February 6, 2024 • 65 mins
Don’t you…forget about misogyny…Don’t Don’t Don’t Don’t!
On today’s episode of Deep Thoughts, Tracie takes another look at the 1985 John Hughes film The Breakfast Club. Though this classic Gen X teen movie passes the Bechdel test and explicitly names the prude-or-slut trap of female sexuality, it also treats Claire and Allison like prizes for the boys in the film and assures the audience that we’re not so different from each other–by featuring a cast that is entirely white, cishet, thin, and able-bodied.
Sounds like your earbuds and my earbuds should get together and listen to this podcast.
CW: Discussion of on-screen sexual harassment, evidence of physical abuse, and suicidal ideation.
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Tracy Guy-Dekker and you're listening to Deep
Thoughts about Stupid Shit,because pop culture is still
culture, and shouldn't you knowwhat's in your head?
Today I'll be sharing my DeepThoughts about the 1985 John
Hughes film, the Breakfast Club,with my sister, emily
Guy-Burken, and with you.
Let's dive in.
Have you ever had something youlove dismissed because it's
(00:24):
just pop culture, what othersmight deem stupid shit?
You know matters, you knowwhat's worth talking and
thinking about, and so do we.
So come overthink with us as wedelve into our deep thoughts
about stupid shit.
This show is a labor of love,but that doesn't make it free to
produce.
If you enjoy it even half asmuch as we do, please consider
(00:46):
helping to keep us overthinking.
You can support us at ourPatreon there's a link in the
show notes or leave a positivereview so others can find us and
, of course, share the show withyour people.
Okay, so I know you've seenthis film.
I know you have, but tell meyou know what's in your head
about the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
So I saw the Breakfast Club.
I was probably in elementaryschool.
No, I came out when I was six.
I know I didn't see it when itcame out, but I wasn't.
I mean, I was probably nine or10.
And so I took it as this iswhat high school is like.
Looking back, I don't know thatthat was necessarily a bad
(01:28):
thing to take from it.
Yeah, obviously.
Like you know, 27 year oldsplaying 16 year olds they
weren't.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
They weren't actually .
They weren't really.
Molly Ringwald was 16 when itwas filmed.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
No kidding, yeah, oh, that makes some aspects really
gruesome.
We will get into that, okay.
So, um, all right.
Well, the other thing is thatJohn Bender was very much a part
of my romantic instruction as achild.
John Bender, mr Rochester andthe Beast from the Beauty and
(02:03):
the Beast were what I foundromantic, and they all have a
lot in common.
For many years I thought of itas like a very well done Gen X
era teen movie with a satisfyingromantic subplot, and I've had
(02:24):
to really reevaluate that,especially when I saw Molly
Ringwald posting something abouthow her daughter, who was in
her teens, wanted to see it.
She was like, oh goodness, Idon't know if I want her to see
it and we'll have to watch ittogether because of,
specifically, the underwearscene.
(02:45):
And this is not the only JohnHughes film with Molly Ringwald
where there's a weird underwearscene.
So that's something that I,like I've been wrestling with
somewhat.
I mean, we already talked alittle bit about it, about this
view of romance with Beauty andthe Beast, so I'm excited to
kind of get into that aspect ofit as well for Breakfast Club.
(03:08):
But why are we talking aboutthis today?
What's important to you aboutthis movie?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, so you were six , I was nine when it came out
and I probably saw it around thesame time you did.
So I was a tween or teenager,young teenager when I saw it and
I remember thinking of it aslike it was like a real movie
that treated kids, you know,seriously, and I loved it for
that.
And I didn't I don't have quitethe depth of affection for the
(03:39):
Beast Bender Rochester characterthat you do, but I have some of
it.
And for our project I've reallybeen thinking about what are
like the Gen X films that werekind of foundational, and so
this one came up.
So that's why I wanted to kindof dig into it a little bit.
So let me start with just aquick, like what happens in the
(03:59):
movie which actually I'm goingto be quick about it because
it's sort of a slice of lifefilm, like one day that every
detail doesn't matter for thelistener to kind of understand
what the movie is about.
The conceit is it's a Saturdayat Schermer High School in
Schermer, illinois and thesefive kids have detention eight
(04:23):
hours on a Saturday in thelibrary.
So the five kids in detentionare five.
They each fill the stereotype.
So there's the popular girlwho's Molly Ringwald, played by
Molly Ringwald.
There's the jock, who is playedby Emilio Estevez.
He's a wrestler.
There's the nerd, played byMichael Anthony Hall.
(04:44):
There's the criminal that's theword that's used in the film.
He's sort of the bad boy.
That's John Bender, whom youmentioned.
They bite Judd Nelson.
And then there's the basketcase that's the word used in the
film.
That's Allie Sheeby's Allison.
The only other two characters ofnote.
We do see each of the kids'parents very briefly, but the
(05:06):
only.
Actually we don't see JohnBender's parents.
We see some of the kids'parents briefly, but the only
other two characters of note areVice Principal Richard, dick
Vernon and Carl the janitor.
So Vice Principal Vernon issort of classic love-to-hate
authoritarian who reallydislikes these kids, especially
(05:31):
John Bender, and Carl is just aneveryday guy doing his thing,
doing his job.
So the kids are in detention forthe full day.
Vice Principal Vernon is rightthere waiting for them to screw
up and ends up giving JohnBender an additional eight
(05:54):
Saturdays of detention becausethey have a screaming match
where Vernon feels disrespectedand keeps like that's one more,
that's one more, and in factBrian keeps count of how many it
is.
But then Vernon gets distractedand he's off doing his thing.
So the kids kind of are left ontheir own.
They sneak out and go get weedout of John's locker and then
(06:18):
they kind of hit a dead end.
They think they're going to getcaught.
John Bender basicallysacrifices himself and causes a
big distraction to get Vernon tocatch John Bender, while the
other kids sneak back into thelibrary John Bender.
Then Vernon puts Bender into asupply closet as his punishment
(06:41):
for solitary confinement kind ofa thing, and actually goes to
him, tries to get the student tohit him, which John Bender does
not fall for that.
And then, after Vernon leaveshim alone, he climbs up and
crawls through the drop ceilingducts, I guess and rejoins the
(07:02):
other kids in the library.
They get high, they talk aboutlife, they complain about their
parents.
Most of them cry at some point.
And then Molly Ringwald givesAllie Sheedy's character a
makeover and Emilio Estevez'scharacter is instantly smitten
(07:24):
now that she's moretraditionally feminine.
And at the very end MollyRingwald sneaks out, goes to the
supply closet and gives JohnBender a kiss.
They were supposed to write anessay about who they think they
are of at least a thousand words.
In the end only Brian the nerdwrites one which basically says
(07:45):
you know, mr Vernon, you thinkyou know who we are, but you
don't know who we are becausewe're all all of these things,
we're all of a jock.
A jock and a criminal and abasket case and a popular girl.
That's not the word, princess.
Princess, thank you, a princessand a nerd.
(08:05):
So the you know the sort ofmoral of the movie is that you
know you can't judge a book byits cover and actually the moral
that you took away that thesort of lines between the social
groups are arbitrary and false.
So okay, so that's what we'reworking with here.
(08:27):
So rewatching it now in my late40s and thinking about it like
the first thing you're struckwith, honestly Still in your mid
40s For another six weeks Still.
So here I am, in my 40s, lookingback at this movie and the
(08:48):
first thing I was struck with,honestly, was the casual
misogyny, the casual homophobia,the casual fat phobia that is
just thrown around, the casualableism.
We hear that the homophobic Fword repeatedly and see it in
writing once we hear the ableistour word at least once out of
John Bender's mouth.
(09:09):
We and John actually constantlyinsulting Molly Ringwald's
character, claire, constantly.
One of the ways he insults herhe calls her fat.
She is not fat.
She says I'm not fat.
And then he says there are twokinds of fat people.
There's fat people who'vealways been fat and there's fat
people who used to be thin.
And then he does this thinglike puffing his cheeks out, and
(09:31):
he tells her that that's he cansee her future.
It is so gross in so many ways.
There's and there's this casualhomophobia that's thrown around
between the Andy and JohnBender about wrestling and about
it.
It's like used to insult oneanother and like it was hard to
(09:58):
watch initially, like like inthe first few minutes of meeting
these characters I'm like whydid I like these kids as I'm
watching it now.
And I have to say, like it doesget better it in so far as like
it was intentional right BecauseHughes wanted us to see these
kids as their stereotypes first,and so that's why he does what
(10:22):
he does, like that wasdefinitely an intentional move
on the movie maker's part, sothat was what I was first struck
with.
What I really want to get intowith you is thinking about, with
the romantic thing that you'retalking about, but I think
that's baked into someconstructions of gender that
Hughes to give him credit in1985, when this was released, I
(10:46):
actually think he was doing somesubversion of gender roles that
have been inherited.
But now here we are, these 40years later, almost 40 years
later, it's not.
It's not as subversive as Ithink we thought it was.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Right.
So here's what I mean he tookas a given that we now really
don't yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yeah, agreed, agreed, and I think there were also
some things that like, if welook at the individual, well,
I'll show you what I mean.
So I think giving Claire somedepth was actually subversive in
1985 to take this like verypopular girl.
She is the prom queen, like byher own account and by everyone
(11:36):
else's.
The school would shut down ifshe didn't show up.
And she's not an airhead.
She really has some depth toher, has deep emotion and is a
relatively fully formedcharacter.
I think that was subversive in1985.
Yes, yeah, I would agree withthat.
(11:58):
We also have in Allie Sheedy'svoice some real subversion of
the catch 22 the teenage girlsare put into around sexuality
Right.
So there's this scene whereAllie Sheedy claims to be very
sexually promiscuous and thenthe other four kids are trying
(12:20):
to get Claire to admit whetheror not she has had sex before.
She doesn't want to talk aboutit.
And they really harangue heruntil she admits that she's a
virgin.
Then Allie Sheedy fesses up sheis too, and says Allie Sheedy's
, allie Sheedy's, allison saysit's a double-edged sword If you
(12:40):
haven't, you're a prude, and ifyou have, you're a slut.
It's a trap.
She says it's a trap and I feellike saying that out loud in
1985 is pretty powerful.
That dichotomy, prude or slut,is absolutely the trap of female
(13:07):
sexuality.
And so, on the one hand, I wantto applaud that.
On the other hand, both ofthese two women are forced into
a pairing by the end of theseeight hours, forced by John
Hughes, not by the characters.
So it's you know.
(13:28):
Claire faces insult andharassment and actually what
might even be term sexualassault today, in that underwear
scene by her romantic interest.
So the underwear scene the kidsdon't like each other coming in
, but they do show solidarityagainst Vernon.
(13:51):
So that is the one.
That's one of the first placesthat they start to show
solidarity.
Then there are other things thatbring them together.
One of the moments when theyshow solidarity against Vernon
is after Bender has snuck backto the library through the ducts
.
He, like, fell through theceiling.
Vernon heard it and comes inand is like what was that?
Ruckus and the other four kidsare protecting the fact that
(14:13):
Bender's there.
He's under the desk.
So he's under the desk whereClaire is sitting and he looks
up and realizes he has a clearview of Claire's crotch in her
skirt and sort of like starts tolean in, forcing her to, like
you know, crush his face withher knees.
What's interesting about thatscene?
(14:35):
One of the things I mean.
You note that Hughes puts thatin other teenage come-age movies
.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Also now considering the fact that Olly Ringwald was
16 and they have the camera.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
So here's the thing.
