Breakfast Club: High School Kids and Their Commentary on the American Society

Critical Analysis on the John Hughs Cult Classic

Breakfast Club

1985 ‧ Comedy ‧ 1h 37m

Production List

Production company: Universal Pictures, A&M Films

Director: John Hughes

Producer: Gil Friesen, John Hughes, Michelle Manning, Andrew Meyer, Ned Tanen

Screenplay: John Hughes

Cinematography: Thomas Del Ruth

Editors: Dede Allen

Casting: Jackie Burch

Music: Keith Forsey

Cast

Emilio Estevez (Andrew Clark)

Paul Gleason (Richard Vernon)

Anthony Michael Hall (Brian Johnson)

John Kapelos (Carl)

Judd Nelson (John Bender)

Molly Ringwald (Claire Standish)

Ally Sheedy (Allison Reynolds)

Perry Crawford (Allison’s Father)

Mary Christian (Brian’s Sister)

Ron Dean (Andy’s Father)

Tim Gamble (Claire’s Father)

Fran Gargano (Allison’s Mom)

Mercedes Hall (Brian’s Mom)

Synopsis

The film starts with the production list being introduced to the audience as “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds plays in the background. David Bowie’s quote appears on the black screen. Then the screen shatters, as if someone hit it from the inside, revealing Shermer High School.

Brian Johnson’s voices over the opening scene with the opening of his letter to the teacher Richard Vernon.

It is barely seven o’clock and the school is empty. It is Saturday and five people are supposed to come in for detention. Clair Standish arrives in the BMW with her dad. She is only here because she cut classes to go shopping. Her dad comforts her before she walks into the school.

Brian arrives in the car with his mom and sister. He was scolded and was told to study during detention.

Andrew Clark sits in the car behind Brian’s with his dad. His dad had a relaxed attitude towards Andrew’s detention. But then his attitude completely changed. He got angry with Andrew because this might affect his sport career.

John Bender walks to school alone in the cold weather.

Allison Reynolds was dropped off by both her parents. But they drove off before Allison could say anything.

The five of them walks into the library as Vernon comes in and tells them they have eight hours to think about their mistakes. He has a firm attitude and tells the students to each write an essay describing who they think they are. Bender bumps head with Vernon and immediately tries to stir trouble as Vernon left the room. He annoys the crowd by behaving obnoxiously and saying outrageous thing. Clair is in disgust and tells him to stop. Andrew is also irritated and he threatens Bender to stop. Brian tries to get them to quiet down like Vernon told them so. Meanwhile Allison sits quietly in the back and observes them.

Bender, Claire, and Andrew engages in a verbal fight where Bender was told that he “doesn’t even count” and that no one would care if he disappears. He makes a come back at them making fun of their sports teams and clubs. Brian babbles on about his experience being in the Physics Club.

Bender looses a screw on the library door which resulted in the doors having to be closed. Vernon sees the shut door and comes in the library questioning the students on who did it. Although no one rats out on Bender, Vernon immediately suspects that it’s him. They engages in a heated conversation where Bender repeatedly talks back to Vernon. Clair tries to get him to stop but failed.

The time goes on. The teenagers engages in past times as they are bored by being in detention. Eventually everyone puts their heads down trying to fall asleep. Vernon wakes them up and tells them they could go use the bathroom.

It is about twenty minutes after ten as they all returned from the bathroom. Claire’s family problems were brought up in the conversation between the group. Her mom and dad always uses her to get back at each other. And they have an unsteady marriage where they mention divorce over the littlest things. Claire reveals that she doesn’t think her parents even care about her. Bender initiates a conversation about their relationships with their parents.

Carl, the janitor, walks into the library and he got into a conversation with Bender in which he tells them that he knows all of their stories.

As the time turns to eleven thirty. Vernon calls them for lunch. Allison and Andrew were paired up to get beverages. Allisons tells Andrew that she drinks Vodka. Andrew says that he is in detention because his father and coach doesn’t want him to miss the scholarship. Meanwhile in the library, Brian was ashamed to let Claire know that he is a virgin. But she assures him that it’s okay to be one.

At lunch, Claire has sushi while the others have sandwiches. Bender doesn’t have any lunch. He reveals his family situation. His dad and mom abuses him both verbally and physically. He shows them the cigar burn on his arm that his dad put on him when he spilled paint in the garage. He storms off in the library angrily.

Bender then decided to bring the group to his locker, where he hides his weed. As they were sneaking back to the library, he sacrificed himself getting caught by Vernon so that the rest of the group can return.

