorably by Paul Gleason.
Great movie. Still one of my favorites. Part of me could identify with every character.
Ugh, 20 years. I feel VERY old.
Must go get my walker now.
You mess with the bull you get the horns, young man.
Don't talk! Don't talk! It makes it crawl back up.
Demented and sad, but social.
I forgot my pencil.
To me, the essence of the film is summed up in the note at the end:
Dear Mr. Vernon
We accept the fact that we had to spend a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong, but we think it's stupid for you to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us. In the simplest terms with the most convienient definitions. But what we found out is that each of us is a brain, an athlete, a basketcase, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question?
Sincerely Yours, The Breakfast Club
At the time I was atttending Glenbrook South so it was really cool for us! (Sixteen Candles was filmed in the area, too)
Little know facts about "The Breakfast Club"
Before every death in the movie, there are bananas in the previous scene.
Molly Ringwald had an agent named Estevez, and Emelio Estevez had an agent named Ringwald.
Marlon Brando received $4 million for his ten minutes on screen.
Anthony Michael Hall, the geek, had no idea that his dialogue had been dubbed over with James Earl Jones' rich baritone until he saw Sixteen Candles in the theater.
During filming of the chariot race scene, one of the extremely expensive cameras was completely destroyed when a chariot ran right over it. The footage right up to the camera's destruction was used in the final film.
Judd Nelson nor anyone else ever said "Play it again Sam". What he did say was "Play it Sam".
The last word Ally Sheedy says is Rosebud. In real life Rosebud was the nickname for Ted Turner's mistress.
"F--- you."
"NO, dad - WHAT about YOU?"
"F--- YOU!"
Go fix me a turkey pot pie!
I was a big boy of twenty and in the Nav when I saw it at the mall outside NTC Orlando, but I knew it was a work for the ages. John Hughes, I already knew from Sixteen Candles, and he would go on to do as well or worse in the years to come. I never understood his obsession with this whole class-struggle theme (Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful) but I guess he grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and was unable to get it out of his system. I personally saw his lack of racial mix as necessary to not detract from his central, class-obsessed theme.
Man, do I feel old.
The characters were probably supposed to be some sort of cross-section. Nobody relates to just one. Most of us can relate to at least three.
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