This is what's interesting,because she was 16, it would
have been illegal to actuallyuse her body.
It's a stand-in, so it's bodydouble.
The crotch shot that we see isnot Molly Ringwald's crotch.
Molly Ringwald objected to thatscene.
Molly's mom objected to thatscene.
While they were filming theyhad to bring in a body double
(15:14):
for legal purposes because shewas 16.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
And so they had to go through all that trouble for
something that added nothing.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
And Hughes felt so strongly exactly that he needed
that moment.
Mm-hmm.
That I'm like what, what, john,what the hell.
Yeah.
Like what actually are youtrying to say here?
(15:42):
And so once Vernon leaves andBender kind of crawls out from
the desk and Claire hits himlike he's crawling, so she's
hitting his back repeatedly andcalling him names, and how dare
you?
And he says it was an accident.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
I should yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Or actually has every right to do.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Let's put it that way there's no should in how you
respond, but she has every rightto do Right, right, and so it's
just, it's just, it's just,it's just, it's just an accident
, and like, come on, come on,you know it just.
(16:22):
And so we have, on the one hand, allison saying it's a trap,
and on the other hand, we haveJohn Hughes going to so much
trouble to make sure that theaudience has this crotch shot
moment.
Mm-hmm.
And I think that's the truth.
Like today, I have a lot ofcognitive dissonance around
(16:45):
those two truths.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
You know, what's interesting to me is, I feel
like.
So last week we talked aboutClueless and we talked about how
there was a lot of like.
Well, this is the cost of beinga woman or being feminine coded
in the world, and I had kind offorgotten about Allison saying
it's a trap.
But what's interesting to me isthat I know I had no hangups in
(17:13):
high school whatsoever abouteither being or not being
experienced sexually, like itdidn't bother me at all, like
didn't care, didn't care aboutother people, didn't care.
And I know that's not true ofother people of our generation,
although I feel like in general,like Gen X, women have fewer
(17:35):
hangups than previousgenerations.
But I did feel weird about nothaving romantic pairings, mm-hmm
.
So, and I did navigate theworld as if my expectation was
(18:01):
there will be some casualharassment yeah, because that's
what I was taught Even amonggood guys, dateable guys, people
who would actually treat mewell.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
You know, that's an interesting point too,
especially given your sort oflike John Bender as part of the
constellation of what you werelooking for.
Because when they do actuallypair, clare seeks him out To be
intense and douchey.
He says are you lost?
She comes up to him and kisseshim on his like cheek, neck, not
(18:40):
mouth and he says why did youdo that?
And she says because I knew youwouldn't.
So it is significant in my mindthat though Bender harassed her
emotionally and actuallysexually, she knew he wasn't
(19:02):
going to actually touch her inthat way.
Right Like even the like crotchmoment was sort of a moment of
opportunity and not of design.
He didn't go under that desk inorder to do that.
Yes, and so there's almost likean apology in that Like yeah,
(19:26):
sure he acts like a jerk to you,but there is a line.
He wouldn't cross that line andthere's sort of like a like
that's what makes it okay in theviewers Like I think that
looking at it now, looking backon it, it doesn't feel okay to
me.
Now I'm like why would she evenwant him?
But I think when I watched itas a 13 year old or whatever,
(19:50):
and again as a 16 and whatever,like as a younger person, that
was what made that romanceactually make a little more
sense.
Subconsciously.
I didn't consciously think that, but subconsciously I was like
you know, because she made themove that made it not icky,
mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Well, it emphasizes how much of what and this is
this is the thing that I findattractive about these stories
and these characters emphasizesthat what he does is a
performance to protect his softunderbelly.
Yes, yes, and so, like the, thecasual misogyny, the casual
(20:34):
homophobia, just the way that heinteracts with Vernon, all of
that is to like it's a catpuffing up.
That's not really who he is,and I think that there is some
truth there.
You know like the people doperform to protect themselves.
(20:54):
The problem is that we weretaught that that kind of casual
misogyny and harassmentindicated a soft underbelly
rather than that just being whothey are.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, that's a nice distinction.
That's a nice distinction and Ithink that totally fits with
this character as well, becausethe first moment he feels at all
sympathetic is when he's so.
First he's sort of making funof Brian and imagining what
Brian's family life is like, andthen Andy says what about you?
(21:31):
And he mimics his own fathertotally abusing him and then
verbally abusing him, and then,when he's pushed because Andy
thinks he's lying, he shows ascar where a cigar has been put
out on his skin, and so thefirst moment that we're like
really invited to sympathizewith this character is to see
(21:56):
exactly that.
But this performance of the badboy is because he's been abused
.
So I think you're exactly right, and he's not the only one.
We see that each of these kidsis performing to one degree or
another because of their homelife for each of them actually.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
And this movie is pretty quotable.
There's a line that I actuallyuse, that's like because it's
quotable, but it also, I feellike, says it very quickly.
When Andy opens up about hisown father's abuse, that doesn't
feel like abuse because it'shis father wanting him to do his
(22:41):
best.
You know, it's like come on, wedon't tolerate losers in this
family, win, win.
And we already know howhorrendous Bender's father is.
Bender says sounds like your oldman and my old man should get
together and go bowling.
Yeah, and that is such aperfectly written line because
(23:02):
it's showing empathy andsympathy and solidarity in a
very like specific way and whilestill allowing him the distance
he needs, because he's alreadylike we're different.
But you know we're notdifferent.
It's just, it's why this moviewas beloved and made so much
(23:24):
money.
And all of that is because,like John Hughes has it down,
like that is excellent,excellent dialogue.
Yeah, that's great writing.
Yeah, and when I use that, it'swhen I hear about something
awful happening.
I'll be like, I'll say likesounds like your old man and my
(23:44):
old man should get together andgo bowling.
Not that I'm talking about myactual man, right.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Yeah, no, I think that's exactly right.
I think that's exactly right,okay.
So I'm trying to figure outwhat I want to talk about next
and this isn't a fully formedthought, so maybe you can help
me kind of round this out.
Each of the three boys is giventhe opportunity within the
dialogue, within the script, tohave some real emotional
(24:11):
expression through their ownagency, right?
So you know, bender does thething I mean, he's invited when
Andy says, what about at yourhouse?
But the thing about his dad,like he does that, he's not kind
of goaded into it, and then wesee real emotion from him.
(24:32):
He like he expresses anger, helike throws books and he climbs
up, like he climbs up onto thismezzanine area and just kind of
brews.
We see Andy at one point.
The kids are all sitting aroundand Andy says do you know why
I'm in here?
And he tells the story aboutreally abusing a nerdy kid and
(24:57):
expresses deep regret and talksabout the fact that he did it to
try and impress his dad and howmessed up that is.
And he doesn't know how toapologize to poor Larry Lester
who, whose bunsy tape togetherand he and he just, we see, like
real pathos for me and me andthat same conversation.
(25:19):
Brian talks about why he's inthere and in fact it he.
He felt the pressure to like hecouldn't make the elephant's
trunk, turn on the light in thelamp and chop glass and he cries
like from the this is like notgonna, he can't have an F and he
knows his parents can't have anF.
So he brought a gun to school.
So I'm gonna put a footnote onthe fact that we see real
(25:44):
emotion from him, because John,who's almost immediately like,
kind of dissipates the fact thatwe have suicidal ideation with
laughter, which I'm just gonnaput a parenthesis around that
and say like that deserved alittle more, and set that aside
a bit.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
I will say though the four kids there didn't have any
way of dealing with that orhelping Brian.
Yeah, the laughter is acatharsis for Brian.
So, like Brian deserve betterfrom the movie the kids by by
(26:24):
laughing and they did the bestthey could and provided him with
a, with a necessary catharsis.
That was all they could do.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Yeah, and to be clear , if you haven't seen the movie,
they don't laugh at him.
He says he brought a gun toschool.
Allison asks was it a handgun?
He says it was a flare gun andit went off in the locker and
totally destroyed the elephant.
And and the kids are justsitting there looking serious
and then they start to sort ofgiggle because it was a flare
gun.
Yeah, so they're not laughingat him.
(26:54):
They're not laughing at him.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
No, that's important to note and it is like
objectively kind of funny thatthe flare gun went off in his
locker which first of all it's aflare gun and then that it
destroyed the elephant.
There is something objectivelyfunny about that.
And getting helping Brian getto a point where he can see the
(27:16):
objective humor in the situationthat he feels such shame over,
I think is again the best thatthese kids can do because
they're kids.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
I think that's fair.
I accept that, thank you.
So Allison has some, expressessome emotion in weird fits and
starts.
She is, you know, she's thesort of basket case of the group
and is not sure how to interactsocially and clearly wants to
(27:49):
but also doesn't want to, and sothere's odd moments where she
sort of starts to open up andthen closes back up again.
We see her cry when the five ofthem are sitting around talking
, but it's actually she's cryingnot because of her own like
(28:10):
expression, it's like because ofthe broader conversation.
Brian's the nerd and he sayswhat's gonna happen on Monday
when we see each other, becauseI think of you guys as friends
now, and Claire's like that'snot how it works, right, and and
and at that point Allison andBrian both cry and Claire does
too, actually sort of about youknow where they are, and
(28:31):
Claire's not trying.
She even says like I'm nottrying to be a jerk, I'm just
telling you how it is, this ishow it works.
Claire has big emotions, butthey are sort of harassed out of
her, her big emotions, right,it's not about it's not.
It's not like Brian sort ofhaving an opportunity to express
(28:54):
the shame Claire's bullied intocrying and that distinction for
her out of the group undercutssome of what I said from the
(29:16):
very beginning about making thispopular girl not the airhead.
It's almost like we want to makethe popular girl cry, we the
audience, and I'm not even surewhere I'm going with this, but I
was struck by it when I wasthinking about looking back at
(29:39):
teenage strife.
You can see, as an adult, I cansee how low the stakes really
were and also they seem huge andso I don't want to take that
away.
And I think that's part of whatJohn Hughes gave us was he took
the stakes seriously, not theway an adult is like yeah, yeah,
(29:59):
I know it seems important, butwhen you're older you know it's
not.
He just took it seriously.
These stakes are high for thesekids Stepping out of it,
acknowledging all of that andwatching this group make this
kid cry.
I'm just holding that andwondering how much of that was
(30:23):
wish fulfilled.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
It's interesting because it's the popular girl,
not the BMOC, and Claire andAllison are prizes at the end
for two of the boys who have anemotional arc, and Brian, I mean
he gets to live as his prize atthe end.
(30:46):
I don't know, but there is verymuch a sense of like.
Yeah, they're going to pair upbecause, like you know, okay,
we'll let you see that thesegirls are human.
But, you know, john Bender isthe one who's really opened up,
and Andy is the one who hasreally made it clear how
(31:09):
difficult his life is, eventhough it seems like, you know,
everything's pretty easy for himas a jock, and so they get
these pretty girls.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
I think there's also something that, like each of
those girls had to change insome way.
Like Alice, sheedy's Allison isthe most obvious because like
she looks completely different.
But Claire too, like really hadin sort of like a Greece kind
(31:39):
of a transformation right, andneither John nor Andy really do
so, and you know, I mean youtalk about it as a prize, I mean
, and that's really underscoredby the fact that.
So at one point, john, becausethere's, there's there's some
class stuff going on in this aswell, where?
(32:03):
John Bender really rags onClaire for being rich like hard.
