February 28, 2019 • 60 mins
On this live episode recorded at San Francisco Sketchfest, Caitlin and Jamie discuss The Breakfast Club and hereby sentence the movie to Saturday detention.
(This episode contains spoilers)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh, Hi, Hi, everybody, it's us. It's us. We're just
here to let you know that you will be listening
to our Breakfast Club episode. Which you do know but
you may not know, is that this episode was recorded
live last month in San Francisco. Ever heard of San Francisco?
I have. We were there for like a whole twelve hours.
(00:20):
We were Yeah, we just wanted to say hello. We
wanted to let you know if you live in the
Los Angeles area, we have a live crossover show coming
up in March with The Daily Zeitgeist. That's right, It
is on March nine. It is at Dynasty Typewriter and
we will be there with Jack and Miles of The
(00:41):
Daily Zeitgeist and we're going to be talking about the news,
the trends, the movies, the moments of nine nine. Uh So,
if you live in the area, definitely roll the fun through.
We would love to meet you and hang. And you know,
we don't like to make it a habit to be
(01:02):
on stage with men. But what do you think I
was going to say, we just got friends. I thought
you're just gonna say on stage in general, And I
was like, we we do live show that No, no, no,
we don't like to be seen with men very often,
but you know we're making an exception one night only
and we'd love to see you there. Yes, so get
(01:23):
tickets at becdelcast dot com and then click on live
appearances and we'll see you there. Enjoy the live show
on the Breakfast Club. On the dol cast, the questions asked,
movies have women in them? Are all their discussions just
boyfriends and husbands? And do they have individualism? The patriarchy?
Zef invest start changing it with the bel Cast? Hi,
(01:49):
answer Scott, what's up? Are you in? All out? You
said the name of the city and everything. Hi, I'm Caitlin,
I'm Jane me and we're the Bechtel Cast. We are
indeed in San Francisco. Uh, it is rainy, it is
(02:09):
five pm. We are shocked and thrilled you're here. Thank
you for being here. Clap if you've heard the Bechtel
Cast before. Okay, and um not to put anyone on blast.
There's no wrong answer, but obviously there is based on
what you just heard. But clap if you if you
(02:30):
haven't heard our show before, Okay, sick are you here
with friends? Did friends drag you along? Yes? We'll put
on the best possible. We'll do our people to our
best as usual. That is all we can guarantee. So,
if you haven't listened before, The Bechtel Cast is a
(02:50):
podcast where Caitlin and I for five hundred years now
have been analyzing the role and treatment of when men
and female characters in famous movies. That's right. We use
the Bechdel Test as a jumping off point. It's a
media test that requires that two female identifying characters with
(03:12):
names speak to each other in the movie that they're
in for at least a two line exchange, and they
cannot talk about men. No, hard, hard. Yeah, let's see
if we can do it. I know right now, Jamie Caitlin,
(03:32):
that's it. We did it. Pretty fucking incredible what you
can do. So we're covering The Breakfast Club today. Uh,
is there anyone who has not seen this movie? Round? Okay?
Someone is that writing front? Eager for knowledge? Um, we're
(03:57):
talking about how The Breakfast Club kind of sounds like
the Bechtel Cast, right, except we wouldn't let John Hughes
anywhere near us. What is your history with the movie, Jamie,
Um Judd Nelson made my mom really horny and that's
(04:20):
the most And now I saw this movie in high
school and I thought it was fine. I saw on college.
I thought that was fine, and then I saw it
a few days ago, I thought it was fine. I
don't like I just I you know, I just John
Hughes movies just don't do much for me, even if
they're like not promoting rape, Like, it's just not He's
(04:43):
just not my not except for uh, some parts of
Uncle Buck. Oh sure, I like transplants and automobiles. I
think that's my favorite. What is that about. It's well,
it's uh Steve Martin and John Candy, So already I'm
not passing the Beckel test. They hate each other, they
(05:06):
use a lot of modes of transportation. That's pretty much it.
That sounds pretty good. I would watch that. So it's
just the two of us today. We don't have a
it is. Oh, I forgot about my history with the movie. Yeah,
we've never done this before our first first episode. My
history with the movie is I saw it for the
first time in high school. I think one of my
(05:28):
like English teachers was like hate kids you. He encouraged
us to watch the movie as like an assignment or
I don't know. There's something about like we watched it
in school or something like that. Uh, and that teacher
was later fired. Um, not not for that. He was
(05:50):
fired because it was discovered that he was an erotic dancer. Oh, which, look,
he should have been fired as a teacher for that.
Hold on, this story has taken a turn. I thought
you were about to say how he's a molester. It's like, sure,
everyone not molester. Okay, see that was that was my track, coach. Uh,
(06:14):
but that's that's not fair. That's tough there. This is
kind of like a cool old person movie to show
young people. They're like, I get it. You want to
see Amelia Estevis cry. I get it. Just like, yeah, sure,
I guess. I guess he really leveled with me. Should
(06:35):
I do the recap? Yeah, let's do the recap. You know,
people love a recap. And we don't have a guest,
so that means I get to interrupt twice as much.
Pretty cool, Pretty cool. The movie opens with glass shattering. No,
it opens with a David Bowie quote, and then I'm sorry,
(06:56):
you're like, okay, what decade are we in here? Is
that like John Hughes or Charlie Brooker. Am I right? Um,
it's a black miryor joke. Uh, stop making fun of
Charlie Brooker. Computers are actually bad, so yeah, technology actually
a little scary. Are you a hacker? Though? Yeah? That
(07:18):
show is Charlie Brooker or warning everyone about me? Speaking
of hackers though, there is like in the beginning with
the montage of all the quick cuts of Like the School,
it shows a classroom and one of the signs, there's
like a sign hanging up in the classroom that says
hackers will be expelled. Has anyone noticed that? Yeah? It's
(07:40):
go back okay, opens we meet five students. They have
detention for nine hours? Is that normal? Did anyone have
anything like this at their school? There? You just have
to spend a feature length amount of time with people. No,
it's like Lord of the like all the Lord of
(08:02):
the Rings movies worth of time. Yeah. I feel like
that's asking for someone to get beat up. Like, if
you leave five teenagers in a room together for nine hours,
someone's going to get hurt. That's just how teens work.
So the Fox students with me are Claire, the Princess,
Molly Ringwald. She's like the rich popular girl type. We've
(08:24):
got Andy Clark, the athlete, that's Amelia Estevez's character. Yeah,
he does cry, they all cry. I think Brian A.
K the brain name anagram am I right? Andy Michael
Hall does not rape anyone in this John Hughes movie.
So that's good. You get very different anthem. Actually you
(08:47):
kind of get the same character, but a rapist true wild.
Alison Reynolds is the basket case. That's Ali. She'd use character.
She's not like the other girls. True. And finally Benders
the criminal um that's Jen Nelson's character. He's twenty six
(09:07):
years old. He's in this movie kissing a sixteen year
old Molly Ringwald and just behind the scenes fact that
I found freaky, like a lot of male actors choose
because they won't get in trouble if they do. Jed
Nelson was like, I think I'm gonna go method with
this and just bullied Molly Ringwald for the entirety of
(09:27):
the movie. He's ten years older than her offset right
offset and and John Hughes at one point tried to
fire him, and then all the teens were like no.
It was if I don't I can't make heads their
tails of that, but it's true anytime a man things
going method, he just wants to yell at someone like.
That's just literally what it is. Also, we talked in
(09:50):
the car on the way up here that the members
of the Breakfast Club are all also sort of the
Spice Girls. Break this down. Okay, Sporty Spice obviously Amelio Estevez,
Scary Spice is Jed Nelson. See this is see this
is where we don't. Okay, all right, let me make
(10:12):
a case for this. Jesus Francisco. We thought that Posh
is Molly Ringwald. Can we agree with that baby we
said was Anthony Michael because he's innocent and blonde, a
flesh colored headed hair person. I'm aware that would make
(10:37):
Ginger Alie Sheet's character. And it's not a one to
one match, but we've got a solid three out of five.
But then also Ginger is Molly like Molly Ringwald is
Ginger e based on hair color alone. Sorry to reduce
hair a hole here. Anyway, let's move on. We've got
(11:01):
Richard Vernon. He's the teacher, is the assistant character. He's
the assistant principal who are in there often. I feel
like that's like a stock character of like the put
Upon assistant principle. Isn't Captain Underpants and assistant principle or
was he the principle. I think he was the assistant principal,
just the scholarly observation. And he's like this disciplinarian. He's like,
(11:26):
you guys can't talk, you can't move, blah blah blah,
and I have to write an essay about who they
think they are. Then Bender, he's like the tough guy.
He's trying to get a rise out of everybody. He's like,
you're a nerd and everyone's like, well, you're a jock.
And then they're all just hating each other each other
labels because teens, but they mostly ignore the quote unquote
(11:48):
basket case girl. And then she doesn't talk for most
of the movie. Then we see a montage they're doing
their stuff, take out the dancing montage. Is this movies
thirty five minutes long, a lot of dancing. A shot
where Anthony Michael Hall's character is like adjusting his crotch
(12:10):
and then like puts his hat on his lap. Are
we to believe that her I don't know. I don't
I hope not. It's hard to say, hard to say,
I don't know. I'm so sorry. We can't know. Okay, So, um,
it's hard because there's like kind of not a plot,
(12:31):
so I don't know how to recap this. They could
only afford three rooms to shoot the movie in, so
they gotta emote in a lot of different good, fine spaces.
I don't know, they're just harassed like that for most
of the movie. Affordable names. He launch it some point
(12:55):
and then um, there's this conversation where Brian is like,
I'm a virgin, but I'm embarrassed to admit it, and
then Molly ring well it's like I think virgins are cool.
And then everyone's like oh, and everyone's like whoa, and
then Jed Nelson's like, what are you guys talking about? Um?
You know, A lot of points are brought up. Yea,
(13:17):
the Bender character reveals that he's being physically abused at
home by his father. We learned different sort of backstories
of each of the characters, like Ali Sheitt's character is
ignored by her parents, which is why she's eating dog
food or something like I saw too much of my
solf and I sat too much of myself in her.
(13:38):
I was like Okay, so she's like a teenager, but
she's She's like, but what do I do? She just
if she had access to Mike's Hard lemonade, she would
be drinking Mike's Hard. She went, she yeah, I mean
she was saying she was drinking vodka. But she she
can't even get her hands on an MHL embarrassing, so
she eats pixie sticks on sandwiches instead. She's not like
(14:01):
the other girls. Everyone. She needs you to know. And
then there's a point where they go to Bender's locker
to get weed, and then they think and there is
homophobic slurs written all over his locker, and then they
think they're gonna get caught because they are running around
(14:23):
the halls trying to dodge Vernon in a scene that
is not unlike Titanic where Jack and Rose are running
around the ship. And then they come Billy Zane. What
Billy's Zane was in this movie too much? He was
busy being in Back to the Future as one of
Biff's crony, playing a similar character to the Jen Nelson character.