Vernon locks Bender in a storage room and openly speaks on his hatred towards Bender. He thinks that Bender is a bum and a future criminal. And no one would believe Bender if he told them about Vernon’s true character.

After Vernon left the storage room, Bender crawled on the ceiling, falling back into the library. His fall through the ceiling caused a ruckus. When Vernon came to check on the ruckus, everyone covered for Bender.

The group gets high with the weed from Bender’s locker. Andrew dances maniacally to “I’m the Dude” by Keith Forsey. Later, Allison approaches Brian and Andrew and told them that she is always planning to runaway as her family neglects her.

Vernon and Carl shares a beer and Vernon expresses his frustration with the students. Carl thinks that Vernon cares too much about what the kids think and that it is only normal for them to hate Vernon. Vernon says that he gets scared that these are the kids who’s going to take care of him when he gets older. Carl suggests that it is unlikely that they will take care of Vernon.

Meanwhile in the library, Allison made up a lie claiming that she is sexually provocative. Claire’s pressured by the group and revealed that she is a virgin. Brian and Andrew finally reveals why they are in detention. Brian is failing Shop class and he could not stand the thought of getting an F, nor could his parents. He has been a Straight A Student his whole life. He brought a gun and hid it in his locker as a last resort. The gun went off in the locker and that’s how Brian got in trouble. As for Andrew, he is a successful athlete, but he never feels enough. He tried to imitate his dad’s behavior in high school and he bullied a kids in the locker room. He feels very guilty afterwards.

The five of them discusses the pressure they encounter at school. Claire and Andrew belongs to the popular groups in the school, and they would not want to be seen with the others once Monday rolls around. But Brian and Allison thinks of the groups as friends. Bender remains silent, but Claire was sure that he would not want to be seen with her in front of his friends either.

The five people who thought that they had nothing in common finally realize that they get along better than they thought they would. They realize that every one of them faces pressure, just in different forms.

Coming to that conclusion, they decides to welcome each other into their lives as friends as they dance to “We Are Not Alone” by Karla Devito.

In the end of the film, Allison receives a makeover from Claire and gets involved romantically with Andrew. Claire, on the other hand, makes a move on Bender. Brian writes the essay to Mr. Vernon. In the letter, he addresses that every one of them processes the characteristics of others, and that they should not have labels put onto them.

Song Analysis & Critical Analysis

Accompanied by Brian’s VoiceOver, the film starts with a sequence showing different parts of the high school. Of course, we would later find out that Brian is reading the essay he wrote during his time in detention. The opening sequence of the school focuses on the despair and rage of the high schoolers being portrayed through the aftermath they’ve left at school. There are words like “I’M EATING MY HEAD” carved into the wooden panel. Brain’s locker is blown off by his gun, shown with a close up shot of the shattered ceramic elephant. Graffiti is all over the desk, words and drawings scattered everywhere, clearly portraying teens’ frustration. The notebook is filled with one word and one word only—“HELP”. You go into any high school, and you could probably find variations of the things shown in the film(Brian’s gun being an exception, maybe).

The film presents an accurate description of the inner minds of teenagers. It is a typical coming of age film.

What the film essentially talks about, among many other topics, is how similar teenagers are. They all holds the potential to be anyone they may desire. And by putting labels on them, the society limits their potentials. The teens may feel an “obligation” to remain in their assigned categories, to fill out that label that was put onto them.

In American high schools, it is not uncommon to see the use of labels. The brain, the athlete, the basket case, the princess, the criminal. Each label assign to one of the characters. Yet as the film progresses, we find out that there is so much more to them than just the superficial roles they play in school. But they’ve all came into terms with their labels. Take John Bender as an example. He is seen as the future criminal by all his peers and even his teacher. And he decided to play into that role. He disguises himself with reckless behaviors and profaned languages, yelling to the whole world “I don’t care!”. But if he really didn’t care what others thought of him, he would try so hard to get a rise out of people. He enjoys getting attention out of people, even if the attention given to him comes with a negative note. Throughout the film, there are times where we can see that he is hurt about what others think of him. At the end of the day, no one likes to be an invisible person that people wouldn’t even care if they disappeared; no one likes to hear that their only future is being a bum. Yet Bender goes through that every day. He gets told by his parents that he is useless, and he gets told by Vernon that he is going to end up in Jail. These are the people that is supposed to nurture a kid, yet they’ve showed Bender no compassion at all.