So like she brings sushi likein a bento box with a separate
little soy, like she like hasthe full sushi experience for
her lunch and attention in 1985in Illinois, chicago I mean it's
(32:24):
it's a Chicago suburb Sushiwould have like he really would
have had no idea what it was.
Yeah, no, he.
And he says he's like what isit?
She has to explain that it'sraw fish and rice and and he's
seaweed and yeah, yeah, so.
And so he gives her a hard timeabout being rich there and then
later he says, like after she'salready crying, he says those
(32:45):
are nice earrings, there Arethose real diamonds, and they're
, they're like large, ish, stonestuds.
The final scene as they're allsaying goodbye, claire and
Bender are kissing, and then sheopens his palm and puts one of
her diamond studs in his handand then closes his palm around
it and then gets in her dad'smercy.
So talk about a prize, like aliteral diamond that she gives
(33:12):
him as a prize, which is adiamond that he has teased her
about.
So there's this transformationthat is required of these two
girls, that the that the boysaren't asked to make.
They're asked to open up andput down their performance a
(33:35):
little bit or put down theirmasks.
Some they are asked to do thatand they do, but they're really
not fundamentally asked tochange.
I mean, andy says how do youapologize for something like
that, about the reason that he'sin detention, and we're left
with like, oh yeah, he feels badbut there's nothing he can do.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Yeah, Well, and Brian is friends with Larry Lester,
so like because Ryan say likethat was you yeah, how do I make
this right with your friend?
Yeah, he has someone there whocan help him.
Yeah, and there's no like.
Okay, you need to say you'resorry and he likes crawlers.
(34:15):
Yeah, which would not be enough, but that would be like what a
16 year old could handle.
You know, yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
So you know, there are these structural things
about gender that remain, likethey remain in place in this
movie.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
I do want to say so, since you brought up like class,
and that appears to be like youknow, what I learned from this
as a little baby, emily, wasthat these clicks, these social
distinctions, are kind ofmeaningless, but the class
distinction is not meaningless.
(34:57):
And all five of these kids arewhite.
Yes, all five of these kids arestraight.
All five of these kids are,like presumably random Christian
.
Whatever fish you knowcelebrate Christmas.
They do mention it, yeah, andso Able bodied.
(35:18):
Able bodied, thin, neuro,typical, thin, I mean.
So well, okay, I could make anargument that Allison is not
neurotypical but does wellenough to mask Like.
I mean she can handle herselffor the most part in social
(35:40):
situations, not as well as shewould like, but not in a way
that would immediately clock heras neurodivergent.
So I appreciate what Hughes issaying, which is that these
clicks don't mean anything.
But the thing is there aredistinctions between kids that
are, because they'redistinctions in our society,
(36:03):
that shouldn't mean anything butdo in the same way that, like
you know, class distinctionsshouldn't make a difference.
And he's trying to in some waysay that like.
Doesn't Bender say like I'd begreat for pissing off your
parents.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Yeah, he says so.
The big complaint that Clairehas about her parents is that
they use each one, uses her toget back at the other.
And so he says you know, yousaid your parents use you to get
back at the other.
Wouldn't I be amazing in thatcapacity, or something like that
?
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yeah, yeah, that is kind of one of those like we're
going to rely on thesedistinctions that will matter
very much to your parents butdon't matter to us because we
have a connection that doesn'thave anything to do with those
class distinctions, even thoughwith the nearing and all of that
, yeah it does.
(36:56):
But that's like that'ssomething that I remember gosh
in my 20s going like everybodyin this movie is white and like
clearly this is a very wealthyschool district.
They've got like randomsculpture in the center of their
ginormous library.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Yeah, and the foreign language lab where Andy gets
high and there's like a musiclab in the where they so they're
listening to music and theydance, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
So like okay, fair enough that in a district like
that it's likely that the it ismostly white mostly white, but
that that's something that Ithink is is interesting and I
would love to see like I havethought this about several
movies and like foundational popculture in our society.
(37:50):
So, for instance, people say,like friends is actually just
living single which came firstand living single was about
black friends.
I would love to see these likemovies that are supposed to be
universal, from our childhood,remade by people with a
different life, circumstance andand and experience.
(38:12):
So like what if you know adirector were to remake
Breakfast Club and have amajority or all black cast?
What would the differences be?
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Interesting.
The the jock the yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Yeah, yeah, because we're taking, we're given these
stereotypes and and like advisethat these are universal, and
that was one thing that I wasmisled on, like it's not that
there weren't popular kids, it'snot that there weren't bad boys
, not that there weren't jocks,but no one was any one of those
(38:50):
things.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Yeah, I think that's one thing that like, looking
back on it now to the nerd,there's only the one nerd and
he's the boy Right.
So like where do I self insert?
Because I sure as heck wasn'tClaire, but neither was I
Allison.
It was like I was sort of likea cross between like a second
(39:14):
tier Claire and a Brian, becausebecause I was a nerd but I was
a popular nerd, I mean I wasstill a nerd, so I wasn't like
the prom queen, but like I hadlike friends in lots of groups
and so how do you like?
I mean, but that's the thingwith anything that does the
stereotypes is that no one isone dimensional.
(39:38):
So yeah, I think that's areally important point and that
that was the point, but then itwas undercut a bit as well.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yeah, so people always used to tell me that I
looked like Ally Sheedy and thebreakfast club I remember.
So I, because of that, I alwayskind of identified with her.
But same thing, like I'm shy,but I was never so as quiet as
she is, like, and like there's apoint where she squeaks and
(40:11):
like and leaves out the desk,she eeps and, like, puts her
head on the table.
Yeah, Like I've never been thatshy and yeah it just it doesn't,
it doesn't fit, and like thething is, I don't think there's
anyone who who like, oh, that'sme, that's me, right, of course.
Of course the idea that thereis some universal message from
(40:32):
this film when it ignores thelife experience of people who
are not white, white, straight,cis, evil body, yeah, evil
bodied Christian.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Yeah, yeah.
So I'd like to.
I'd like to talk about two morethings, and then we can see
where we go.
One is that this filmdefinitely passes the back del
test, no question.
And I'd like to talk aboutactually one moment where it's
passing the back del test, whichis during the makeover.
Claire is giving Allison amakeover and Allison says why
(41:11):
are you being so nice to me?
And Claire says because you'reletting me, and what that
message is about, how teenagegirls interact is like really
sitting with me after thisrewatch, like I don't know if
(41:32):
John Hughes is right about that.
And the fact that he thoughtthat that was the case, that
girls didn't let one another benice, because of these lines,
these click type lines, it justit feels really sad to me that
(41:58):
that's what we think of teenagegirl culture.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
I have trouble with this because I I mean, you've
got a daughter, I've got twosons.
I just met up with some friendsthis past weekend for breakfast
.
One of my friends has a son anda daughter and the other one
has two daughters and they weretalking about like there's been
some bullying and in particularwe're talking about a Girl Scout
(42:25):
troop where each individualgirl is just kind and bright and
fun and funny and delightful,but in the group it becomes this
toxic mix.
And so one of my friends wassaying like yeah, after this
season we're not doing GirlScouts anymore because of how
(42:45):
unpleasant this becomes.
And very odd for me to hear.
That's not to say that my kidsdon't experience bullying as
boys.
It's just, I don't.
It's a one on one thing Ifthere's any bullying, there's no
.
Like this mix becomes toxic.
And I'm reminded of Pat Noswalt,the comedian, talking about his
(43:07):
daughter, saying that like hereally doesn't believe there's
differences between boys andgirls.
But there was a point where hisdaughter got really upset and
she was little I mean, she wastiny, like four or five because
her best friend who has thisgorgeous, long, shiny, curly
hair.
So the friend drew this pictureof the friend with long hair,
(43:28):
what her hair looks like, andAlice with like a bob, which is
what Alice's hair looked like.
And Alice was very upset aboutit and was crying, and so she
ended up like here I drew apicture of me and this friend
send it to her mom and she drewherself with long hair and her
friend is bald and so and so andthis is, you know, a comedy
(43:51):
thing that he's talking aboutit's from several years ago,
because I think his daughter isprobably 14 or 15 at this point.
He was saying like it reallydoes seem like boys when they
have a conflict with another boy, they wrestle it out, they like
there's some sort of likeexplosion and then it's over,
Whereas he feels like girls arelike soooob.
(44:16):
And I bring that up because Iwas so surprised by it.
Like you know, first of all, patNoswalt's very progressive
comedian.
He's very much a feminist and afeminist ally and all of that,
so like for him to tell thisstory and for him to be like
this is the experience I've had.
I'm like it's not that I don'tbelieve it, I definitely do, but
(44:36):
it wasn't my experience as akid and I don't have kids who
are girls, who live, you know,navigate the world in that space
now.
But I do wonder, you know, likeI don't think that this is like
inherent to you know, xchromosome, but I do think that
(44:59):
centuries of women beingsocialized to feel like there
can be only one and that, youknow, looking at other women as
competition for scarce resources, because that was actually the
case for so long that we aresomehow teaching little girls
(45:23):
and young women that you can'tbe nice to each other and so you
need to like if someone's beingnice to you, you need to stop
it, because that's got to belike suspicious, there's got to
be nefarious purpose behind itor something.
So I do think that there issomething to what Hughes is
(45:46):
saying in that interactionbetween Claire and Allison, and
it's very sad, well, and even inthe interaction, right like
Claire's making Allison lookmore like Claire.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Yes, so you know Allison was wearing makeup that
she had put on herself andpresumably I mean she says she
likes it.
Claire says you look so muchbetter without that black shit
on your eyes and Allison sayshey, I like that black shit,
right Like she was wearing likereally heavy eyeliner and Claire
, like pulls her hair back andputs blush on and less hazardous
(46:20):
and skin, we're white insteadof black.
Yeah, so even within the movieand the being nice it, it's
about making not just a makeover, but a makeover in my image
from Claire.
So it's complicated, it'scomplicated, yeah.
(46:43):
So the last thing that I wantedto name is that that I did not
remember at all until Irewatched it is that the, the
movie actually has an epigraph.
That's what it's called at thebeginning.
Like there's a quote is fromfrom Bowie these children that
you spit on as they try tochange their world, or immune to
your consultation.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
They're well aware of what they're going through.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
They're quite aware of what they're going through.
They're aware.
I think it's just aware they'reaware.
Okay, yeah, so I didn't realizethat, that was, I didn't
remember that.
That quote sort of framed thismovie and I thought that was.
I noted it.
I noted it.
That's the message and if weput principal Vernon then back
(47:26):
into the picture with thatepigraph in mind, like his story
arc is that he dislikes allthese kids.
He has this weird pissingcontest with John Bender.
He looks in their confidentialfiles.
Carl the janitor catches himand then asks for 50 bucks to
stay quiet about the fact thatVernon's looking in their
confidential files.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Wasn't he looking in the teacher's confidential files
, though Not the kids.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
It's not clear.
Like he says a name which isnot one of the kids names, he
says Terry.
So possibly, though certainlylike context wise, you're led to
believe it's the kids files.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
Okay, well, it would make sense that there would be
in the building where, as ateacher's files would be, would
not be in the building, they'dbe like right, they would HQ.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
Yeah, he does say a name, though that's not one of
the kids names.
So maybe, but definitely, carlcatches him and asked for 50
bucks to stay quiet.
And then the two of them sitaround drinking beer and Vernon
says you know, what reallyscares me is that when I'm old,
when we're old, these kids aregoing to be in charge and
(48:37):
they're going to take care of mewhen I get old.