(14:46):
As long as Zane's getting work, Yeah, anyway, I can
sleep at night. So there's a gate and they can't
go any farther, just like Jack and Rose. So they
have to turn around, they have to find another way.
And then and then one of the drowns. No spoilers,
we won't tell you which character it is, but in
(15:08):
the breakfast club, Bender is like, all sacrifice myself, so
he goes running around all crazy in the halls and
gets caught so that the others don't. Yeah, and then
there's also the scene prior to that where the assistant
principal verbally abuses Bender and like just it. That's like
a tough scene to to unpack. But um, at the beginning,
(15:32):
you're not sure why Benders being such a dick to everyone,
But as as the movie goes on, you see you
start to understand why. So by the time he's flailing
around and got the weed, you're like, okay, this is
this is like time with me, right yeah. Uh. And
then shortly after that, whenever he gets caught by Vernon,
he like locks Bender in a closet and then like
(15:55):
tries to initiate a physical fight with him, and then
we see like him kind of bender back down and
not engage. Um, so maybe he's more sensitive than we
all think, or maybe his teachers trying to fight him
like like an unhinged person, like, hey, everyone at this
school likes me. No one will believe me if I
(16:15):
fight you. It's like, what are you talking about? Sicko?
And then Bender escapes through like the air ducks and
gets back into the library very mission impossible, true, and
then he hides under a desk because Vernon comes in,
and that's when we get the famous and upsetting underwear
(16:36):
crotch shot of character. We'll get there, don't you worry.
There's and then they're all there. They smoke the weed.
There's a million dance. You cannot have an eighties teen
movie without Kevin Bacon or Amelia Estevez or someone just
(16:58):
dancing for like five minutes straight. Guys, remember when we
was cool? Still? This movie brings you back to when
we was cool, right, and not for Dad's trying to
tell you they get it. And then we get to
the scene where they're all sitting around and they're talking
about sex. Ever heard of it? Who's horny? Who's not?
(17:23):
That's not how it goes. Um, they're like all virgins
basically pretty much. Bender's trying to like, he's like he
goes back to a berating Claire for a bit. They
all talk about, Hey, are we going to be friends
after this? And then Claire's like, I'm too popular, just
a straight shooter. Yeah, And then um, Brian reveals that
(17:44):
he is failing shop class. And then the reason he
got detention is that he brought a gun to school
with the intention of committing suicide, but with a flair gun,
which is played as a joke and it's I don't know,
we can talk about that later, but also, yeah, remember
the days when you could bring a weapon to school
(18:06):
and only get Saturday detention? Like what? Oh goodness? And
then Allison's like, I didn't do anything to get detention.
I just showed up. But first she says a lot
of funked up stuff yes, um, and then yeah, and
then her her secret, as it were, whatever is is
(18:30):
that she is a compulsive liar. Right, and then they
dance again, right, somehow they dance again because recycling shots
earlier Justmelio Estevez dancing, and then they danced as a group.
That's the video that Alexandria Cacio Cortez was recreating when
(18:52):
she was a student at Boston University. Now is a
great time to bring up that I do have a
master's degree in screen running from Boston University. Thank you.
Why would you cheer for that? Unfortunately AOC and I
did not overlap at our time at BU, but you know,
(19:15):
be you represent. Okay, wow, I'm sorry, Jamie, I also
went to college, Thank you so much. Yeah up, guys,
it's a fucking scam. Yeah, no one learned. It's a
fucking scam. And we're all going to be in debt
until we're dead. Please thank you our merch over there,
(19:40):
because we are drowning in student learned debt. I took
a class on lost in college. I'm just like there
and I'm never yeah, and I'm never going to own
a home. You know, it's just like sure worth it. Okay.
So after the dance where they all dance, Claire gives
out us in a makeover because women, right, right, we'll
(20:04):
talk about that. And then Claire, for no reason, it seems,
goes and kisses Bender on the collar bone. Yeah, I
mean because after harassing her for nine consecutive hours, she's
decided he's worn her down. You know, really uh, really
(20:24):
really male writing going on there. And then Andy, who
sees Allison, is like wow, you're pretty, you took your
hoodie off. I love you. And then meanwhile, Brian, who
has no one to kiss it's forced to do everyone's
(20:45):
home work, which honestly is a wild power move that
I thought was a little funny because he because they
were all like in that moment, I was like, bright,
you're seriously falling for this right now, Like he's just
They're just like, Iran, you're the smartest side of all
of us. What do they know is what he wants
to hear? And he's like yeah, so, and they're like,
(21:07):
so we were thinking you would do. I'm like, this
happens to like dorkey kids in school all the time.
They don't fall for that ship. After a while, Brian's
too old to be fallen for that trick. Grow up, Brian,
don't write everyone's essay, but he does. And he's like,
you see us, how you want to see us? Mr Vernon.
He kind of goes edge lord on it. He's like,
(21:31):
but we're all the criminal and princess and so teach gees.
Can you imagine like if you were a person doing
their job as someone left you that letter, I would
literally be like yeah, fine, and I would throw it
away at me, I feel like, yeah, awesome. Uh and
(22:01):
then and then they'll leave, and then there are two
hetero kisses, and then all fingerless gloves pumps his fist
and then we all get to go home. And that's
the movie. Is the movie. I had fun with this
(22:27):
because I'm not particularly attached to the movie. Um and
a lot of it I don't know. I mean, things
I appreciate about this movie are that it is a
movie that, even though it misfires in a lot of
directions and and and when ways we'll talk about it,
at least takes teenage characters seriously. And and for the
(22:49):
most part we're seeing teenagers like acting out and and
you know, often harassing each other and teasing each other.
But at very least you get background for everyone in
some context. And unlike a lot of other teen movies,
it doesn't go the direction of playing the adults in
a totally comical way to were like often if it's
(23:11):
like a movie directed or marketed at young people, it's
like all the teens get it, and the adults are
fucking idiots, and they are, but like you at least
get background on them as well. And I don't know,
everyone felt at least there was a tension given to
every character, even if a lot of it was like no,
(23:34):
So I appreciated that. Yeah, and I agree. I I
don't have any special attachment to this movie either. Again,
I'm not like a huge John Hughes fan, but I
mean he was doing what no one was really doing
at that time. And this is something that um Molly
Ringwald brings up in the piece that she wrote for
The New Yorker where he kind of revolutionized stories for
(23:59):
and about teenagers. So I understand why this is a
beloved movie then and still now. And I think that
one of the things that I think it does pretty well,
and this is kind of mirroring what you were saying, Jamie,
but it spends time and attention on each of the character.
So you know, we talked about the female characters, and
(24:19):
they are although I don't know about the character well,
they're underrepresented in this movie in general, because you see
the Breakfast Club is male character heavy, and then the
other three adults, all three adult characters you see her men,
the assistant principal, Carl Cool Janitor, Carl shout out to
(24:40):
my freaking boy, and then uh Amelio Estevez is wild
and Dad who isn't? Who's Amelia Seves? Is real? Debt
isn't some of fam Martin Martin Sheen missed opportunity? What
someone is heckling Martin? What's up? President? Dude? Aaron Sorkin
(25:03):
was canceled today, Pay attention there, come on there? Uh
but Martin she Grayson and Frankie season five, Oh yeah,
you might know him from Grayson Frankie. I love that show. Anyways,
what were we talking about? Oh? Too many men? That's
a note only, but yeah, I mean all three. I
(25:26):
think it was like a misstep and to be generous
with John Hughes, who does not have a good track record. Uh,
and in a lot of respects, making every adult character presented, uh,
male character is both weird and also not reflective of
the education system. Like it just was like, I don't know,
(25:46):
it just seems like a dumb missed opportunity. Yeah. We
see Brian's mom very briefly, and I think I don't
think we see any other parents, but she's like, study
what we see. I mean, we see dad, Amelia's daddy.
But in addition to that, on sports dad was yeah
that's poor dad. Yeah, And I think with the Molly
Ringwald character, like so much attention is focused on her um,
(26:09):
which is good for our discussion. But with the basket
Case Ali, sheitdy character. She doesn't even say words until
like thirty three minutes into the movie or something like that,
and then it's like acting vaguely Ferrell like it's it's
her character is is confusing, and it's weird because it's
(26:29):
like it comes out that she's a compulsive liar, which
is played as a joke basically because they're like, oh,
everything this, but like if you only have two female
characters and at the end you're like, oh, this female
character one of the two. Don't listen to a word
she fucking says. Not a true word comes out of
this lady's mouth like that that's not that she said
much to begin with, because then she doesn't speak again
(26:52):
until like I think it's fifty nine minutes into the movie.
But the things she does say at the end are
very dark, Like she says that she has sex with
her therapists as an underage girl. Like she says some
really dark stuff and and then to like say all
that stuff and then just like, oh, I'm a compulsive
liar t he and then kiss Semilio Estevez is like,
(27:15):
first of all, what and that's like a very nineteen
eighties like glazing over of what, like of a discussion
of mental illness? Uh, And like a compulsive lying is
like a very blanket term that it's clear the writer
doesn't understand or has done any research on, and he
just kind of uses it ultimately as a way to
(27:36):
be like, well, uh, I hope you weren't listening to
her because she's nuts, and but we made her pretty,
so now she's gonna kiss Martin Sheen's son yep, like,
which is a bummer because I love Ali Sheity and
that I mean, it's it's weird because I feel like
a lot of young women and and you know, older
(27:57):
women who see that movie more closely aligned with her
than with Claire. But the chasm between those two people
is like no one is really either of them. But
when I was a teenager, I was like, well, I
guess I'm the one eating dog food because no one
(28:18):
invites me places, so I guess I'm just so that's
not good. Well, because one of the main things about
this movie is that we see all these trope characters
so we see like the princess character, I like, I
(28:39):
guess a basket case was as a trope or like
a click or something in the day. But that means
you see a representation on screen of women in these
very tropy roles. But the whole point of the movie
also is to say, hey, you might have this identity
to some degree based on like the click you're in
or whatever, but you're a multidimensional person that has stuff
(29:03):
to offer outside of that, you know, high school identity.
And that's like, you know, the theme at the movie.
But you still get these characters who I would argue,
we don't really get to know well enough or don't
have that much nuance as much nuance as the movie
wants you to think they have, right, I mean, they're
all it's weird because in some ways they're like, oh,
(29:25):
all these like high school trope characters are deeper than
you think, which the movie does do. But there's still
that character like there's still the football guy is is
being is footballing too hard? Like you're like okay, or
like she's too popular there. It's not really even like
(29:47):
subverting that much if you think about it that much,
because it's like Molly Ringwald. You know, everyone has issues
with their parents, which is brought through in the movie
pretty effectively. But it's not like another brilliant feminist text
high school musical, where in the show Stoppers stick to
the status quo. You find out, Hey, here's someone who's
(30:10):
really academic but she loves to dance. And here's a
basketball stark Corbin Blue or no, no, it's no, it's
Zeke Zeke. He's in basketball but he loves to bake. Like,
is that a front character. No, he's not in this number.