Brian’s character is also interesting. As we know later in the film that he is in detention because he had a gun. Yet when his mom dropped him off, all she said was for him to study. Brian plays into the label of a brain. Like Bender said, Brian is “a parent’s wet dream”. He is the perfect child. He doesn’t get high, and he doesn’t go to parties. He spends his time studying, and the extra times attending academic clubs. On paper, he is a straight A student. This comes with a lot of pressure. He makes one single mistake and just goes to the very extreme.

All of the characters in the film faces pressure in one way or another. They are all complex, multi-demensinal human beings. But as we see them for the first time, we would also unconsciously categorize them into little boxes. You’re the most popular girl in school and your daddy drives a BMW? You’re instantly the princess with tons of privileges and no real things to worry about. You wear all black and you don’t socialize with your peers? You must have some sort of mental issue that can’t be solved easily. You are a state champion? Athlete! Jock!

It is hard to break the pattern of seeing people in little boxes. And it is even harder to break out of the boxes ourselves. And that is what the film portrays.

Other than the big theme of “labels”, the film also have themes that would often be considered very important to teenagers in high school.

In the film, a topic often being brought up is sex. As teenagers, sex is always an exciting topic to talk about. Claire was repeatedly interrogated by Bender and the group about her sexual experience. And just like Allison said, “if you say you haven’t, you’re a prude. if you say you have, you’re a slut. It’s a trap”. There is no right answer to that question. It is solely a question asked to subject the person as a target of malevolent discussions. And this question is often asked in high school. Teenagers are curious about sex and the meaning behind it. In the film, Claire believes that sex should come with love and respect; Bender, on the other hand, believes that sex is just sex. It is a topic that can spark endless debates. And as teenagers who just recently made encounters with such topic, it is only natural to wonder about them.

Another topic of discussion is the home lives of these teenagers. All of them have a somewhat unpleasant home lives, whether they are extreme cases or not. Every family cannot be perfect. When you’re a teenager, the atmosphere of your home plays a huge factor. Claire, for example, lives in a rich family. And as we can see from when she was being dropped off at school, her dad seems very nice to her. Now that is only the superficial part of her home life that is shown to us. What we don’t see is how often her parents fight, and that she doesn’t even think that her parents care about her.

It is important to know that everyone is so much more than what they seem. Behind the lives they choose to show us, whether colorful or miserable, they have more stories to tell. No one can be fit into a label or a small box. And deep down, you can find it in yourself that everyone shares common characteristics; and that everyone is worth empathizing for.

The film uses several rock songs, much like other John Hughs movies. There is a good combination of non-diegetic and diegetic sounds. The use of rock-n-roll in this film is very appropriate. Rock-n-roll is music for the outsiders, for the people who feel like they don’t belong. And when you’re in high school, you don’t ever feel like you belong. The five main characters of this film all feels lonely and out of place, as their stories are unheard and they are misunderstood.

Don’t You (Forget About Me)

Simple Minds

This song is a non-diegetic song played in the very beginning of the film.

“Slow change may pull us apart

When the light gets into your heart, baby

Don’t you, forget about me”

This song foreshadows the relationships between the five characters. During their time in detention, they’ve came to be very good friends. But Brian’s concerns makes a good point: will they continue being friends when they see each other on Monday? When in the their normal social situations, would they change their minds about being friends? Is the detention just like a dream, and when it ends it’s as if nothing happened?

It is hard to say. But the bond between the five characters were made and they are deep. Thus the song goes “don’t forget about me”.

We Are Not Alone

Karla DeVito

This song was used in the end as the characters realize that they are not so different from each other. They’ve came to accept each other as they have seen through the “labels” that society has put on them. It is a diegetic sound. Brian put this song on the library radio, and they all danced to it.

“Just imagine my surprise
When I looked into your eyes and saw through your disguise

If we dare expose our hearts
And just reveal the purest parts
That’s when strange sensations start to grow”

As the teenagers looked pass each other’s “disguise”, their societal labels, they were surprised to find out that they would have so much in common. But the action took guts. It is not an easy thing to expose yourself to strangers. But once they’ve decided to treat each other with total honesty and share their most personal stories, they were received with acceptance and warmth. Because, like the song suggest, they are “not alone”. Everyone deals with problems as teenagers. No one is completely happy with themselves or their home life. It is an issue that most teenagers would relate to.

It took a lot for the group to share their stories. But as they were doing so, as much as they would like to deny this, part of them was looking for acceptance within their community.

The song ends with these lyrics. And that is exactly how the film ends as well. After the bloodbath everyone has gone through to spill their deepest secrets to each other, they found out that they are all just teenagers dealing with their lives.