And Carl, the janitor, says Iwouldn't count on it.
Yeah, so with that Bowie quote,like the commentary on Vernon
and the commentary on the waythat adults treat teenagers by
(48:58):
forcing them into these pigeonholes, is very clear.
I mean, maybe I hit you overthe head, clear, and for that I
think I think Hughes deserves abox.
Right, I think that actually,like as I just said, like when
you are a teenager, having agrown up be like these things
that you care deeply about don'tmatter, doesn't help.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
Well, and even the just as we find out that every
single one of these kids isstruggling with their parents.
And I'd be curious to watch itnow as a parent of a kid who's
on the cusp of teenagerhood,because my sympathies have
changed as I've watched movieslike I saw myself as kids for a
(49:46):
long time.
Now I see myself as a parent.
When I was teaching I rememberI don't know if I watched it
again or I was just thinkingabout it I was just like, yeah,
vernon's awful, like itreinforced how terrible he is.
Once I was a teacher because,like you, are the grown up in
the room and you always rememberthat Right.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
He does not remember that he's the grown up in the
room and in fact I mean withBender in particular like having
seen like literal physicalabuse that this young man has is
enduring and then is punishedfor it again, and the way that
Vernon tries to go to him intohitting so that Vernon can beat
(50:32):
it, you know, tries to go,Bender, into receiving
additional physical abuse.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
When I first started teaching, I had a colleague who
was a guidance counselor at theschool who had gone to that
school as a high school studentand had had his entire academic
career as a guidance counselorat that school, and he was a bit
of a bully really, even as aguidance counselor.
When I first got there and methim, I thought he was amazing
(51:00):
because he was very individuallyinvolved with the students in a
way that seemed very nurturing.
Turns out that he was reallykind of reliving his high school
years and making himself bigman on campus as staff, and so
he would do things like havegroups of students who would
(51:24):
come to his house for likemeetings to talk about like
college planning and stuff likethat, and one of the kids, for
whatever reason, would get cutout.
But instead of cutting this kidout which is not great anyway
he would just change what day ofthe week they meet and not tell
the kid.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
So the kid would show up on the wrong day.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
I mean like, or he wouldn't tell the kid when the
next meeting was, or whatever,which is basically like Bullshit
, like that high school bullshitghost and and he also, he was
not.
He was not physically abusiveat all, but he was a very big
man and he used his size to beintimidating.
(52:05):
All this to say that Vernon isnot a caricature.
There are real administratorsand teachers like that in every
high school in the nation and,horribly, in every middle school
and elementary school too.
Yeah, so there is nothingsympathetic about Vernon.
I do wonder if there is any wayto find the other parents
(52:30):
sympathetic.
Just that, as a parent, I knowthat you think that the baby
years are the hardest becauseyou're sleep deprived and
there's this like helpless beingrelying on you.
But as your kid gets older,it's it gets harder because,
like, the choices are so muchless clear.
(52:51):
Like you know, crying baby youget up, feed it, change it easy.
You know there's there's like alist of five possible things
that the baby might need crying16 year old, floundering 16 year
old so much harder.
Yeah, so that said, that, likehow each of these parents are
(53:13):
described sounds awful.
I mean, it really sounds awfulso that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (53:19):
So Andy's and Bender's dad's the bowling dads
definitely I have a hard timefinding any sympathy for either
of them.
Claire's parents I actually dofeel like I have some sympathy
for them, like they're in aloveless marriage and they're
not behaving well.
A few people do in love withmarriages and actually you do
(53:44):
see Claire's dad in the car ashe's dropping her off and she's
like I can't believe, you can'tshe's sort of a root of salt in
that moment I can't believe youcan't get me out of this.
You know she skipped class to goshopping.
That's why she has detentionand he's, like you, skipped
class, like you know, like heactually, in that brief
(54:05):
interaction you do see someaffection and him trying to help
his daughter takeresponsibility.
Like I do have some sympathyfor her parents, allison's
parents.
She gets dropped off, she's inthe backseat, she gets out
without saying anything and thenshe like starts to like move
toward the front of the car, tolike interact with the parent
who's driving and they driveaway and the thing that she
(54:28):
accuses her parents of isneglecting her.
They ignore me, that's what sheuses, and so it's really hard
to know about her parents, Ithink, and Brian's parents.
You know, having been thestraight-A kid who thought my
parents can't have an F, I'm notsure that that was actually
(54:50):
true.
Now we do also see Brian's momand she's real mad and you know
she says you find a way to study.
He was paints her as notsympathetic in that moment and
also, like, I think thepressures that high achieving
kids receive from their parentsare often seeds planted by their
(55:11):
parents, but maybe not quite asrobust from the parents as they
think.
So I think there could be aopportunity for sympathy of
Brian's possibly do Brian'sparents know that the flare gun
unclear, unclear because that'sif, if she knows, if she knows
(55:35):
that it was suicidal ideationthat was happening and she's
behaving that way.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
No, sympathy no sympathy.
Speaker 1 (55:39):
I take back everything I said.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
I'm assuming she does not know.
Both of my kids have inheritedmy anxiety.
It happens and both of themfeel very like, feel a great
deal of pressure to do well,which is not coming from me or
their father.
We have actually, like myspouse has actually said to my
(56:02):
eldest, you should failsomething.
It is one of the best thingsthat you can do, because that is
when you learn.
So I am definitely sympatheticto that because there's like
wherever the kids picked it up,the idea that they need to do
well and that it is life ordeath.
That said, if my kid were inBrian's situation, I would not
(56:27):
be saying you find a way study.
I'd be like can you please finda way to take a nap?
Yeah, right, but there's also abig difference between 1985 and
2024.
Speaker 1 (56:39):
Yeah, yeah well, we've talked about this movie a
lot, so let me see if I can sumup much that.
I brought and that you helped me.
Let me sum up.
So the Breakfast Club 1985,john Hughes, passes the backdale
test.
Good.
There were some ways in whichthis movie was in fact
(57:03):
subversive in the best sense, in1985 and looking at it 39 years
later, it was lessrevolutionary than we thought,
or maybe more precisely, we'vecome so far now that the
subversion of 1985 is not farenough.
(57:25):
So we see Hughes telling usthat these stereotypes and these
clicks are false and we have alot more in common than than
than the opposite.
We see him giving us a muchmore fully formed Claire Sandish
(57:46):
, the super popular girl then wemight have expected from 18
movie in 1985.
And then he undercuts that byabusing this girl throughout the
movie, by with her you knowtheir fellows and then having
her seek out a pairing with oneof the people who insulted her
(58:10):
the most.
She also is forced to changefor that pairing, as is the only
other girl in the cast, allison, who needs to look more like
Claire in order to beromantically acceptable to
Emilia Westavez's jock big manon canvas character.
(58:33):
We see performance of genderand performance of self from
each of these kids, especiallythe boys, I think, but not
exclusively in the voice ofAlice, she's Allison.
We hear a just concisepresentation of the catch 22 of
(58:57):
female sexuality if you do,you're a slut, if you don't,
you're a prude.
It's a trap that is undercut bythe fact that the romantic
pairings are then just the happyending.
Assumed that's the happy ending, exactly this the romantic
pairings.
(59:17):
We noted that, though Hughes wastrying to give us like a
diverse cast of characters, allfive of them are white, cis,
straight, able-bodied, thin,neurotypical passing.
I'll say so, though there was a.
(59:38):
There is a diversity, there'salso a lack of diversity.
One of the main kind ofintentional lessons of this
movie is about the ways thatadults condescend and thereby
abuse kids, teenagers inparticular.
That is conveyed through theepigraph from Bell we, through
(01:00:01):
the person of Vernon, of RichardVernon, who, you know from
experience, is not a caricatureand through the way that the
kids talk about their ownparents.
What am I forgetting that wespoke about?
Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
the lesson that this movie and others other stories
like it taught baby, me and many, many other people that a
performance of antagonism isactually guarding a soft
underbelly, rather than thepossibility that the misogyny
(01:00:36):
and the antagonism and theaggression is just who the
person is, which is exactly howpeople can get stuck in abusive
relationships yes, thank you,that's you said that very
concisely earlier as well likethe fact that those two things
can coexist but they are not.
Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
That the correlation is not causation right, like
just because someone isantagonistic doesn't mean that
they're protecting it.
A soft underbelly, yeah, who?
Anything else you want to makesure that we underline before we
wrap, just thinking like don'tmess with the bull, you'll get
the whole arms.
(01:01:19):
Yeah, mess with the bull, youngman, you'll get the horns.
And and actually the actor doesthis thing with his pinky and
his index finger out like yeah,he did, like he points with that
, and then he shows it in likefront and back.
It's yeah weird and like it'smeant to be ridiculous and it
succeeds.
The director oil choices onthat were really well done, like
(01:01:42):
his mannerism is sounsympathetic and that was.
Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
I do also want to say like this is like fluff.
Basically, there are thingsthat don't necessarily make
sense in the film.
Like Bender, being able to getthrough the ceiling doesn't make
sense.
Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Yeah, like he knows how to get there.
Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
Blair got to the closet.
Where he was doesn't make sense, but the one that had that
really got me because I didn'tget it as a kid was when Claire
puts the lipstick in hercleavage and then is able to,
like, perfectly, put lipstick on.
It is not physically possible.
Yeah.
I don't think that's physicallypossible.
Anyway, that's a little thing.
(01:02:20):
But because I remember, becauseyou know I'm like a child
looking at this, first of all Ididn't understand why that was
like a skill, like I couldn'tget what she was doing, that was
so interesting.
And then when I got like oh cuz, it's cuz, she's got cleavage,
like I remember being like, butmy head doesn't go down that far
(01:02:42):
, like my boobs aren't up hereshe also says can't.
Seventh grade, that's where shelearned how to do it which is
like so okay, she developedearly, but still, anyway, I just
I just need to highlight that,like John Hughes got a lot right
about what it is to be ateenage girl, he got that wrong
(01:03:07):
he got that wrong.
Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
Okay, so what are you're bringing me the next time
?
What are we gonna?
Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
time we are going to be talking about my deep
thoughts on Rocky Horror PictureShow yeah, exciting, yeah,
exciting.
Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
Well, I'm looking forward to that, and before we
do that though, I understand youhave some listener, I have two
listener comments this week.
Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
The first one is from Jen regarding the Twilight
episode.
So she told me I've recentlyfallen into the a court of
thorns and roses trap.
Are you familiar with thosebooks?
They're very big a moss, is theauthor, and they are huge right
now.
So Jen says this series feelsclosest to the hoopla around
(01:03:52):
Twilight back in the day andwhile it seems we've learned
some lessons, it's not achastity tale, thank God, and
the protagonists have much moregoing for them than just the guy
.
It seems we have more, stillmore, have more to learn,
because these guys are still socontrolling and age differences
of decades.
You know, two steps forward,one step back.
Then I also have a comment fromMegan regarding the Buffy
(01:04:16):
episode.
She said thank you for this.
I listened on a long driveyesterday.
I needed a reminder to go backto Buffy.
I also needed help processingthe recent news about Josh
Whedon.
It completely changed myfeelings about Sarah Michelle
Geller not doing any guesting onAngel.
My only quibble about thatepisode is that season six and
seven, buffy isn't yet a fullyformed human.
(01:04:37):
No one in their early 20s is.
She tells Angel that herselfshe's cookie dough, not fully
baked cookies.
Speaker 1 (01:04:44):
I appreciate that.