He's playing basketball. He's busy. But it's all that to
(30:34):
say I just got really excited. Um No, But like
it's not even that the characters in the Breakfast Club
necessarily like contain multitudes and are like They're just like, no,
I really am popular and it's not as easy as
it looks, and and I have parents. You're just like, Okay, Like,
(30:58):
I don't know, it's I is some like posturing. It
does that. I don't know. I think sometimes this movie
gets credit for work it's not necessarily doing. Yeah. And
also if there are five main characters and there's opportunities
to see them like interacting on screen in different combinations,
you know, like either one on one or there maybe
(31:18):
there's three of them. I feel like one of the
combinations that gets the least amount of attention in the
movie is the Claire Allison relationship. I mean pretty much
all of it at the very end of the movie.
And I that feels like a like John Hughes doesn't
understand how to write teenage girls interacting and transition. I
(31:44):
have a little okay, so John, this is like phase
two of John Hughes's career at this point where he
starts out at a feminist bible called the National Lampoon.
While there he writes some of the most offensive stuff
I've ever heard, uh For here are two examples I'm
(32:08):
able to say out loud, but they're very This and
this and this pre dates Breakfast Club and it's not
but worth it for context. Some short stories John Hughes
thought right off the top of his head. A Dog's
Tail has a boy watching his mother turn into a
dog yep, against his will. Features and quote ugly fat
(32:33):
unquote woman who tries to rape a man at gunpoint
in front of the man's wife and parents because she
can't have sex otherwise. Ye. Yeah, okay, and then here's
the Hues Engagement Guide is an illustrated manual on how
to protect yourself against women. It gives examples of women
(32:55):
quote bullshitting to not put out unquote, and teaches re
eaders how to do a quote quickie pelvic exam unquote,
how to detect quote signs of future fat unquote, and
how to determine if a woman has ancestors of different
races based on what her relatives look like. So, yes, Queen,
(33:22):
indeed there and and this, I mean that makes it
hard to want to watch anything he does. And and
it is weird that you know, like these were written
as as recently as within like five to seven years
before he started making these serious teen movies, so it's
(33:43):
not as surprising at all that he cannot write a
competent female character. There's a persona, a John Hies persona
that existed product to this that was quite contemptuous of women. Uh.
And and it's it is interesting in bizarre that he,
you know, a few years on, decides that he is
(34:03):
going to be like a voice for teenage girls. Going
back to that specific relationship in the movie between Claire
and Allison. The only like one on one interaction they
have is toward the end, whenever Claire gives Allison a makeover,
because according to John Hughes, girls can't talk unless they're
(34:25):
putting makeup in each other. Um well, and then prior
to that, it's very antagonistic between the two of them,
where these two characters have barely spoken the whole movie.
They may not have actually spoken to each other at all.
Besides in passing before this scene where everyone's talking about
sex and Judd Nelson's character, for whatever reason, decides he's gonna,
you know, double down on Molly Ringwald's character again, and
(34:47):
it's like, why would't you tell me if you're a virgin? What?
Because you know, if you ask, it's like being a cop,
you have to tell people if you're a virgin. Uh Like.
But it's just so he decides to start her asking
her again, and for some kind of weird, inexplicable reason,
Alison joins in and it's kind of like, no, why
w don't you tell him? And and it's it's hard
(35:11):
to parse exactly what the intent of that scene is,
like over thirty years later, but I think that you're
supposed to want to be like you're like, oh, no,
she should tell us. It's like, no, no one ever
owes any random detention kids, any of your personal information ever,
you know, And but it struck me as just like
(35:34):
frustrating and annoying that this is the first time we're
actually getting an interaction out of these characters, and immediately
and kind of in the story, I think, irrationally, Alison
just turns on Claire and start harassing her. There's also
another small example within the same scene where Allison comes
to Claire's defense and she's like, actually, don't bother her.
(35:55):
But it's just so all over the place that you're
just like, why, like because one of the first she
says is it's a double edged sword. If you haven't
had sex, you're approved. If you have, you're a slut,
which she's commenting on a very real double standard for
women and when they've had sex. But then she says,
(36:16):
you know you want to, but you can't, and then
you're a tease, right, You're like several times, well, I
think she's still like making some sort of commentary there,
but it's weird that she does that right after she
like dunks on Molly Ringwald for bullying her into you know,
saying it when way or the other, and it's just
I don't know that. I think this movie thinks that
(36:38):
if anyone asks you if you're a virgin, you're legally
required to tell them, because people are treating Molly Ringwald
like she is breaking the law by by not disclosing. Um.
That transitions pretty well into a short scene earlier in
the movie where UM Anthony Michael Hall's character Brian uh
(37:02):
is being harassed by Jed Nelson, which is se the
movie UM, but he's being harassed and John Nelson like
his movie is like Your Virgin, which is pretty true
to high school. But he's you know, teasing Brian, calling
him a virgin. Brian was like, I'm not a virgin.
I've laid lots of times, and you're like, yikes, dead
(37:25):
giveaway dude there. But then he starts to lie, which
also feels like I don't know, at least based on
like people I knew in high school. That's a pretty
authentic experience of guy's being like, no I have it
says all that time, and then Jed Nelson's like who,
and then he like gestures at Molly Ringwald's like her,
(37:45):
and then Judd. Nelson's like, Molly Ringwald, you fucked this guy,
and and so this could be a very troubling scene.
The reason it works pretty well for me is that
I don't know. I mean, Molly Ringwald finds out immediately,
she's right there, and she's like no, and then you know,
(38:07):
like calls him out on it, like don't do that,
and he apologizes. He's like being a virginal loser. And
then she says what you said earlier, like being a
virgin is actually awesome, and then see yes, yes, and
then you know there are two virgins and a Judd. Yeah,
I don't know. That scene worked for me way better
(38:29):
than all the times they're just piling on my Molly
Ringwald to make her say something one one way or
the other. And it's not just that, I mean, it's
the Jen Nelson character, Fingerless Gloves. Uh. He's a counterculture
everyone he's uh. He spends almost the entire movie either
sexually harassing her by saying things like, hey, let's lock
(38:53):
the doors so we can impregnate the prom queen, which yeah,
that is a threat. He asks Andy, He's like, hey,
did you give her the hot beef injection? I think
is the line and then you're like, oh, yeah, a
forty year old man thought of that from or like
(39:14):
the skirt scene where he sees her it was under
the desk. Let's give some context for that. Yes, so
he's hiding under the desk. The Bender character is because
he can't be seen by Vernon. As he's under there,
he sees Claire's underwear. So this was a scene that
(39:34):
that's not Molly Ringwald in that scene. Legally it could
not be Molly Ringwald in that scene. But in the
in the New Yorker essay from last year, they were
referencing earlier because Molly Ringwald is like sixteen seventeen when
this is film, So her mom is talking with John
Hughes almost as much as she is. And there was
(39:55):
one plot point involving a naked female gym teacher that
they talked him out of in Eluding because it was
just perverted and weird. But they could not talk him
out of the underwear scene, and that was something that
Molly Ringwald's mom was like really frustrated and upset about,
and like John Hughes would not back down on it,
and so they had to hire a body double to
(40:15):
come in and be you know, the skirt. Yeah, and um,
so that is why that scene is there. It's just
like that. That is such like a classic example of
like here are two women telling you this is not okay,
and he's like, I'll hire someone else, and you know,
just like flexes on them in this very gross way,
(40:38):
like if if it's also like safe to say, if
the actor you hired cannot legally do it, probably don't
do it. And is a great indication, especially if the
actor opposite them is twenty six years old. It's like,
what are you gross? Yeah, and then we're meant to
I think. So he sees her underwear and then we
(41:01):
see him move his face closer into her crutch area,
and then she yelps, so we see her and frame
rather than him then and she like yelps and then
hard to say what exactly happens, but I think we
can easily see virgin he doesn't know what happens. He
doesn't know, but basically the Bender character assaults her. Yeah,
(41:25):
and then the reaction is immediately afterwards her like smacking
him several times on the back, and then that doesn't
get brought up. I mean that just still make out
at the end and she gives him a diamond. God,
if every man that assaulted you you had to give
a diamond, it's for fucking God. John Hughes is disgusting.
(41:49):
Opposite of what happens in Titanic with the Billies, it's Um,
I mean the rundown of of what Bender's character says
to Claire is like, I mean it really there's a
(42:10):
lot of anti queeristlurs thrown up throughout this movie from
all characters. So you know that John Hughes just thinks
it's Jill. There's uh one speech like monologue that Bender
delivers to Claire's that is like fat shaming her in
the future, Yeah, which is just you're insane. Uh. He's
(42:35):
arousing her, asking if she's a virgin all the time,
He's making comments about how she couldn't you know, get
away from him if she wanted to, she can't resist him,
all this stuff. He screams you are a bitch at
her loudly. Um. At one point he kinda he makes
fun of Andy, who is a wrestler. He's like, oh,
(42:55):
I just admire any guy who rolls around on the
floor with another guy, and like the implication that is,
it's he's saying something homophobias. Yeah, so Bender maybe not
a good guy, and yet for reasons that are very
uncleared to at least me, she goes into the broom
closet that he is locked into because he was misbehaving
(43:18):
so badly, get a hickey and a diet. So, I mean,
but this is something we see again and again where
I mean, and he's not even wearing her down in
a way that movies usually do it where it's like,
please go out with me, please, please please. He's just
like you're a fucking big ramping it up the whole movie.
(43:39):
And then it's like after he assaults her that she's like,
I'm going to give him a chance. Like it's just
not it's totally nonsensical the way that happens, and it's like,
at least that's very clear to people now, but it's
just like it's crazy. I mean. And that's not to
say that there isn't more context in layers to the
Bender character, because there is, and there's like a lot
(44:00):
of time devoted to his background and coming from an
abusive household. That scene we were referencing with him and
the assistant Principle, who is basically the whole time saying
that he can be abusive. You know, he's another like
abusive paternal figure in Bender's life, and he's allowed to
do that because Bender is poor invendors from an abusive household,
(44:22):
and no one will believe him if he says anything
which is I mean like powerful stuff and and like
I was affected by it, especially in that scene where
the assistant principles like fight me and was just classic.
But but before that that bizarre initiation, he's saying a
lot of horrible stuff that like is recognizable of like, uh,
(44:47):
an abusive paternal figure. So it's like even more of
a bummer if you get that side of effective storytelling.