Thanks, megan.
Yeah, thanks.
Well, listeners, if you want toshare your deep thoughts about
our deep thoughts, please do.
You can email us atguygirlsmedia at gmailcom or you
can go over to our listenerforum on our website and we will
(01:05:04):
link to that in the show notes.
So until, next time hey you,yeah you.
You're a deep thinker, I cantell.
Let's make it official.
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Until next time, remember, popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
I'm Tracy Guy-Dekker and you're listening to Deep
Thoughts about Stupid Shit,because pop culture is still
culture, and shouldn't you knowwhat's in your head?
Today I'll be sharing my DeepThoughts about the 1985 John
Hughes film, the Breakfast Club,with my sister, emily
Guy-Burken, and with you.
Let's dive in.
Have you ever had something youlove dismissed because it's
(00:24):
just pop culture, what othersmight deem stupid shit?
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Okay, so I know you've seenthis film.
I know you have, but tell meyou know what's in your head
about the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
So I saw the Breakfast Club.
I was probably in elementaryschool.
No, I came out when I was six.
I know I didn't see it when itcame out, but I wasn't.
I mean, I was probably nine or10.
And so I took it as this iswhat high school is like.
Looking back, I don't know thatthat was necessarily a bad
(01:28):
thing to take from it.
Yeah, obviously.
Like you know, 27 year oldsplaying 16 year olds they
weren't.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
They weren't actually .
They weren't really.
Molly Ringwald was 16 when itwas filmed.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
No kidding, yeah, oh, that makes some aspects really
gruesome.
We will get into that, okay.
So, um, all right.
Well, the other thing is thatJohn Bender was very much a part
of my romantic instruction as achild.
John Bender, mr Rochester andthe Beast from the Beauty and
(02:03):
the Beast were what I foundromantic, and they all have a
lot in common.
For many years I thought of itas like a very well done Gen X
era teen movie with a satisfyingromantic subplot, and I've had
(02:24):
to really reevaluate that,especially when I saw Molly
Ringwald posting something abouthow her daughter, who was in
her teens, wanted to see it.
She was like, oh goodness, Idon't know if I want her to see
it and we'll have to watch ittogether because of,
specifically, the underwearscene.
(02:45):
And this is not the only JohnHughes film with Molly Ringwald
where there's a weird underwearscene.
So that's something that I,like I've been wrestling with
somewhat.
I mean, we already talked alittle bit about it, about this
view of romance with Beauty andthe Beast, so I'm excited to
kind of get into that aspect ofit as well for Breakfast Club.
(03:08):
But why are we talking aboutthis today?
What's important to you aboutthis movie?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, so you were six , I was nine when it came out
and I probably saw it around thesame time you did.
So I was a tween or teenager,young teenager when I saw it and
I remember thinking of it aslike it was like a real movie
that treated kids, you know,seriously, and I loved it for
that.
And I didn't I don't have quitethe depth of affection for the
(03:39):
Beast Bender Rochester characterthat you do, but I have some of
it.
And for our project I've reallybeen thinking about what are
like the Gen X films that werekind of foundational, and so
this one came up.
So that's why I wanted to kindof dig into it a little bit.
So let me start with just aquick, like what happens in the
(03:59):
movie which actually I'm goingto be quick about it because
it's sort of a slice of lifefilm, like one day that every
detail doesn't matter for thelistener to kind of understand
what the movie is about.
The conceit is it's a Saturdayat Schermer High School in
Schermer, illinois and thesefive kids have detention eight
(04:23):
hours on a Saturday in thelibrary.
So the five kids in detentionare five.
They each fill the stereotype.
So there's the popular girlwho's Molly Ringwald, played by
Molly Ringwald.
There's the jock, who is playedby Emilio Estevez.
He's a wrestler.
There's the nerd, played byMichael Anthony Hall.
(04:44):
There's the criminal that's theword that's used in the film.
He's sort of the bad boy.
That's John Bender, whom youmentioned.
They bite Judd Nelson.
And then there's the basketcase that's the word used in the
film.
That's Allie Sheeby's Allison.
The only other two characters ofnote.
We do see each of the kids'parents very briefly, but the
(05:06):
only.
Actually we don't see JohnBender's parents.
We see some of the kids'parents briefly, but the only
other two characters of note areVice Principal Richard, dick
Vernon and Carl the janitor.
So Vice Principal Vernon issort of classic love-to-hate
authoritarian who reallydislikes these kids, especially
(05:31):
John Bender, and Carl is just aneveryday guy doing his thing,
doing his job.
So the kids are in detention forthe full day.
Vice Principal Vernon is rightthere waiting for them to screw
up and ends up giving JohnBender an additional eight
(05:54):
Saturdays of detention becausethey have a screaming match
where Vernon feels disrespectedand keeps like that's one more,
that's one more, and in factBrian keeps count of how many it
is.
But then Vernon gets distractedand he's off doing his thing.
So the kids kind of are left ontheir own.
They sneak out and go get weedout of John's locker and then
(06:18):
they kind of hit a dead end.
They think they're going to getcaught.
John Bender basicallysacrifices himself and causes a
big distraction to get Vernon tocatch John Bender, while the
other kids sneak back into thelibrary John Bender.
Then Vernon puts Bender into asupply closet as his punishment
(06:41):
for solitary confinement kind ofa thing, and actually goes to
him, tries to get the student tohit him, which John Bender does
not fall for that.
And then, after Vernon leaveshim alone, he climbs up and
crawls through the drop ceilingducts, I guess and rejoins the
(07:02):
other kids in the library.
They get high, they talk aboutlife, they complain about their
parents.
Most of them cry at some point.
And then Molly Ringwald givesAllie Sheedy's character a
makeover and Emilio Estevez'scharacter is instantly smitten
(07:24):
now that she's moretraditionally feminine.
And at the very end MollyRingwald sneaks out, goes to the
supply closet and gives JohnBender a kiss.
They were supposed to write anessay about who they think they
are of at least a thousand words.
In the end only Brian the nerdwrites one which basically says
(07:45):
you know, mr Vernon, you thinkyou know who we are, but you
don't know who we are becausewe're all all of these things,
we're all of a jock.
A jock and a criminal and abasket case and a popular girl.
That's not the word, princess.
Princess, thank you, a princessand a nerd.
(08:05):
So the you know the sort ofmoral of the movie is that you
know you can't judge a book byits cover and actually the moral
that you took away that thesort of lines between the social
groups are arbitrary and false.
So okay, so that's what we'reworking with here.
(08:27):
So rewatching it now in my late40s and thinking about it like
the first thing you're struckwith, honestly Still in your mid
40s For another six weeks Still.
So here I am, in my 40s, lookingback at this movie and the
(08:48):
first thing I was struck with,honestly, was the casual
misogyny, the casual homophobia,the casual fat phobia that is
just thrown around, the casualableism.
We hear that the homophobic Fword repeatedly and see it in
writing once we hear the ableistour word at least once out of
John Bender's mouth.
(09:09):
We and John actually constantlyinsulting Molly Ringwald's
character, claire, constantly.
One of the ways he insults herhe calls her fat.
She is not fat.
She says I'm not fat.
And then he says there are twokinds of fat people.
There's fat people who'vealways been fat and there's fat
people who used to be thin.
And then he does this thinglike puffing his cheeks out, and
(09:31):
he tells her that that's he cansee her future.
It is so gross in so many ways.
There's and there's this casualhomophobia that's thrown around
between the Andy and JohnBender about wrestling and about
it.
It's like used to insult oneanother and like it was hard to
(09:58):
watch initially, like like inthe first few minutes of meeting
these characters I'm like whydid I like these kids as I'm
watching it now.
And I have to say, like it doesget better it in so far as like
it was intentional right BecauseHughes wanted us to see these
kids as their stereotypes first,and so that's why he does what
(10:22):
he does, like that wasdefinitely an intentional move
on the movie maker's part, sothat was what I was first struck
with.
What I really want to get intowith you is thinking about, with
the romantic thing that you'retalking about, but I think
that's baked into someconstructions of gender that
Hughes to give him credit in1985, when this was released, I
(10:46):
actually think he was doing somesubversion of gender roles that
have been inherited.
But now here we are, these 40years later, almost 40 years
later, it's not.
It's not as subversive as Ithink we thought it was.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Right.
So here's what I mean he tookas a given that we now really
don't yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yeah, agreed, agreed, and I think there were also
some things that like, if welook at the individual, well,
I'll show you what I mean.
So I think giving Claire somedepth was actually subversive in
1985 to take this like verypopular girl.
She is the prom queen, like byher own account and by everyone
(11:36):
else's.
The school would shut down ifshe didn't show up.
And she's not an airhead.
She really has some depth toher, has deep emotion and is a
relatively fully formedcharacter.
I think that was subversive in1985.
Yes, yeah, I would agree withthat.
(11:58):
We also have in Allie Sheedy'svoice some real subversion of
the catch 22 the teenage girlsare put into around sexuality
Right.
So there's this scene whereAllie Sheedy claims to be very
sexually promiscuous and thenthe other four kids are trying
(12:20):
to get Claire to admit whetheror not she has had sex before.
She doesn't want to talk aboutit.
And they really harangue heruntil she admits that she's a
virgin.
Then Allie Sheedy fesses up sheis too, and says Allie Sheedy's
, allie Sheedy's, allison saysit's a double-edged sword If you
(12:40):
haven't, you're a prude, and ifyou have, you're a slut.
It's a trap.
She says it's a trap and I feellike saying that out loud in
1985 is pretty powerful.
That dichotomy, prude or slut,is absolutely the trap of female
(13:07):
sexuality.
And so, on the one hand, I wantto applaud that.
On the other hand, both ofthese two women are forced into
a pairing by the end of theseeight hours, forced by John
Hughes, not by the characters.
So it's you know.
(13:28):
Claire faces insult andharassment and actually what
might even be term sexualassault today, in that underwear
scene by her romantic interest.
So the underwear scene the kidsdon't like each other coming in
, but they do show solidarityagainst Vernon.
(13:51):
So that is the one.
That's one of the first placesthat they start to show
solidarity.
Then there are other things thatbring them together.
One of the moments when theyshow solidarity against Vernon
is after Bender has snuck backto the library through the ducts
.
He, like, fell through theceiling.
Vernon heard it and comes inand is like what was that?
Ruckus and the other four kidsare protecting the fact that
(14:13):
Bender's there.
He's under the desk.
So he's under the desk whereClaire is sitting and he looks
up and realizes he has a clearview of Claire's crotch in her
skirt and sort of like starts tolean in, forcing her to, like
you know, crush his face withher knees.
What's interesting about thatscene?
(14:35):
One of the things I mean.
You note that Hughes puts thatin other teenage come-age movies
.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Also now considering the fact that Olly Ringwald was
16 and they have the camera.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
So here's the thing.
This is what's interesting,because she was 16, it would
have been illegal to actuallyuse her body.
It's a stand-in, so it's bodydouble.
The crotch shot that we see isnot Molly Ringwald's crotch.
Molly Ringwald objected to thatscene.
Molly's mom objected to thatscene.
While they were filming theyhad to bring in a body double
(15:14):
for legal purposes because shewas 16.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
And so they had to go through all that trouble for
something that added nothing.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
And Hughes felt so strongly exactly that he needed
that moment.
Mm-hmm.
That I'm like what, what, john,what the hell.
Yeah.
Like what actually are youtrying to say here?
(15:42):
And so once Vernon leaves andBender kind of crawls out from
the desk and Claire hits himlike he's crawling, so she's
hitting his back repeatedly andcalling him names, and how dare
you?
And he says it was an accident.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
I should yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Or actually has every right to do.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Let's put it that way there's no should in how you
respond, but she has every rightto do Right, right, and so it's
just, it's just, it's just,it's just, it's just an accident
, and like, come on, come on,you know it just.
(16:22):
And so we have, on the one hand, allison saying it's a trap,
and on the other hand, we haveJohn Hughes going to so much
trouble to make sure that theaudience has this crotch shot
moment.
Mm-hmm.
And I think that's the truth.
Like today, I have a lot ofcognitive dissonance around
(16:45):
those two truths.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
You know, what's interesting to me is, I feel
like.
So last week we talked aboutClueless and we talked about how
there was a lot of like.
Well, this is the cost of beinga woman or being feminine coded
in the world, and I had kind offorgotten about Allison saying
it's a trap.
But what's interesting to me isthat I know I had no hangups in
(17:13):
high school whatsoever abouteither being or not being
experienced sexually, like itdidn't bother me at all, like
didn't care, didn't care aboutother people, didn't care.
And I know that's not true ofother people of our generation,
although I feel like in general,like Gen X, women have fewer
(17:35):
hangups than previousgenerations.
But I did feel weird about nothaving romantic pairings, mm-hmm
.
So, and I did navigate theworld as if my expectation was
(18:01):
there will be some casualharassment yeah, because that's
what I was taught Even amonggood guys, dateable guys, people
who would actually treat mewell.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
You know, that's an interesting point too,
especially given your sort oflike John Bender as part of the
constellation of what you werelooking for.
Because when they do actuallypair, clare seeks him out To be
intense and douchey.
He says are you lost?
She comes up to him and kisseshim on his like cheek, neck, not
(18:40):
mouth and he says why did youdo that?
And she says because I knew youwouldn't.
So it is significant in my mindthat though Bender harassed her
emotionally and actuallysexually, she knew he wasn't
(19:02):
going to actually touch her inthat way.
Right Like even the like crotchmoment was sort of a moment of
opportunity and not of design.
He didn't go under that desk inorder to do that.
Yes, and so there's almost likean apology in that Like yeah,
(19:26):
sure he acts like a jerk to you,but there is a line.
He wouldn't cross that line andthere's sort of like a like
that's what makes it okay in theviewers Like I think that
looking at it now, looking backon it, it doesn't feel okay to
me.
Now I'm like why would she evenwant him?
But I think when I watched itas a 13 year old or whatever,
(19:50):
and again as a 16 and whatever,like as a younger person, that
was what made that romanceactually make a little more
sense.
Subconsciously.
I didn't consciously think that, but subconsciously I was like
you know, because she made themove that made it not icky,
mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Well, it emphasizes how much of what and this is
this is the thing that I findattractive about these stories
and these characters emphasizesthat what he does is a
performance to protect his softunderbelly.
Yes, yes, and so, like the, thecasual misogyny, the casual
(20:34):
homophobia, just the way that heinteracts with Vernon, all of
that is to like it's a catpuffing up.
That's not really who he is,and I think that there is some
truth there.
You know like the people doperform to protect themselves.
(20:54):
The problem is that we weretaught that that kind of casual
misogyny and harassmentindicated a soft underbelly
rather than that just being whothey are.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, that's a nice distinction.
That's a nice distinction and Ithink that totally fits with
this character as well, becausethe first moment he feels at all
sympathetic is when he's so.
First he's sort of making funof Brian and imagining what
Brian's family life is like, andthen Andy says what about you?
(21:31):
And he mimics his own fathertotally abusing him and then
verbally abusing him, and then,when he's pushed because Andy
thinks he's lying, he shows ascar where a cigar has been put
out on his skin, and so thefirst moment that we're like
really invited to sympathizewith this character is to see
(21:56):
exactly that.
But this performance of the badboy is because he's been abused
.
So I think you're exactly right, and he's not the only one.
We see that each of these kidsis performing to one degree or
another because of their homelife for each of them actually.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
And this movie is pretty quotable.
There's a line that I actuallyuse, that's like because it's
quotable, but it also, I feellike, says it very quickly.
When Andy opens up about hisown father's abuse, that doesn't
feel like abuse because it'shis father wanting him to do his
(22:41):
best.
You know, it's like come on, wedon't tolerate losers in this
family, win, win.
And we already know howhorrendous Bender's father is.
Bender says sounds like your oldman and my old man should get
together and go bowling.
Yeah, and that is such aperfectly written line because
(23:02):
it's showing empathy andsympathy and solidarity in a
very like specific way and whilestill allowing him the distance
he needs, because he's alreadylike we're different.
But you know we're notdifferent.
It's just, it's why this moviewas beloved and made so much
(23:24):
money.
And all of that is because,like John Hughes has it down,
like that is excellent,excellent dialogue.
Yeah, that's great writing.
Yeah, and when I use that, it'swhen I hear about something
awful happening.
I'll be like, I'll say likesounds like your old man and my
(23:44):
old man should get together andgo bowling.
Not that I'm talking about myactual man, right.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Yeah, no, I think that's exactly right.
I think that's exactly right,okay.
So I'm trying to figure outwhat I want to talk about next
and this isn't a fully formedthought, so maybe you can help
me kind of round this out.
Each of the three boys is giventhe opportunity within the
dialogue, within the script, tohave some real emotional
(24:11):
expression through their ownagency, right?
So you know, bender does thething I mean, he's invited when
Andy says, what about at yourhouse?
But the thing about his dad,like he does that, he's not kind
of goaded into it, and then wesee real emotion from him.
(24:32):
He like he expresses anger, helike throws books and he climbs
up, like he climbs up onto thismezzanine area and just kind of
brews.
We see Andy at one point.
The kids are all sitting aroundand Andy says do you know why
I'm in here?
And he tells the story aboutreally abusing a nerdy kid and
(24:57):
expresses deep regret and talksabout the fact that he did it to
try and impress his dad and howmessed up that is.
And he doesn't know how toapologize to poor Larry Lester
who, whose bunsy tape togetherand he and he just, we see, like
real pathos for me and me andthat same conversation.
(25:19):
Brian talks about why he's inthere and in fact it he.
He felt the pressure to like hecouldn't make the elephant's
trunk, turn on the light in thelamp and chop glass and he cries
like from the this is like notgonna, he can't have an F and he
knows his parents can't have anF.
So he brought a gun to school.
So I'm gonna put a footnote onthe fact that we see real
(25:44):
emotion from him, because John,who's almost immediately like,
kind of dissipates the fact thatwe have suicidal ideation with
laughter, which I'm just gonnaput a parenthesis around that
and say like that deserved alittle more, and set that aside
a bit.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
I will say though the four kids there didn't have any
way of dealing with that orhelping Brian.
Yeah, the laughter is acatharsis for Brian.
So, like Brian deserve betterfrom the movie the kids by by
(26:24):
laughing and they did the bestthey could and provided him with
a, with a necessary catharsis.
That was all they could do.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Yeah, and to be clear , if you haven't seen the movie,
they don't laugh at him.
He says he brought a gun toschool.
Allison asks was it a handgun?
He says it was a flare gun andit went off in the locker and
totally destroyed the elephant.
And and the kids are justsitting there looking serious
and then they start to sort ofgiggle because it was a flare
gun.
Yeah, so they're not laughingat him.
(26:54):
They're not laughing at him.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
No, that's important to note and it is like
objectively kind of funny thatthe flare gun went off in his
locker which first of all it's aflare gun and then that it
destroyed the elephant.
There is something objectivelyfunny about that.
And getting helping Brian getto a point where he can see the
(27:16):
objective humor in the situationthat he feels such shame over,
I think is again the best thatthese kids can do because
they're kids.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
I think that's fair.
I accept that, thank you.
So Allison has some, expressessome emotion in weird fits and
starts.
She is, you know, she's thesort of basket case of the group
and is not sure how to interactsocially and clearly wants to
(27:49):
but also doesn't want to, and sothere's odd moments where she
sort of starts to open up andthen closes back up again.
We see her cry when the five ofthem are sitting around talking
, but it's actually she's cryingnot because of her own like
(28:10):
expression, it's like because ofthe broader conversation.
Brian's the nerd and he sayswhat's gonna happen on Monday
when we see each other, becauseI think of you guys as friends
now, and Claire's like that'snot how it works, right, and and
and at that point Allison andBrian both cry and Claire does
too, actually sort of about youknow where they are, and
(28:31):
Claire's not trying.
She even says like I'm nottrying to be a jerk, I'm just
telling you how it is, this ishow it works.
Claire has big emotions, butthey are sort of harassed out of
her, her big emotions, right,it's not about it's not.
It's not like Brian sort ofhaving an opportunity to express
(28:54):
the shame Claire's bullied intocrying and that distinction for
her out of the group undercutssome of what I said from the
(29:16):
very beginning about making thispopular girl not the airhead.
It's almost like we want to makethe popular girl cry, we the
audience, and I'm not even surewhere I'm going with this, but I
was struck by it when I wasthinking about looking back at
(29:39):
teenage strife.
You can see, as an adult, I cansee how low the stakes really
were and also they seem huge andso I don't want to take that
away.
And I think that's part of whatJohn Hughes gave us was he took
the stakes seriously, not theway an adult is like yeah, yeah,
(29:59):
I know it seems important, butwhen you're older you know it's
not.
He just took it seriously.
These stakes are high for thesekids Stepping out of it,
acknowledging all of that andwatching this group make this
kid cry.
I'm just holding that andwondering how much of that was
(30:23):
wish fulfilled.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
It's interesting because it's the popular girl,
not the BMOC, and Claire andAllison are prizes at the end
for two of the boys who have anemotional arc, and Brian, I mean
he gets to live as his prize atthe end.
(30:46):
I don't know, but there is verymuch a sense of like.
Yeah, they're going to pair upbecause, like you know, okay,
we'll let you see that thesegirls are human.
But, you know, john Bender isthe one who's really opened up,
and Andy is the one who hasreally made it clear how
(31:09):
difficult his life is, eventhough it seems like, you know,
everything's pretty easy for himas a jock, and so they get
these pretty girls.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
I think there's also something that, like each of
those girls had to change insome way.
Like Alice, sheedy's Allison isthe most obvious because like
she looks completely different.
But Claire too, like really hadin sort of like a Greece kind
(31:39):
of a transformation right, andneither John nor Andy really do
so, and you know, I mean youtalk about it as a prize, I mean
, and that's really underscoredby the fact that.
So at one point, john, becausethere's, there's there's some
class stuff going on in this aswell, where?
(32:03):
John Bender really rags onClaire for being rich like hard.
So like she brings sushi likein a bento box with a separate
little soy, like she like hasthe full sushi experience for
her lunch and attention in 1985in Illinois, chicago I mean it's
(32:24):
it's a Chicago suburb Sushiwould have like he really would
have had no idea what it was.
Yeah, no, he.
And he says he's like what isit?
She has to explain that it'sraw fish and rice and and he's
seaweed and yeah, yeah, so.
And so he gives her a hard timeabout being rich there and then
later he says, like after she'salready crying, he says those
(32:45):
are nice earrings, there Arethose real diamonds, and they're
, they're like large, ish, stonestuds.
The final scene as they're allsaying goodbye, claire and
Bender are kissing, and then sheopens his palm and puts one of
her diamond studs in his handand then closes his palm around
it and then gets in her dad'smercy.