But then you know you're also setting the standard of
you have incredible empathy for the scare or who is
verbally abusing one of the only females you get to
see on screen for the entire time, and that's not
really reflected as something that's not okay to do. So
(45:10):
it's even like more of a bummer of like, by
the end of the movie, it's hard not to like
love him in some way or have a lot of
empathy for him while he's doing these horrible things that
are not really treated as horrible, so its once again, God,
damn it, damn it. And then the while the other
(45:32):
hetero romance that ends up playing out is a direct
result of a makeover scene, which is when Claire is
putting the makeup on Allison and the only again, the
only thing that they have together one on one, and
then she says something like, you look a lot better
with all that black shit under your eyes, and then
(45:52):
the hot topic managers of the world shot themselves, and
then she completely changes the way Alison looks, and I guess,
did Claire just bring a whole other outfit to score
it to give to her, not even a cute outfit
by the way, it well, yeah, because she's got like
(46:16):
a flower in her hair, her makeup is more traditional,
she's wearing pastel pink, and then Andy sees her and
he's like so basically, so she's only attractive to Andy
(46:42):
once she changes everything about her appearance, and it doesn't
occur to him that she is attractive until she's adhering
to like this more conventional feminine standard of beauty, right,
which was the you know, part of the projected point
of her character. Was to subvert that, but clearly John
and he uses a lawless motherfucker, and it actually doesn't
(47:04):
have much of a vested interest of subverting much of anything.
So one other point I wanted to hit on for
the Brian character, who we don't really get to know before.
They're like, hey, door, homework Dorc and he's like, okay,
he writes like chitty lyrics or whatever, but he's characterized
(47:28):
very late in the story and he says that, yeah,
he was going to kill himself with a with a
flare gun. It's just worth saying. Um. It's like a
very bizarre, reductive way to treat any suicidality or or
anything like that. And it almost feels like an afterthought
in the story of like, oh shit, Anthony Michael Hall's here,
(47:49):
what what would he have done? He already raped someone
in the last movie, I don't know what to do
with him in this one. Um, And then they sort
of just I mean, and it's it's weird because it
could be an effective plot point that was thoughtfully told,
but he says it in like three sentences sort of,
and then everyone is sort of like that's stupid, and
(48:12):
he's like, you're right, and so you're just like, oh,
so he's cured of suicidal thoughts and tendencies. Pretty sure,
that's not how that works. But and then and then
and then right after he's like, you know, I recently
almost killed myself through like t he he do our homework. Yeah,
(48:32):
so it's I mean, it's one of many things that
it is not handled well in the movie nic it's not. Um,
I guess uh. The last thing I have is just
going checking out some of the smaller ring waltz. Yeah,
she wrote the piece last year that we thought was
like a really thoughtful look at the body of work
(48:56):
that made her famous. Highly recommend checking it out. I
like to think she wrote it between scenes of Riverdale
being shot, but we don't know the circumstances. But let's
say canonically it was between of Riverdale. Are there any
particular passages you wanted to to point out or um,
(49:16):
let's see, I already kind of paraphrased a few of them,
so if you wanna take a crack at any of yours. Well, basically,
she runs through a lot of stuff we were talking
about today, and just like at the time when she
was sixteen seventeen, shooting these movies she didn't recognize and
hadn't been conditioned to recognize the elements of rape culture
and other things that appear in these movies, aside from
(49:37):
the things that she did notice and pointed out. And
sometimes we're ignored and sometimes weren't ignored, and she gives
a few examples of those. Um. She also gives a
great anecdote talking with the women from sixteen Candles, who
it's implied that Anthony Michael Hall's character rapes, and how
they like got lunched together and Molly Greenwell was like,
(49:58):
do you think this was fucked up? And the lady
was like, honestly, you never thought about it. And then
like three hours later, the actress who played that part,
uh emails her back and it's like, oh my god,
that was incredibly fucked up. And so it was just
like a really interesting piece on um, you know, just
(50:18):
sort of what we're trying to do is just uh,
you know, reflect on stuff without you know, totally disowning
it as a body of work, but just you know,
viewing it more thoughtfully and critically. I just wanted to
read the thing. She says that the how she sort
of closes the piece out she says, quote, how are
we meant to feel about art that we both love
and oppose? What if we're in the unusual position of
(50:41):
having helped create it? Erasing history is a dangerous road
when it comes to art. Changes essential, but so too
is remembering the past in all of its transgression and barbarism,
so that we may properly gauge how far we have
come and also how far we still need to go,
which I thought was just nice. That is, Yeah, that's
like kind of like the fasis of the Becktel cast.
(51:01):
And then and then Cole Sprouts leans into the room.
He's like, we're shooting river Dale Hover and then she
had to go. But up till that it was a
great essay. Um, I will say this is one of
a few teen movies that doesn't end in a prom
(51:25):
or doesn't have some sort of prom affiliated with it.
I honestly think that if he had had the budget
he would have he probably would have prom is that
night and they've spent nine hours and detentions and they're like,
we're tired, but I guess we'll go to prom alright, Yeah,
I mean, and we're almost a time or two Caitlin, Yeah,
(51:48):
does this movie pass the Bechdel test. I am gonna
say yes, I know, because speak your cake. Well, okay,
this one is worth kind of debating because Allison says
I'll do anything sexual and I don't need a million
dollars to do it. I mean, we can all relate. Um.
(52:10):
Sorry that that was erasing a sexual people, so I'm
sorry to do that. Claire says, you're lying, and then
Allison says, I already have. I've done just about everything
there is except a few things that are illegal. Again,
we can all relate, um. And then she says I'm
an infomaniac. But isn't she implying hetero sexual? Yeah, exactly,
(52:34):
So I don't think that counts. That one is probably
a note. But then Claire Allison talk about makeup and
they say, don't stick me, don't stick that in my eye,
and Claire says, you know, you look a lot better
with all that without all that black shit around your eye,
and then Allison says, hey, I like that black shit,
(52:54):
and then Claire says this looks a lot better. And
then she's like, why you being so nice to me?
Because you're letting the end of that conversation tragically that
does that is the past is the past. But again
it's two women talking about confined Yes, it's very hyper
feminine things, so that is a yes. Um, well, John
(53:20):
uses a feminist icon. I take that. H I feel
a little fucking stupid he was saying all those things
about him. All right, shall shall we read it on
our nipple scale? Yes we should. Let's do it there.
(53:41):
If you're not familiar our nipple scale, we use a
scale zero to five nipples, and we read it based
on its portrayal and representation of women. This one's kind
of tricky for me because it is an earlier example
of seeing teen women on screen who are not the
way that they were portrayed in movies like Porkis and
(54:03):
Revenge of the Nerds and like, really awful, how dare
they make a movie called Porky? So we're seeing more
nuanced depictions of teen girls, but again I would argue,
not as nuanced as the movie wants you to think.
(54:24):
They're still fairly trophy and we do get to know them,
and these characters, especially the Molly Ringwald character, is more
developed of a character than we had seen in a
teen girl kind of up until that point. But the
way that she is treated, especially by the Jed Nelson character,
and then forced into a heatero kiss with him. The
(54:49):
movie forcing her because she is the one who goes
and kisses him. Why did you do that? He threatened
to rape you nine hours ago and then he did so, right,
It's just so there's a lot of missteps like that.
Worth noting that this is an extremely white movie. In fact,
I mean it's all yeah and all of John Hughes
(55:12):
movies except for the long ducktong character and sixteen Candles,
which so sorry, you're right, he's a representation. Um yeah,
So I think I know this is a beloved movie.
I know it explores themes that still resonate with us today,
but I think it is very obviously a nine five
(55:37):
eight four Oh right, okay for some reason, yes, movies
in eighty five. Who knows why. I'm gonna give it
one and a half? Okay, is that wrong? I hate
(55:59):
during this at live shows because I'm like, I'm she said, what,
thank you? Thank you so much? Are you giving the
nips to? I'm gonna give one to Molly Ringwald. I'm
(56:20):
gonna throw my half nipple to Anthony Michael Hall as
unexpected of a twist that I'm upset with that I know,
I don't know why I've been dating. I'm gonna give
it a half nipple because women are there, which not
(56:45):
all movies get to. Um, I don't know. I don't
think that this movie, or John Hughes' entire body of
work is like as subversive as people make it out
to be. And it might be partially because I'm not
attached to it and was never really a fan of it.
But I just, you know, you learn about I like
(57:05):
you learn about Molly Ringwald's character, but that doesn't mean
that her character isn't totally sold out by the writer
by the end of the movie. And you don't really
learn anything about Ali Sheedy's character, and she's also sold
out by the end of the movie. And so it's
really I mean, I guess, you know, it's like the
two female characters I thought were made by the writer
(57:26):
to act very irrationally at the end of the movie
in a way that in the first hour plus of
the movie you would not expect them to act based
on like a strong foundation, and then at the end
they're just like, no, you gotta you gotta have a kiss, like,
so I feel for for both of those characters that
like had some promise in them. We're kind of sold out.
And I also feel for Anthony Michael Hall because he
(57:47):
had to do everyone's homework and that's not cool. Have
a nipple and I'm giving it to the janitor. Hell yeah,
who it's hot and it was and who? And not
in confident? Well, the because the quick montage at the
(58:07):
very beginning in which you do see the hacker hackers
will be expelled the frame. There's another shot where it's
like men gross, but one of them is like man
of the Year. There's like a photo and it's a
photo of Carl. He was Man of the Year when
he was in high school. I love Carl. We didn't
(58:28):
get to talk about Carl, but Carl is one of
the most fully realized characters in the movie. When everyone's
trying to be like, you're a janitor, He's like, fuck you,
I'm a janitor And I was like, yeah, Carl, you
fuck He fucking rules. He dunks on everyone. He just
like anyone who talks back to Carl, He's like, you
can't touch me. I'm I'm the most confident man alive.
(58:52):
Like he goes home and has sex every day like
he's man of there and my book beautiful. Thank you, Well,
that's our show. Thanks for coming, Thank you for coming.
(59:16):
All right? That was that. That was the episode. It
was so much fun. We wanted to thank everyone who
came to the San Francisco show. The turnout was way
more than we were expecting for fifty people and a
venue that was not necessarily supposed to hold that many people,
which was so great. And speaking of the venue, thanks
for having us. We were at Piano Fight so it's
(59:37):
part of the San Francisco Sketch Festival, So shouts out
to Sketch Fest for having us. Shouts out to Piano
Fight for for having us there. Um, thank you so
much to our friend friend of the cast, Sammy Junio
for recording the show for us, for being our road
dog for that whole tory. You'll be hearing a lot
about them in the next couple of weeks as we
released these episodes. Indeed, and also big thanks to our
(01:00:00):
friend Catherine Leon who was at the show and was
helping us sell merch and just like stay organized and stuff.