So talk about a prize, like aliteral diamond that she gives
(33:12):
him as a prize, which is adiamond that he has teased her
about.
So there's this transformationthat is required of these two
girls, that the that the boysaren't asked to make.
They're asked to open up andput down their performance a
(33:35):
little bit or put down theirmasks.
Some they are asked to do thatand they do, but they're really
not fundamentally asked tochange.
I mean, andy says how do youapologize for something like
that, about the reason that he'sin detention, and we're left
with like, oh yeah, he feels badbut there's nothing he can do.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Yeah, Well, and Brian is friends with Larry Lester,
so like because Ryan say likethat was you yeah, how do I make
this right with your friend?
Yeah, he has someone there whocan help him.
Yeah, and there's no like.
Okay, you need to say you'resorry and he likes crawlers.
(34:15):
Yeah, which would not be enough, but that would be like what a
16 year old could handle.
You know, yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
So you know, there are these structural things
about gender that remain, likethey remain in place in this
movie.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
I do want to say so, since you brought up like class,
and that appears to be like youknow, what I learned from this
as a little baby, emily, wasthat these clicks, these social
distinctions, are kind ofmeaningless, but the class
distinction is not meaningless.
(34:57):
And all five of these kids arewhite.
Yes, all five of these kids arestraight.
All five of these kids are,like presumably random Christian
.
Whatever fish you knowcelebrate Christmas.
They do mention it, yeah, andso Able bodied.
(35:18):
Able bodied, thin, neuro,typical, thin, I mean.
So well, okay, I could make anargument that Allison is not
neurotypical but does wellenough to mask Like.
I mean she can handle herselffor the most part in social
(35:40):
situations, not as well as shewould like, but not in a way
that would immediately clock heras neurodivergent.
So I appreciate what Hughes issaying, which is that these
clicks don't mean anything.
But the thing is there aredistinctions between kids that
are, because they'redistinctions in our society,
(36:03):
that shouldn't mean anything butdo in the same way that, like
you know, class distinctionsshouldn't make a difference.
And he's trying to in some waysay that like.
Doesn't Bender say like I'd begreat for pissing off your
parents.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Yeah, he says so.
The big complaint that Clairehas about her parents is that
they use each one, uses her toget back at the other.
And so he says you know, yousaid your parents use you to get
back at the other.
Wouldn't I be amazing in thatcapacity, or something like that
?
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yeah, yeah, that is kind of one of those like we're
going to rely on thesedistinctions that will matter
very much to your parents butdon't matter to us because we
have a connection that doesn'thave anything to do with those
class distinctions, even thoughwith the nearing and all of that
, yeah it does.
(36:56):
But that's like that'ssomething that I remember gosh
in my 20s going like everybodyin this movie is white and like
clearly this is a very wealthyschool district.
They've got like randomsculpture in the center of their
ginormous library.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Yeah, and the foreign language lab where Andy gets
high and there's like a musiclab in the where they so they're
listening to music and theydance, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
So like okay, fair enough that in a district like
that it's likely that the it ismostly white mostly white, but
that that's something that Ithink is is interesting and I
would love to see like I havethought this about several
movies and like foundational popculture in our society.
(37:50):
So, for instance, people say,like friends is actually just
living single which came firstand living single was about
black friends.
I would love to see these likemovies that are supposed to be
universal, from our childhood,remade by people with a
different life, circumstance andand and experience.
(38:12):
So like what if you know adirector were to remake
Breakfast Club and have amajority or all black cast?
What would the differences be?
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Interesting.
The the jock the yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Yeah, yeah, because we're taking, we're given these
stereotypes and and like advisethat these are universal, and
that was one thing that I wasmisled on, like it's not that
there weren't popular kids, it'snot that there weren't bad boys
, not that there weren't jocks,but no one was any one of those
(38:50):
things.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Yeah, I think that's one thing that like, looking
back on it now to the nerd,there's only the one nerd and
he's the boy Right.
So like where do I self insert?
Because I sure as heck wasn'tClaire, but neither was I
Allison.
It was like I was sort of likea cross between like a second
(39:14):
tier Claire and a Brian, becausebecause I was a nerd but I was
a popular nerd, I mean I wasstill a nerd, so I wasn't like
the prom queen, but like I hadlike friends in lots of groups
and so how do you like?
I mean, but that's the thingwith anything that does the
stereotypes is that no one isone dimensional.
(39:38):
So yeah, I think that's areally important point and that
that was the point, but then itwas undercut a bit as well.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yeah, so people always used to tell me that I
looked like Ally Sheedy and thebreakfast club I remember.
So I, because of that, I alwayskind of identified with her.
But same thing, like I'm shy,but I was never so as quiet as
she is, like, and like there's apoint where she squeaks and
(40:11):
like and leaves out the desk,she eeps and, like, puts her
head on the table.
Yeah, Like I've never been thatshy and yeah it just it doesn't,
it doesn't fit, and like thething is, I don't think there's
anyone who who like, oh, that'sme, that's me, right, of course.
Of course the idea that thereis some universal message from
(40:32):
this film when it ignores thelife experience of people who
are not white, white, straight,cis, evil body, yeah, evil
bodied Christian.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Yeah, yeah.
So I'd like to.
I'd like to talk about two morethings, and then we can see
where we go.
One is that this filmdefinitely passes the back del
test, no question.
And I'd like to talk aboutactually one moment where it's
passing the back del test, whichis during the makeover.
Claire is giving Allison amakeover and Allison says why
(41:11):
are you being so nice to me?
And Claire says because you'reletting me, and what that
message is about, how teenagegirls interact is like really
sitting with me after thisrewatch, like I don't know if
(41:32):
John Hughes is right about that.
And the fact that he thoughtthat that was the case, that
girls didn't let one another benice, because of these lines,
these click type lines, it justit feels really sad to me that
(41:58):
that's what we think of teenagegirl culture.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
I have trouble with this because I I mean, you've
got a daughter, I've got twosons.
I just met up with some friendsthis past weekend for breakfast
.
One of my friends has a son anda daughter and the other one
has two daughters and they weretalking about like there's been
some bullying and in particularwe're talking about a Girl Scout
(42:25):
troop where each individualgirl is just kind and bright and
fun and funny and delightful,but in the group it becomes this
toxic mix.
And so one of my friends wassaying like yeah, after this
season we're not doing GirlScouts anymore because of how
(42:45):
unpleasant this becomes.
And very odd for me to hear.
That's not to say that my kidsdon't experience bullying as
boys.
It's just, I don't.
It's a one on one thing Ifthere's any bullying, there's no
.
Like this mix becomes toxic.
And I'm reminded of Pat Noswalt,the comedian, talking about his
(43:07):
daughter, saying that like hereally doesn't believe there's
differences between boys andgirls.
But there was a point where hisdaughter got really upset and
she was little I mean, she wastiny, like four or five because
her best friend who has thisgorgeous, long, shiny, curly
hair.
So the friend drew this pictureof the friend with long hair,
(43:28):
what her hair looks like, andAlice with like a bob, which is
what Alice's hair looked like.
And Alice was very upset aboutit and was crying, and so she
ended up like here I drew apicture of me and this friend
send it to her mom and she drewherself with long hair and her
friend is bald and so and so andthis is, you know, a comedy
(43:51):
thing that he's talking aboutit's from several years ago,
because I think his daughter isprobably 14 or 15 at this point.
He was saying like it reallydoes seem like boys when they
have a conflict with another boy, they wrestle it out, they like
there's some sort of likeexplosion and then it's over,
Whereas he feels like girls arelike soooob.
(44:16):
And I bring that up because Iwas so surprised by it.
Like you know, first of all, patNoswalt's very progressive
comedian.
He's very much a feminist and afeminist ally and all of that,
so like for him to tell thisstory and for him to be like
this is the experience I've had.
I'm like it's not that I don'tbelieve it, I definitely do, but
(44:36):
it wasn't my experience as akid and I don't have kids who
are girls, who live, you know,navigate the world in that space
now.
But I do wonder, you know, likeI don't think that this is like
inherent to you know, xchromosome, but I do think that
(44:59):
centuries of women beingsocialized to feel like there
can be only one and that, youknow, looking at other women as
competition for scarce resources, because that was actually the
case for so long that we aresomehow teaching little girls
(45:23):
and young women that you can'tbe nice to each other and so you
need to like if someone's beingnice to you, you need to stop
it, because that's got to belike suspicious, there's got to
be nefarious purpose behind itor something.
So I do think that there issomething to what Hughes is
(45:46):
saying in that interactionbetween Claire and Allison, and
it's very sad, well, and even inthe interaction, right like
Claire's making Allison lookmore like Claire.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Yes, so you know Allison was wearing makeup that
she had put on herself andpresumably I mean she says she
likes it.
Claire says you look so muchbetter without that black shit
on your eyes and Allison sayshey, I like that black shit,
right Like she was wearing likereally heavy eyeliner and Claire
, like pulls her hair back andputs blush on and less hazardous
(46:20):
and skin, we're white insteadof black.
Yeah, so even within the movieand the being nice it, it's
about making not just a makeover, but a makeover in my image
from Claire.
So it's complicated, it'scomplicated, yeah.
(46:43):
So the last thing that I wantedto name is that that I did not
remember at all until Irewatched it is that the, the
movie actually has an epigraph.
That's what it's called at thebeginning.
Like there's a quote is fromfrom Bowie these children that
you spit on as they try tochange their world, or immune to
your consultation.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
They're well aware of what they're going through.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
They're quite aware of what they're going through.
They're aware.
I think it's just aware they'reaware.
Okay, yeah, so I didn't realizethat, that was, I didn't
remember that.
That quote sort of framed thismovie and I thought that was.
I noted it.
I noted it.
That's the message and if weput principal Vernon then back
(47:26):
into the picture with thatepigraph in mind, like his story
arc is that he dislikes allthese kids.
He has this weird pissingcontest with John Bender.
He looks in their confidentialfiles.
Carl the janitor catches himand then asks for 50 bucks to
stay quiet about the fact thatVernon's looking in their
confidential files.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Wasn't he looking in the teacher's confidential files
, though Not the kids.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
It's not clear.
Like he says a name which isnot one of the kids names, he
says Terry.
So possibly, though certainlylike context wise, you're led to
believe it's the kids files.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
Okay, well, it would make sense that there would be
in the building where, as ateacher's files would be, would
not be in the building, they'dbe like right, they would HQ.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
Yeah, he does say a name, though that's not one of
the kids names.
So maybe, but definitely, carlcatches him and asked for 50
bucks to stay quiet.
And then the two of them sitaround drinking beer and Vernon
says you know, what reallyscares me is that when I'm old,
when we're old, these kids aregoing to be in charge and
(48:37):
they're going to take care of mewhen I get old.
And Carl, the janitor, says Iwouldn't count on it.
Yeah, so with that Bowie quote,like the commentary on Vernon
and the commentary on the waythat adults treat teenagers by
(48:58):
forcing them into these pigeonholes, is very clear.
I mean, maybe I hit you overthe head, clear, and for that I
think I think Hughes deserves abox.
Right, I think that actually,like as I just said, like when
you are a teenager, having agrown up be like these things
that you care deeply about don'tmatter, doesn't help.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
Well, and even the just as we find out that every
single one of these kids isstruggling with their parents.