So big thanks to Catherine. Thanks friends. Also big thanks
to anyone who bought merch at that show. Yeah, that
helped us out a lot. Yeah. We'll be back in
San Francisco sometime soon soon. Yeah. And as for you
(01:00:22):
listening person, wherever you are, we'll see you next week,
See you next week. Bye,
Oh, Hi, Hi, everybody, it's us. It's us. We're just
here to let you know that you will be listening
to our Breakfast Club episode. Which you do know but
you may not know, is that this episode was recorded
live last month in San Francisco. Ever heard of San Francisco?
I have. We were there for like a whole twelve hours.
(00:20):
We were Yeah, we just wanted to say hello. We
wanted to let you know if you live in the
Los Angeles area, we have a live crossover show coming
up in March with The Daily Zeitgeist. That's right, It
is on March nine. It is at Dynasty Typewriter and
we will be there with Jack and Miles of The
(00:41):
Daily Zeitgeist and we're going to be talking about the news,
the trends, the movies, the moments of nine nine. Uh So,
if you live in the area, definitely roll the fun through.
We would love to meet you and hang. And you know,
we don't like to make it a habit to be
(01:02):
on stage with men. But what do you think I
was going to say, we just got friends. I thought
you're just gonna say on stage in general, And I
was like, we we do live show that No, no, no,
we don't like to be seen with men very often,
but you know we're making an exception one night only
and we'd love to see you there. Yes, so get
(01:23):
tickets at becdelcast dot com and then click on live
appearances and we'll see you there. Enjoy the live show
on the Breakfast Club. On the dol cast, the questions asked,
movies have women in them? Are all their discussions just
boyfriends and husbands? And do they have individualism? The patriarchy?
Zef invest start changing it with the bel Cast? Hi,
(01:49):
answer Scott, what's up? Are you in? All out? You
said the name of the city and everything. Hi, I'm Caitlin,
I'm Jane me and we're the Bechtel Cast. We are
indeed in San Francisco. Uh, it is rainy, it is
(02:09):
five pm. We are shocked and thrilled you're here. Thank
you for being here. Clap if you've heard the Bechtel
Cast before. Okay, and um not to put anyone on blast.
There's no wrong answer, but obviously there is based on
what you just heard. But clap if you if you
(02:30):
haven't heard our show before, Okay, sick are you here
with friends? Did friends drag you along? Yes? We'll put
on the best possible. We'll do our people to our
best as usual. That is all we can guarantee. So,
if you haven't listened before, The Bechtel Cast is a
(02:50):
podcast where Caitlin and I for five hundred years now
have been analyzing the role and treatment of when men
and female characters in famous movies. That's right. We use
the Bechdel Test as a jumping off point. It's a
media test that requires that two female identifying characters with
(03:12):
names speak to each other in the movie that they're
in for at least a two line exchange, and they
cannot talk about men. No, hard, hard. Yeah, let's see
if we can do it. I know right now, Jamie Caitlin,
(03:32):
that's it. We did it. Pretty fucking incredible what you
can do. So we're covering The Breakfast Club today. Uh,
is there anyone who has not seen this movie? Round? Okay?
Someone is that writing front? Eager for knowledge? Um, we're
(03:57):
talking about how The Breakfast Club kind of sounds like
the Bechtel Cast, right, except we wouldn't let John Hughes
anywhere near us. What is your history with the movie, Jamie,
Um Judd Nelson made my mom really horny and that's
(04:20):
the most And now I saw this movie in high
school and I thought it was fine. I saw on college.
I thought that was fine, and then I saw it
a few days ago, I thought it was fine. I
don't like I just I you know, I just John
Hughes movies just don't do much for me, even if
they're like not promoting rape, Like, it's just not He's
(04:43):
just not my not except for uh, some parts of
Uncle Buck. Oh sure, I like transplants and automobiles. I
think that's my favorite. What is that about. It's well,
it's uh Steve Martin and John Candy, So already I'm
not passing the Beckel test. They hate each other, they
(05:06):
use a lot of modes of transportation. That's pretty much it.
That sounds pretty good. I would watch that. So it's
just the two of us today. We don't have a
it is. Oh, I forgot about my history with the movie. Yeah,
we've never done this before our first first episode. My
history with the movie is I saw it for the
first time in high school. I think one of my
(05:28):
like English teachers was like hate kids you. He encouraged
us to watch the movie as like an assignment or
I don't know. There's something about like we watched it
in school or something like that. Uh, and that teacher
was later fired. Um, not not for that. He was
(05:50):
fired because it was discovered that he was an erotic dancer. Oh, which, look,
he should have been fired as a teacher for that.
Hold on, this story has taken a turn. I thought
you were about to say how he's a molester. It's like, sure,
everyone not molester. Okay, see that was that was my track, coach. Uh,
(06:14):
but that's that's not fair. That's tough there. This is
kind of like a cool old person movie to show
young people. They're like, I get it. You want to
see Amelia Estevis cry. I get it. Just like, yeah, sure,
I guess. I guess he really leveled with me. Should
(06:35):
I do the recap? Yeah, let's do the recap. You know,
people love a recap. And we don't have a guest,
so that means I get to interrupt twice as much.
Pretty cool, Pretty cool. The movie opens with glass shattering. No,
it opens with a David Bowie quote, and then I'm sorry,
(06:56):
you're like, okay, what decade are we in here? Is
that like John Hughes or Charlie Brooker. Am I right? Um,
it's a black miryor joke. Uh, stop making fun of
Charlie Brooker. Computers are actually bad, so yeah, technology actually
a little scary. Are you a hacker? Though? Yeah? That
(07:18):
show is Charlie Brooker or warning everyone about me? Speaking
of hackers though, there is like in the beginning with
the montage of all the quick cuts of Like the School,
it shows a classroom and one of the signs, there's
like a sign hanging up in the classroom that says
hackers will be expelled. Has anyone noticed that? Yeah? It's
(07:40):
go back okay, opens we meet five students. They have
detention for nine hours? Is that normal? Did anyone have
anything like this at their school? There? You just have
to spend a feature length amount of time with people. No,
it's like Lord of the like all the Lord of
(08:02):
the Rings movies worth of time. Yeah. I feel like
that's asking for someone to get beat up. Like, if
you leave five teenagers in a room together for nine hours,
someone's going to get hurt. That's just how teens work.
So the Fox students with me are Claire, the Princess,
Molly Ringwald. She's like the rich popular girl type. We've
(08:24):
got Andy Clark, the athlete, that's Amelia Estevez's character. Yeah,
he does cry, they all cry. I think Brian A.
K the brain name anagram am I right? Andy Michael
Hall does not rape anyone in this John Hughes movie.
So that's good. You get very different anthem. Actually you
(08:47):
kind of get the same character, but a rapist true wild.
Alison Reynolds is the basket case. That's Ali. She'd use character.
She's not like the other girls. True. And finally Benders
the criminal um that's Jen Nelson's character. He's twenty six
(09:07):
years old. He's in this movie kissing a sixteen year
old Molly Ringwald and just behind the scenes fact that
I found freaky, like a lot of male actors choose
because they won't get in trouble if they do. Jed
Nelson was like, I think I'm gonna go method with
this and just bullied Molly Ringwald for the entirety of
(09:27):
the movie. He's ten years older than her offset right
offset and and John Hughes at one point tried to
fire him, and then all the teens were like no.
It was if I don't I can't make heads their
tails of that, but it's true anytime a man things
going method, he just wants to yell at someone like.
That's just literally what it is. Also, we talked in
(09:50):
the car on the way up here that the members
of the Breakfast Club are all also sort of the
Spice Girls. Break this down. Okay, Sporty Spice obviously Amelio Estevez,
Scary Spice is Jed Nelson. See this is see this
is where we don't. Okay, all right, let me make
(10:12):
a case for this. Jesus Francisco. We thought that Posh
is Molly Ringwald. Can we agree with that baby we
said was Anthony Michael because he's innocent and blonde, a
flesh colored headed hair person. I'm aware that would make
(10:37):
Ginger Alie Sheet's character. And it's not a one to
one match, but we've got a solid three out of five.
But then also Ginger is Molly like Molly Ringwald is
Ginger e based on hair color alone. Sorry to reduce
hair a hole here. Anyway, let's move on. We've got
(11:01):
Richard Vernon. He's the teacher, is the assistant character. He's
the assistant principal who are in there often. I feel
like that's like a stock character of like the put
Upon assistant principle. Isn't Captain Underpants and assistant principle or
was he the principle. I think he was the assistant principal,
just the scholarly observation. And he's like this disciplinarian. He's like,
(11:26):
you guys can't talk, you can't move, blah blah blah,
and I have to write an essay about who they
think they are. Then Bender, he's like the tough guy.
He's trying to get a rise out of everybody. He's like,
you're a nerd and everyone's like, well, you're a jock.
And then they're all just hating each other each other
labels because teens, but they mostly ignore the quote unquote
(11:48):
basket case girl. And then she doesn't talk for most
of the movie. Then we see a montage they're doing
their stuff, take out the dancing montage. Is this movies
thirty five minutes long, a lot of dancing. A shot
where Anthony Michael Hall's character is like adjusting his crotch
(12:10):
and then like puts his hat on his lap. Are
we to believe that her I don't know. I don't
I hope not. It's hard to say, hard to say,
I don't know. I'm so sorry. We can't know. Okay, So, um,
it's hard because there's like kind of not a plot,
(12:31):
so I don't know how to recap this. They could
only afford three rooms to shoot the movie in, so
they gotta emote in a lot of different good, fine spaces.
I don't know, they're just harassed like that for most
of the movie. Affordable names. He launch it some point
(12:55):
and then um, there's this conversation where Brian is like,
I'm a virgin, but I'm embarrassed to admit it, and
then Molly ring well it's like I think virgins are cool.
And then everyone's like oh, and everyone's like whoa, and
then Jed Nelson's like, what are you guys talking about? Um?
You know, A lot of points are brought up. Yea,
(13:17):
the Bender character reveals that he's being physically abused at
home by his father. We learned different sort of backstories
of each of the characters, like Ali Sheitt's character is
ignored by her parents, which is why she's eating dog
food or something like I saw too much of my
solf and I sat too much of myself in her.
(13:38):
I was like Okay, so she's like a teenager, but
she's She's like, but what do I do? She just
if she had access to Mike's Hard lemonade, she would
be drinking Mike's Hard. She went, she yeah, I mean
she was saying she was drinking vodka. But she she
can't even get her hands on an MHL embarrassing, so
she eats pixie sticks on sandwiches instead. She's not like
(14:01):
the other girls. Everyone. She needs you to know. And
then there's a point where they go to Bender's locker
to get weed, and then they think and there is
homophobic slurs written all over his locker, and then they
think they're gonna get caught because they are running around
(14:23):
the halls trying to dodge Vernon in a scene that
is not unlike Titanic where Jack and Rose are running
around the ship. And then they come Billy Zane. What
Billy's Zane was in this movie too much? He was
busy being in Back to the Future as one of
Biff's crony, playing a similar character to the Jen Nelson character.
(14:46):
As long as Zane's getting work, Yeah, anyway, I can
sleep at night. So there's a gate and they can't
go any farther, just like Jack and Rose. So they
have to turn around, they have to find another way.
And then and then one of the drowns. No spoilers,
we won't tell you which character it is, but in
(15:08):
the breakfast club, Bender is like, all sacrifice myself, so
he goes running around all crazy in the halls and
gets caught so that the others don't. Yeah, and then
there's also the scene prior to that where the assistant
principal verbally abuses Bender and like just it. That's like
a tough scene to to unpack. But um, at the beginning,
(15:32):
you're not sure why Benders being such a dick to everyone,
But as as the movie goes on, you see you
start to understand why. So by the time he's flailing
around and got the weed, you're like, okay, this is
this is like time with me, right yeah. Uh. And
then shortly after that, whenever he gets caught by Vernon,
he like locks Bender in a closet and then like
(15:55):
tries to initiate a physical fight with him, and then
we see like him kind of bender back down and
not engage. Um, so maybe he's more sensitive than we
all think, or maybe his teachers trying to fight him
like like an unhinged person, like, hey, everyone at this
school likes me. No one will believe me if I
(16:15):
fight you. It's like, what are you talking about? Sicko?
And then Bender escapes through like the air ducks and
gets back into the library very mission impossible, true, and
then he hides under a desk because Vernon comes in,
and that's when we get the famous and upsetting underwear
(16:36):
crotch shot of character. We'll get there, don't you worry.
There's and then they're all there. They smoke the weed.
There's a million dance. You cannot have an eighties teen
movie without Kevin Bacon or Amelia Estevez or someone just
(16:58):
dancing for like five minutes straight. Guys, remember when we
was cool? Still? This movie brings you back to when
we was cool, right, and not for Dad's trying to
tell you they get it. And then we get to
the scene where they're all sitting around and they're talking
about sex. Ever heard of it? Who's horny? Who's not?
(17:23):
That's not how it goes. Um, they're like all virgins
basically pretty much. Bender's trying to like, he's like he
goes back to a berating Claire for a bit. They
all talk about, Hey, are we going to be friends
after this? And then Claire's like, I'm too popular, just
a straight shooter. Yeah, And then um, Brian reveals that
(17:44):
he is failing shop class. And then the reason he
got detention is that he brought a gun to school
with the intention of committing suicide, but with a flair gun,
which is played as a joke and it's I don't know,
we can talk about that later, but also, yeah, remember
the days when you could bring a weapon to school
(18:06):
and only get Saturday detention? Like what? Oh goodness? And
then Allison's like, I didn't do anything to get detention.
I just showed up. But first she says a lot
of funked up stuff yes, um, and then yeah, and
then her her secret, as it were, whatever is is
(18:30):
that she is a compulsive liar. Right, and then they
dance again, right, somehow they dance again because recycling shots
earlier Justmelio Estevez dancing, and then they danced as a group.
That's the video that Alexandria Cacio Cortez was recreating when
(18:52):
she was a student at Boston University. Now is a
great time to bring up that I do have a
master's degree in screen running from Boston University. Thank you.
Why would you cheer for that? Unfortunately AOC and I
did not overlap at our time at BU, but you know,
(19:15):
be you represent. Okay, wow, I'm sorry, Jamie, I also
went to college, Thank you so much. Yeah up, guys,
it's a fucking scam. Yeah, no one learned. It's a
fucking scam. And we're all going to be in debt
until we're dead. Please thank you our merch over there,
(19:40):
because we are drowning in student learned debt. I took
a class on lost in college. I'm just like there
and I'm never yeah, and I'm never going to own
a home. You know, it's just like sure worth it. Okay.
So after the dance where they all dance, Claire gives
out us in a makeover because women, right, right, we'll
(20:04):
talk about that. And then Claire, for no reason, it seems,
goes and kisses Bender on the collar bone. Yeah, I
mean because after harassing her for nine consecutive hours, she's
decided he's worn her down. You know, really uh, really
(20:24):
really male writing going on there. And then Andy, who
sees Allison, is like wow, you're pretty, you took your
hoodie off. I love you. And then meanwhile, Brian, who
has no one to kiss it's forced to do everyone's
(20:45):
home work, which honestly is a wild power move that
I thought was a little funny because he because they
were all like in that moment, I was like, bright,
you're seriously falling for this right now, Like he's just
They're just like, Iran, you're the smartest side of all
of us. What do they know is what he wants
to hear? And he's like yeah, so, and they're like,
(21:07):
so we were thinking you would do. I'm like, this
happens to like dorkey kids in school all the time.
They don't fall for that ship. After a while, Brian's
too old to be fallen for that trick. Grow up, Brian,
don't write everyone's essay, but he does. And he's like,
you see us, how you want to see us? Mr Vernon.
He kind of goes edge lord on it. He's like,
(21:31):
but we're all the criminal and princess and so teach gees.
Can you imagine like if you were a person doing
their job as someone left you that letter, I would
literally be like yeah, fine, and I would throw it
away at me, I feel like, yeah, awesome. Uh and
(22:01):
then and then they'll leave, and then there are two
hetero kisses, and then all fingerless gloves pumps his fist
and then we all get to go home. And that's
the movie. Is the movie. I had fun with this
(22:27):
because I'm not particularly attached to the movie. Um and
a lot of it I don't know. I mean, things
I appreciate about this movie are that it is a
movie that, even though it misfires in a lot of
directions and and and when ways we'll talk about it,
at least takes teenage characters seriously. And and for the
(22:49):
most part we're seeing teenagers like acting out and and
you know, often harassing each other and teasing each other.
But at very least you get background for everyone in
some context. And unlike a lot of other teen movies,
it doesn't go the direction of playing the adults in
a totally comical way to were like often if it's
(23:11):
like a movie directed or marketed at young people, it's
like all the teens get it, and the adults are
fucking idiots, and they are, but like you at least
get background on them as well. And I don't know,
everyone felt at least there was a tension given to
every character, even if a lot of it was like no,
(23:34):
So I appreciated that. Yeah, and I agree. I I
don't have any special attachment to this movie either. Again,
I'm not like a huge John Hughes fan, but I
mean he was doing what no one was really doing
at that time. And this is something that um Molly
Ringwald brings up in the piece that she wrote for
The New Yorker where he kind of revolutionized stories for
(23:59):
and about teenagers. So I understand why this is a
beloved movie then and still now. And I think that
one of the things that I think it does pretty well,
and this is kind of mirroring what you were saying, Jamie,
but it spends time and attention on each of the character.
So you know, we talked about the female characters, and
(24:19):
they are although I don't know about the character well,
they're underrepresented in this movie in general, because you see
the Breakfast Club is male character heavy, and then the
other three adults, all three adult characters you see her men,
the assistant principal, Carl Cool Janitor, Carl shout out to
(24:40):
my freaking boy, and then uh Amelio Estevez is wild
and Dad who isn't? Who's Amelia Seves? Is real? Debt
isn't some of fam Martin Martin Sheen missed opportunity? What
someone is heckling Martin? What's up? President? Dude? Aaron Sorkin
(25:03):
was canceled today, Pay attention there, come on there? Uh
but Martin she Grayson and Frankie season five, Oh yeah,
you might know him from Grayson Frankie. I love that show. Anyways,
what were we talking about? Oh? Too many men? That's
a note only, but yeah, I mean all three. I
(25:26):
think it was like a misstep and to be generous
with John Hughes, who does not have a good track record. Uh,
and in a lot of respects, making every adult character presented, uh,
male character is both weird and also not reflective of
the education system. Like it just was like, I don't know,
(25:46):
it just seems like a dumb missed opportunity. Yeah. We
see Brian's mom very briefly, and I think I don't
think we see any other parents, but she's like, study
what we see. I mean, we see dad, Amelia's daddy.
But in addition to that, on sports dad was yeah
that's poor dad. Yeah, And I think with the Molly
Ringwald character, like so much attention is focused on her um,
(26:09):
which is good for our discussion. But with the basket
Case Ali, sheitdy character. She doesn't even say words until
like thirty three minutes into the movie or something like that,
and then it's like acting vaguely Ferrell like it's it's
her character is is confusing, and it's weird because it's
(26:29):
like it comes out that she's a compulsive liar, which
is played as a joke basically because they're like, oh,
everything this, but like if you only have two female
characters and at the end you're like, oh, this female
character one of the two. Don't listen to a word
she fucking says. Not a true word comes out of
this lady's mouth like that that's not that she said
much to begin with, because then she doesn't speak again
(26:52):
until like I think it's fifty nine minutes into the movie.
But the things she does say at the end are
very dark, Like she says that she has sex with
her therapists as an underage girl. Like she says some
really dark stuff and and then to like say all
that stuff and then just like, oh, I'm a compulsive
liar t he and then kiss Semilio Estevez is like,
(27:15):
first of all, what and that's like a very nineteen
eighties like glazing over of what, like of a discussion
of mental illness? Uh, And like a compulsive lying is
like a very blanket term that it's clear the writer
doesn't understand or has done any research on, and he
just kind of uses it ultimately as a way to
(27:36):
be like, well, uh, I hope you weren't listening to
her because she's nuts, and but we made her pretty,
so now she's gonna kiss Martin Sheen's son yep, like,
which is a bummer because I love Ali Sheity and
that I mean, it's it's weird because I feel like
a lot of young women and and you know, older
(27:57):
women who see that movie more closely aligned with her
than with Claire. But the chasm between those two people
is like no one is really either of them. But
when I was a teenager, I was like, well, I
guess I'm the one eating dog food because no one
(28:18):
invites me places, so I guess I'm just so that's
not good. Well, because one of the main things about
this movie is that we see all these trope characters
so we see like the princess character, I like, I
(28:39):
guess a basket case was as a trope or like
a click or something in the day. But that means
you see a representation on screen of women in these
very tropy roles. But the whole point of the movie
also is to say, hey, you might have this identity
to some degree based on like the click you're in
or whatever, but you're a multidimensional person that has stuff
(29:03):
to offer outside of that, you know, high school identity.
And that's like, you know, the theme at the movie.
But you still get these characters who I would argue,
we don't really get to know well enough or don't
have that much nuance as much nuance as the movie
wants you to think they have, right, I mean, they're
all it's weird because in some ways they're like, oh,
(29:25):
all these like high school trope characters are deeper than
you think, which the movie does do. But there's still
that character like there's still the football guy is is
being is footballing too hard? Like you're like okay, or
like she's too popular there. It's not really even like
(29:47):
subverting that much if you think about it that much,
because it's like Molly Ringwald. You know, everyone has issues
with their parents, which is brought through in the movie
pretty effectively. But it's not like another brilliant feminist text
high school musical, where in the show Stoppers stick to
the status quo. You find out, Hey, here's someone who's
(30:10):
really academic but she loves to dance. And here's a
basketball stark Corbin Blue or no, no, it's no, it's
Zeke Zeke. He's in basketball but he loves to bake. Like,
is that a front character. No, he's not in this number.