And I'd be curious to watch itnow as a parent of a kid who's
on the cusp of teenagerhood,because my sympathies have
changed as I've watched movieslike I saw myself as kids for a
(49:46):
long time.
Now I see myself as a parent.
When I was teaching I rememberI don't know if I watched it
again or I was just thinkingabout it I was just like, yeah,
vernon's awful, like itreinforced how terrible he is.
Once I was a teacher because,like you, are the grown up in
the room and you always rememberthat Right.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
He does not remember that he's the grown up in the
room and in fact I mean withBender in particular like having
seen like literal physicalabuse that this young man has is
enduring and then is punishedfor it again, and the way that
Vernon tries to go to him intohitting so that Vernon can beat
(50:32):
it, you know, tries to go,Bender, into receiving
additional physical abuse.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
When I first started teaching, I had a colleague who
was a guidance counselor at theschool who had gone to that
school as a high school studentand had had his entire academic
career as a guidance counselorat that school, and he was a bit
of a bully really, even as aguidance counselor.
When I first got there and methim, I thought he was amazing
(51:00):
because he was very individuallyinvolved with the students in a
way that seemed very nurturing.
Turns out that he was reallykind of reliving his high school
years and making himself bigman on campus as staff, and so
he would do things like havegroups of students who would
(51:24):
come to his house for likemeetings to talk about like
college planning and stuff likethat, and one of the kids, for
whatever reason, would get cutout.
But instead of cutting this kidout which is not great anyway
he would just change what day ofthe week they meet and not tell
the kid.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
So the kid would show up on the wrong day.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
I mean like, or he wouldn't tell the kid when the
next meeting was, or whatever,which is basically like Bullshit
, like that high school bullshitghost and and he also, he was
not.
He was not physically abusiveat all, but he was a very big
man and he used his size to beintimidating.
(52:05):
All this to say that Vernon isnot a caricature.
There are real administratorsand teachers like that in every
high school in the nation and,horribly, in every middle school
and elementary school too.
Yeah, so there is nothingsympathetic about Vernon.
I do wonder if there is any wayto find the other parents
(52:30):
sympathetic.
Just that, as a parent, I knowthat you think that the baby
years are the hardest becauseyou're sleep deprived and
there's this like helpless beingrelying on you.
But as your kid gets older,it's it gets harder because,
like, the choices are so muchless clear.
(52:51):
Like you know, crying baby youget up, feed it, change it easy.
You know there's there's like alist of five possible things
that the baby might need crying16 year old, floundering 16 year
old so much harder.
Yeah, so that said, that, likehow each of these parents are
(53:13):
described sounds awful.
I mean, it really sounds awfulso that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (53:19):
So Andy's and Bender's dad's the bowling dads
definitely I have a hard timefinding any sympathy for either
of them.
Claire's parents I actually dofeel like I have some sympathy
for them, like they're in aloveless marriage and they're
not behaving well.
A few people do in love withmarriages and actually you do
(53:44):
see Claire's dad in the car ashe's dropping her off and she's
like I can't believe, you can'tshe's sort of a root of salt in
that moment I can't believe youcan't get me out of this.
You know she skipped class to goshopping.
That's why she has detentionand he's, like you, skipped
class, like you know, like heactually, in that brief
(54:05):
interaction you do see someaffection and him trying to help
his daughter takeresponsibility.
Like I do have some sympathyfor her parents, allison's
parents.
She gets dropped off, she's inthe backseat, she gets out
without saying anything and thenshe like starts to like move
toward the front of the car, tolike interact with the parent
who's driving and they driveaway and the thing that she
(54:28):
accuses her parents of isneglecting her.
They ignore me, that's what sheuses, and so it's really hard
to know about her parents, Ithink, and Brian's parents.
You know, having been thestraight-A kid who thought my
parents can't have an F, I'm notsure that that was actually
(54:50):
true.
Now we do also see Brian's momand she's real mad and you know
she says you find a way to study.
He was paints her as notsympathetic in that moment and
also, like, I think thepressures that high achieving
kids receive from their parentsare often seeds planted by their
(55:11):
parents, but maybe not quite asrobust from the parents as they
think.
So I think there could be aopportunity for sympathy of
Brian's possibly do Brian'sparents know that the flare gun
unclear, unclear because that'sif, if she knows, if she knows
(55:35):
that it was suicidal ideationthat was happening and she's
behaving that way.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
No, sympathy no sympathy.
Speaker 1 (55:39):
I take back everything I said.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
I'm assuming she does not know.
Both of my kids have inheritedmy anxiety.
It happens and both of themfeel very like, feel a great
deal of pressure to do well,which is not coming from me or
their father.
We have actually, like myspouse has actually said to my
(56:02):
eldest, you should failsomething.
It is one of the best thingsthat you can do, because that is
when you learn.
So I am definitely sympatheticto that because there's like
wherever the kids picked it up,the idea that they need to do
well and that it is life ordeath.
That said, if my kid were inBrian's situation, I would not
(56:27):
be saying you find a way study.
I'd be like can you please finda way to take a nap?
Yeah, right, but there's also abig difference between 1985 and
2024.
Speaker 1 (56:39):
Yeah, yeah well, we've talked about this movie a
lot, so let me see if I can sumup much that.
I brought and that you helped me.
Let me sum up.
So the Breakfast Club 1985,john Hughes, passes the backdale
test.
Good.
There were some ways in whichthis movie was in fact
(57:03):
subversive in the best sense, in1985 and looking at it 39 years
later, it was lessrevolutionary than we thought,
or maybe more precisely, we'vecome so far now that the
subversion of 1985 is not farenough.
(57:25):
So we see Hughes telling usthat these stereotypes and these
clicks are false and we have alot more in common than than
than the opposite.
We see him giving us a muchmore fully formed Claire Sandish
(57:46):
, the super popular girl then wemight have expected from 18
movie in 1985.
And then he undercuts that byabusing this girl throughout the
movie, by with her you knowtheir fellows and then having
her seek out a pairing with oneof the people who insulted her
(58:10):
the most.
She also is forced to changefor that pairing, as is the only
other girl in the cast, allison, who needs to look more like
Claire in order to beromantically acceptable to
Emilia Westavez's jock big manon canvas character.
(58:33):
We see performance of genderand performance of self from
each of these kids, especiallythe boys, I think, but not
exclusively in the voice ofAlice, she's Allison.
We hear a just concisepresentation of the catch 22 of
(58:57):
female sexuality if you do,you're a slut, if you don't,
you're a prude.
It's a trap that is undercut bythe fact that the romantic
pairings are then just the happyending.
Assumed that's the happy ending, exactly this the romantic
pairings.
(59:17):
We noted that, though Hughes wastrying to give us like a
diverse cast of characters, allfive of them are white, cis,
straight, able-bodied, thin,neurotypical passing.
I'll say so, though there was a.
(59:38):
There is a diversity, there'salso a lack of diversity.
One of the main kind ofintentional lessons of this
movie is about the ways thatadults condescend and thereby
abuse kids, teenagers inparticular.
That is conveyed through theepigraph from Bell we, through
(01:00:01):
the person of Vernon, of RichardVernon, who, you know from
experience, is not a caricatureand through the way that the
kids talk about their ownparents.
What am I forgetting that wespoke about?
Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
the lesson that this movie and others other stories
like it taught baby, me and many, many other people that a
performance of antagonism isactually guarding a soft
underbelly, rather than thepossibility that the misogyny
(01:00:36):
and the antagonism and theaggression is just who the
person is, which is exactly howpeople can get stuck in abusive
relationships yes, thank you,that's you said that very
concisely earlier as well likethe fact that those two things
can coexist but they are not.
Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
That the correlation is not causation right, like
just because someone isantagonistic doesn't mean that
they're protecting it.
A soft underbelly, yeah, who?
Anything else you want to makesure that we underline before we
wrap, just thinking like don'tmess with the bull, you'll get
the whole arms.
(01:01:19):
Yeah, mess with the bull, youngman, you'll get the horns.
And and actually the actor doesthis thing with his pinky and
his index finger out like yeah,he did, like he points with that
, and then he shows it in likefront and back.
It's yeah weird and like it'smeant to be ridiculous and it
succeeds.
The director oil choices onthat were really well done, like
(01:01:42):
his mannerism is sounsympathetic and that was.
Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
I do also want to say like this is like fluff.
Basically, there are thingsthat don't necessarily make
sense in the film.
Like Bender, being able to getthrough the ceiling doesn't make
sense.
Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Yeah, like he knows how to get there.
Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
Blair got to the closet.
Where he was doesn't make sense, but the one that had that
really got me because I didn'tget it as a kid was when Claire
puts the lipstick in hercleavage and then is able to,
like, perfectly, put lipstick on.
It is not physically possible.
Yeah.
I don't think that's physicallypossible.
Anyway, that's a little thing.
(01:02:20):
But because I remember, becauseyou know I'm like a child
looking at this, first of all Ididn't understand why that was
like a skill, like I couldn'tget what she was doing, that was
so interesting.
And then when I got like oh cuz, it's cuz, she's got cleavage,
like I remember being like, butmy head doesn't go down that far
(01:02:42):
, like my boobs aren't up hereshe also says can't.
Seventh grade, that's where shelearned how to do it which is
like so okay, she developedearly, but still, anyway, I just
I just need to highlight that,like John Hughes got a lot right
about what it is to be ateenage girl, he got that wrong
(01:03:07):
he got that wrong.
Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
Okay, so what are you're bringing me the next time
?
What are we gonna?
Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
time we are going to be talking about my deep
thoughts on Rocky Horror PictureShow yeah, exciting, yeah,
exciting.
Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
Well, I'm looking forward to that, and before we
do that though, I understand youhave some listener, I have two
listener comments this week.
Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
The first one is from Jen regarding the Twilight
episode.
So she told me I've recentlyfallen into the a court of
thorns and roses trap.
Are you familiar with thosebooks?
They're very big a moss, is theauthor, and they are huge right
now.
So Jen says this series feelsclosest to the hoopla around
(01:03:52):
Twilight back in the day andwhile it seems we've learned
some lessons, it's not achastity tale, thank God, and
the protagonists have much moregoing for them than just the guy
.
It seems we have more, stillmore, have more to learn,
because these guys are still socontrolling and age differences
of decades.
You know, two steps forward,one step back.
Then I also have a comment fromMegan regarding the Buffy
(01:04:16):
episode.
She said thank you for this.
I listened on a long driveyesterday.
I needed a reminder to go backto Buffy.
I also needed help processingthe recent news about Josh
Whedon.
It completely changed myfeelings about Sarah Michelle
Geller not doing any guesting onAngel.
My only quibble about thatepisode is that season six and
seven, buffy isn't yet a fullyformed human.
(01:04:37):
No one in their early 20s is.
She tells Angel that herselfshe's cookie dough, not fully
baked cookies.
Speaker 1 (01:04:44):
I appreciate that.
Thanks, megan.
Yeah, thanks.
Well, listeners, if you want toshare your deep thoughts about
our deep thoughts, please do.
You can email us atguygirlsmedia at gmailcom or you
can go over to our listenerforum on our website and we will
(01:05:04):
link to that in the show notes.
So until, next time hey you,yeah you.
You're a deep thinker, I cantell.
Let's make it official.
Head on over to our website,guygirlsmediacom and make sure
you don't miss a single deepthought.
You can get me and Emily inyour inbox every week.
(01:05:25):
What are you waiting for?
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is professorumlaut by Kevin McLeod from
incompetechcom.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Until next time, remember, popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
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The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.