He's playing basketball. He's busy. But it's all that to
(30:34):
say I just got really excited. Um No, But like
it's not even that the characters in the Breakfast Club
necessarily like contain multitudes and are like They're just like, no,
I really am popular and it's not as easy as
it looks, and and I have parents. You're just like, Okay, Like,
(30:58):
I don't know, it's I is some like posturing. It
does that. I don't know. I think sometimes this movie
gets credit for work it's not necessarily doing. Yeah. And
also if there are five main characters and there's opportunities
to see them like interacting on screen in different combinations,
you know, like either one on one or there maybe
(31:18):
there's three of them. I feel like one of the
combinations that gets the least amount of attention in the
movie is the Claire Allison relationship. I mean pretty much
all of it at the very end of the movie.
And I that feels like a like John Hughes doesn't
understand how to write teenage girls interacting and transition. I
(31:44):
have a little okay, so John, this is like phase
two of John Hughes's career at this point where he
starts out at a feminist bible called the National Lampoon.
While there he writes some of the most offensive stuff
I've ever heard, uh For here are two examples I'm
(32:08):
able to say out loud, but they're very This and
this and this pre dates Breakfast Club and it's not
but worth it for context. Some short stories John Hughes
thought right off the top of his head. A Dog's
Tail has a boy watching his mother turn into a
dog yep, against his will. Features and quote ugly fat
(32:33):
unquote woman who tries to rape a man at gunpoint
in front of the man's wife and parents because she
can't have sex otherwise. Ye. Yeah, okay, and then here's
the Hues Engagement Guide is an illustrated manual on how
to protect yourself against women. It gives examples of women
(32:55):
quote bullshitting to not put out unquote, and teaches re
eaders how to do a quote quickie pelvic exam unquote,
how to detect quote signs of future fat unquote, and
how to determine if a woman has ancestors of different
races based on what her relatives look like. So, yes, Queen,
(33:22):
indeed there and and this, I mean that makes it
hard to want to watch anything he does. And and
it is weird that you know, like these were written
as as recently as within like five to seven years
before he started making these serious teen movies, so it's
(33:43):
not as surprising at all that he cannot write a
competent female character. There's a persona, a John Hies persona
that existed product to this that was quite contemptuous of women. Uh.
And and it's it is interesting in bizarre that he,
you know, a few years on, decides that he is
(34:03):
going to be like a voice for teenage girls. Going
back to that specific relationship in the movie between Claire
and Allison. The only like one on one interaction they
have is toward the end, whenever Claire gives Allison a makeover,
because according to John Hughes, girls can't talk unless they're
(34:25):
putting makeup in each other. Um well, and then prior
to that, it's very antagonistic between the two of them,
where these two characters have barely spoken the whole movie.
They may not have actually spoken to each other at all.
Besides in passing before this scene where everyone's talking about
sex and Judd Nelson's character, for whatever reason, decides he's gonna,
you know, double down on Molly Ringwald's character again, and
(34:47):
it's like, why would't you tell me if you're a virgin? What?
Because you know, if you ask, it's like being a cop,
you have to tell people if you're a virgin. Uh Like.
But it's just so he decides to start her asking
her again, and for some kind of weird, inexplicable reason,
Alison joins in and it's kind of like, no, why
w don't you tell him? And and it's it's hard
(35:11):
to parse exactly what the intent of that scene is,
like over thirty years later, but I think that you're
supposed to want to be like you're like, oh, no,
she should tell us. It's like, no, no one ever
owes any random detention kids, any of your personal information ever,
you know, And but it struck me as just like
(35:34):
frustrating and annoying that this is the first time we're
actually getting an interaction out of these characters, and immediately
and kind of in the story, I think, irrationally, Alison
just turns on Claire and start harassing her. There's also
another small example within the same scene where Allison comes
to Claire's defense and she's like, actually, don't bother her.
(35:55):
But it's just so all over the place that you're
just like, why, like because one of the first she
says is it's a double edged sword. If you haven't
had sex, you're approved. If you have, you're a slut,
which she's commenting on a very real double standard for
women and when they've had sex. But then she says,
(36:16):
you know you want to, but you can't, and then
you're a tease, right, You're like several times, well, I
think she's still like making some sort of commentary there,
but it's weird that she does that right after she
like dunks on Molly Ringwald for bullying her into you know,
saying it when way or the other, and it's just
I don't know that. I think this movie thinks that
(36:38):
if anyone asks you if you're a virgin, you're legally
required to tell them, because people are treating Molly Ringwald
like she is breaking the law by by not disclosing. Um.
That transitions pretty well into a short scene earlier in
the movie where UM Anthony Michael Hall's character Brian uh
(37:02):
is being harassed by Jed Nelson, which is se the
movie UM, but he's being harassed and John Nelson like
his movie is like Your Virgin, which is pretty true
to high school. But he's you know, teasing Brian, calling
him a virgin. Brian was like, I'm not a virgin.
I've laid lots of times, and you're like, yikes, dead
(37:25):
giveaway dude there. But then he starts to lie, which
also feels like I don't know, at least based on
like people I knew in high school. That's a pretty
authentic experience of guy's being like, no I have it
says all that time, and then Jed Nelson's like who,
and then he like gestures at Molly Ringwald's like her,
(37:45):
and then Judd. Nelson's like, Molly Ringwald, you fucked this guy,
and and so this could be a very troubling scene.
The reason it works pretty well for me is that
I don't know. I mean, Molly Ringwald finds out immediately,
she's right there, and she's like no, and then you know,
(38:07):
like calls him out on it, like don't do that,
and he apologizes. He's like being a virginal loser. And
then she says what you said earlier, like being a
virgin is actually awesome, and then see yes, yes, and
then you know there are two virgins and a Judd. Yeah,
I don't know. That scene worked for me way better
(38:29):
than all the times they're just piling on my Molly
Ringwald to make her say something one one way or
the other. And it's not just that, I mean, it's
the Jen Nelson character, Fingerless Gloves. Uh. He's a counterculture
everyone he's uh. He spends almost the entire movie either
sexually harassing her by saying things like, hey, let's lock
(38:53):
the doors so we can impregnate the prom queen, which yeah,
that is a threat. He asks Andy, He's like, hey,
did you give her the hot beef injection? I think
is the line and then you're like, oh, yeah, a
forty year old man thought of that from or like
(39:14):
the skirt scene where he sees her it was under
the desk. Let's give some context for that. Yes, so
he's hiding under the desk. The Bender character is because
he can't be seen by Vernon. As he's under there,
he sees Claire's underwear. So this was a scene that
(39:34):
that's not Molly Ringwald in that scene. Legally it could
not be Molly Ringwald in that scene. But in the
in the New Yorker essay from last year, they were
referencing earlier because Molly Ringwald is like sixteen seventeen when
this is film, So her mom is talking with John
Hughes almost as much as she is. And there was
(39:55):
one plot point involving a naked female gym teacher that
they talked him out of in Eluding because it was
just perverted and weird. But they could not talk him
out of the underwear scene, and that was something that
Molly Ringwald's mom was like really frustrated and upset about,
and like John Hughes would not back down on it,
and so they had to hire a body double to
(40:15):
come in and be you know, the skirt. Yeah, and um,
so that is why that scene is there. It's just
like that. That is such like a classic example of
like here are two women telling you this is not okay,
and he's like, I'll hire someone else, and you know,
just like flexes on them in this very gross way,
(40:38):
like if if it's also like safe to say, if
the actor you hired cannot legally do it, probably don't
do it. And is a great indication, especially if the
actor opposite them is twenty six years old. It's like,
what are you gross? Yeah, and then we're meant to
I think. So he sees her underwear and then we
(41:01):
see him move his face closer into her crutch area,
and then she yelps, so we see her and frame
rather than him then and she like yelps and then
hard to say what exactly happens, but I think we
can easily see virgin he doesn't know what happens. He
doesn't know, but basically the Bender character assaults her. Yeah,
(41:25):
and then the reaction is immediately afterwards her like smacking
him several times on the back, and then that doesn't
get brought up. I mean that just still make out
at the end and she gives him a diamond. God,
if every man that assaulted you you had to give
a diamond, it's for fucking God. John Hughes is disgusting.
(41:49):
Opposite of what happens in Titanic with the Billies, it's Um,
I mean the rundown of of what Bender's character says
to Claire is like, I mean it really there's a
(42:10):
lot of anti queeristlurs thrown up throughout this movie from
all characters. So you know that John Hughes just thinks
it's Jill. There's uh one speech like monologue that Bender
delivers to Claire's that is like fat shaming her in
the future, Yeah, which is just you're insane. Uh. He's
(42:35):
arousing her, asking if she's a virgin all the time,
He's making comments about how she couldn't you know, get
away from him if she wanted to, she can't resist him,
all this stuff. He screams you are a bitch at
her loudly. Um. At one point he kinda he makes
fun of Andy, who is a wrestler. He's like, oh,
(42:55):
I just admire any guy who rolls around on the
floor with another guy, and like the implication that is,
it's he's saying something homophobias. Yeah, so Bender maybe not
a good guy, and yet for reasons that are very
uncleared to at least me, she goes into the broom
closet that he is locked into because he was misbehaving
(43:18):
so badly, get a hickey and a diet. So, I mean,
but this is something we see again and again where
I mean, and he's not even wearing her down in
a way that movies usually do it where it's like,
please go out with me, please, please please. He's just
like you're a fucking big ramping it up the whole movie.
(43:39):
And then it's like after he assaults her that she's like,
I'm going to give him a chance. Like it's just
not it's totally nonsensical the way that happens, and it's like,
at least that's very clear to people now, but it's
just like it's crazy. I mean. And that's not to
say that there isn't more context in layers to the
Bender character, because there is, and there's like a lot
(44:00):
of time devoted to his background and coming from an
abusive household. That scene we were referencing with him and
the assistant Principle, who is basically the whole time saying
that he can be abusive. You know, he's another like
abusive paternal figure in Bender's life, and he's allowed to
do that because Bender is poor invendors from an abusive household,
(44:22):
and no one will believe him if he says anything
which is I mean like powerful stuff and and like
I was affected by it, especially in that scene where
the assistant principles like fight me and was just classic.
But but before that that bizarre initiation, he's saying a
lot of horrible stuff that like is recognizable of like, uh,
(44:47):
an abusive paternal figure. So it's like even more of
a bummer if you get that side of effective storytelling.
But then you know you're also setting the standard of
you have incredible empathy for the scare or who is
verbally abusing one of the only females you get to
see on screen for the entire time, and that's not
really reflected as something that's not okay to do. So
(45:10):
it's even like more of a bummer of like, by
the end of the movie, it's hard not to like
love him in some way or have a lot of
empathy for him while he's doing these horrible things that
are not really treated as horrible, so its once again, God,
damn it, damn it. And then the while the other
(45:32):
hetero romance that ends up playing out is a direct
result of a makeover scene, which is when Claire is
putting the makeup on Allison and the only again, the
only thing that they have together one on one, and
then she says something like, you look a lot better
with all that black shit under your eyes, and then
(45:52):
the hot topic managers of the world shot themselves, and
then she completely changes the way Alison looks, and I guess,
did Claire just bring a whole other outfit to score
it to give to her, not even a cute outfit
by the way, it well, yeah, because she's got like
(46:16):
a flower in her hair, her makeup is more traditional,
she's wearing pastel pink, and then Andy sees her and
he's like so basically, so she's only attractive to Andy
(46:42):
once she changes everything about her appearance, and it doesn't
occur to him that she is attractive until she's adhering
to like this more conventional feminine standard of beauty, right,
which was the you know, part of the projected point
of her character. Was to subvert that, but clearly John
and he uses a lawless motherfucker, and it actually doesn't
(47:04):
have much of a vested interest of subverting much of anything.
So one other point I wanted to hit on for
the Brian character, who we don't really get to know before.
They're like, hey, door, homework Dorc and he's like, okay,
he writes like chitty lyrics or whatever, but he's characterized
(47:28):
very late in the story and he says that, yeah,
he was going to kill himself with a with a
flare gun. It's just worth saying. Um. It's like a
very bizarre, reductive way to treat any suicidality or or
anything like that. And it almost feels like an afterthought
in the story of like, oh shit, Anthony Michael Hall's here,
(47:49):
what what would he have done? He already raped someone
in the last movie, I don't know what to do
with him in this one. Um, And then they sort
of just I mean, and it's it's weird because it
could be an effective plot point that was thoughtfully told,
but he says it in like three sentences sort of,
and then everyone is sort of like that's stupid, and
(48:12):
he's like, you're right, and so you're just like, oh,
so he's cured of suicidal thoughts and tendencies. Pretty sure,
that's not how that works. But and then and then
and then right after he's like, you know, I recently
almost killed myself through like t he he do our homework. Yeah,
(48:32):
so it's I mean, it's one of many things that
it is not handled well in the movie nic it's not. Um,
I guess uh. The last thing I have is just
going checking out some of the smaller ring waltz. Yeah,
she wrote the piece last year that we thought was
like a really thoughtful look at the body of work
(48:56):
that made her famous. Highly recommend checking it out. I
like to think she wrote it between scenes of Riverdale
being shot, but we don't know the circumstances. But let's
say canonically it was between of Riverdale. Are there any
particular passages you wanted to to point out or um,
(49:16):
let's see, I already kind of paraphrased a few of them,
so if you wanna take a crack at any of yours. Well, basically,
she runs through a lot of stuff we were talking
about today, and just like at the time when she
was sixteen seventeen, shooting these movies she didn't recognize and
hadn't been conditioned to recognize the elements of rape culture
and other things that appear in these movies, aside from
(49:37):
the things that she did notice and pointed out. And
sometimes we're ignored and sometimes weren't ignored, and she gives
a few examples of those. Um. She also gives a
great anecdote talking with the women from sixteen Candles, who
it's implied that Anthony Michael Hall's character rapes, and how
they like got lunched together and Molly Greenwell was like,
(49:58):
do you think this was fucked up? And the lady
was like, honestly, you never thought about it. And then
like three hours later, the actress who played that part,
uh emails her back and it's like, oh my god,
that was incredibly fucked up. And so it was just
like a really interesting piece on um, you know, just
(50:18):
sort of what we're trying to do is just uh,
you know, reflect on stuff without you know, totally disowning
it as a body of work, but just you know,
viewing it more thoughtfully and critically. I just wanted to
read the thing. She says that the how she sort
of closes the piece out she says, quote, how are
we meant to feel about art that we both love
and oppose? What if we're in the unusual position of
(50:41):
having helped create it? Erasing history is a dangerous road
when it comes to art. Changes essential, but so too
is remembering the past in all of its transgression and barbarism,
so that we may properly gauge how far we have
come and also how far we still need to go,
which I thought was just nice. That is, Yeah, that's
like kind of like the fasis of the Becktel cast.
(51:01):
And then and then Cole Sprouts leans into the room.
He's like, we're shooting river Dale Hover and then she
had to go. But up till that it was a
great essay. Um, I will say this is one of
a few teen movies that doesn't end in a prom
(51:25):
or doesn't have some sort of prom affiliated with it.
I honestly think that if he had had the budget
he would have he probably would have prom is that
night and they've spent nine hours and detentions and they're like,
we're tired, but I guess we'll go to prom alright, Yeah,
I mean, and we're almost a time or two Caitlin, Yeah,
(51:48):
does this movie pass the Bechdel test. I am gonna
say yes, I know, because speak your cake. Well, okay,
this one is worth kind of debating because Allison says
I'll do anything sexual and I don't need a million
dollars to do it. I mean, we can all relate. Um.
(52:10):
Sorry that that was erasing a sexual people, so I'm
sorry to do that. Claire says, you're lying, and then
Allison says, I already have. I've done just about everything
there is except a few things that are illegal. Again,
we can all relate, um. And then she says I'm
an infomaniac. But isn't she implying hetero sexual? Yeah, exactly,
(52:34):
So I don't think that counts. That one is probably
a note. But then Claire Allison talk about makeup and
they say, don't stick me, don't stick that in my eye,
and Claire says, you know, you look a lot better
with all that without all that black shit around your eye,
and then Allison says, hey, I like that black shit,
(52:54):
and then Claire says this looks a lot better. And
then she's like, why you being so nice to me?
Because you're letting the end of that conversation tragically that
does that is the past is the past. But again
it's two women talking about confined Yes, it's very hyper
feminine things, so that is a yes. Um, well, John
(53:20):
uses a feminist icon. I take that. H I feel
a little fucking stupid he was saying all those things
about him. All right, shall shall we read it on
our nipple scale? Yes we should. Let's do it there.
(53:41):
If you're not familiar our nipple scale, we use a
scale zero to five nipples, and we read it based
on its portrayal and representation of women. This one's kind
of tricky for me because it is an earlier example
of seeing teen women on screen who are not the
way that they were portrayed in movies like Porkis and
(54:03):
Revenge of the Nerds and like, really awful, how dare
they make a movie called Porky? So we're seeing more
nuanced depictions of teen girls, but again I would argue,
not as nuanced as the movie wants you to think.
(54:24):
They're still fairly trophy and we do get to know them,
and these characters, especially the Molly Ringwald character, is more
developed of a character than we had seen in a
teen girl kind of up until that point. But the
way that she is treated, especially by the Jed Nelson character,
and then forced into a heatero kiss with him. The
(54:49):
movie forcing her because she is the one who goes
and kisses him. Why did you do that? He threatened
to rape you nine hours ago and then he did so, right,
It's just so there's a lot of missteps like that.
Worth noting that this is an extremely white movie. In fact,
I mean it's all yeah and all of John Hughes
(55:12):
movies except for the long ducktong character and sixteen Candles,
which so sorry, you're right, he's a representation. Um yeah,
So I think I know this is a beloved movie.
I know it explores themes that still resonate with us today,
but I think it is very obviously a nine five
(55:37):
eight four Oh right, okay for some reason, yes, movies
in eighty five. Who knows why. I'm gonna give it
one and a half? Okay, is that wrong? I hate
(55:59):
during this at live shows because I'm like, I'm she said, what,
thank you? Thank you so much? Are you giving the
nips to? I'm gonna give one to Molly Ringwald. I'm
(56:20):
gonna throw my half nipple to Anthony Michael Hall as
unexpected of a twist that I'm upset with that I know,
I don't know why I've been dating. I'm gonna give
it a half nipple because women are there, which not
(56:45):
all movies get to. Um, I don't know. I don't
think that this movie, or John Hughes' entire body of
work is like as subversive as people make it out
to be. And it might be partially because I'm not
attached to it and was never really a fan of it.
But I just, you know, you learn about I like
(57:05):
you learn about Molly Ringwald's character, but that doesn't mean
that her character isn't totally sold out by the writer
by the end of the movie. And you don't really
learn anything about Ali Sheedy's character, and she's also sold
out by the end of the movie. And so it's
really I mean, I guess, you know, it's like the
two female characters I thought were made by the writer
(57:26):
to act very irrationally at the end of the movie
in a way that in the first hour plus of
the movie you would not expect them to act based
on like a strong foundation, and then at the end
they're just like, no, you gotta you gotta have a kiss, like,
so I feel for for both of those characters that
like had some promise in them. We're kind of sold out.
And I also feel for Anthony Michael Hall because he
(57:47):
had to do everyone's homework and that's not cool. Have
a nipple and I'm giving it to the janitor. Hell yeah,
who it's hot and it was and who? And not
in confident? Well, the because the quick montage at the
(58:07):
very beginning in which you do see the hacker hackers
will be expelled the frame. There's another shot where it's
like men gross, but one of them is like man
of the Year. There's like a photo and it's a
photo of Carl. He was Man of the Year when
he was in high school. I love Carl. We didn't
(58:28):
get to talk about Carl, but Carl is one of
the most fully realized characters in the movie. When everyone's
trying to be like, you're a janitor, He's like, fuck you,
I'm a janitor And I was like, yeah, Carl, you
fuck He fucking rules. He dunks on everyone. He just
like anyone who talks back to Carl, He's like, you
can't touch me. I'm I'm the most confident man alive.
(58:52):
Like he goes home and has sex every day like
he's man of there and my book beautiful. Thank you, Well,
that's our show. Thanks for coming, Thank you for coming.
(59:16):
All right? That was that. That was the episode. It
was so much fun. We wanted to thank everyone who
came to the San Francisco show. The turnout was way
more than we were expecting for fifty people and a
venue that was not necessarily supposed to hold that many people,
which was so great. And speaking of the venue, thanks
for having us. We were at Piano Fight so it's
(59:37):
part of the San Francisco Sketch Festival, So shouts out
to Sketch Fest for having us. Shouts out to Piano
Fight for for having us there. Um, thank you so
much to our friend friend of the cast, Sammy Junio
for recording the show for us, for being our road
dog for that whole tory. You'll be hearing a lot
about them in the next couple of weeks as we
released these episodes. Indeed, and also big thanks to our
(01:00:00):
friend Catherine Leon who was at the show and was
helping us sell merch and just like stay organized and stuff.
So big thanks to Catherine. Thanks friends. Also big thanks
to anyone who bought merch at that show. Yeah, that
helped us out a lot. Yeah. We'll be back in
San Francisco sometime soon soon. Yeah. And as for you
(01:00:22):
listening person, wherever you are, we'll see you next week,
See you next week. Bye,
The Bechdel Cast News
Hosts And Creators
Caitlin Durante
Jamie Loftus
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