the breakfast club film essay

“The Breakfast Club” Film Analysis Essay

Developmental stages depicted by the main characters in the film, what was realistic and unrealistic about the movie’s portrayal of the stages, effects of the film on society’s view of these stages of development, how has the movie affected my view of development in the stages represented, challenges faced by the main characters, applying the knowledge gained from the movie to my daily life, reference list.

The film “The Breakfast Club” tells the story of five students who have developed different stereotypes (Hughes, 1985). One of the developmental stages depicted by these characters is Sigmund Freud’s “Adolescence to Adulthood Stage.” During this development stage, “the teenager experiences a re-emergence of sexual opinions and interests” (Kail & Cavanaugh, 2012, p. 48). Erik Erikson refers to this stage as the “Fidelity: Identity vs. Role Diffusion Stage.” The person becomes aware of his or her social roles (Feldman, 2013). As well, the adolescent might fail to identify the appropriate parts in his or her life.

The movie’s portrayal of the stages is realistic. As the film depicts, adolescents are concerned with their image. The individuals ponder the activities and roles they might play as adults (Kail & Cavanaugh, 2012). As well, adolescents want to establish boundaries and redefine their world. This also plays a critical role in “a teenage rebellion against their parents and authority figures” (Shaffer, 2008, p. 58). For example, Andrew Clark explains why he hates his father (Hughes, 1985). Most of the characters in the film have developed strained relationships with their parents. The students also realize they are similar to each other. This explains why (and how) adolescents rebel against any authority. They also form their stereotypes about the world around them (Feldman, 2013).

The film portrays Allison Reynolds as a pathological liar (Hughes, 1985). Andrew Clark appears to have a strained relationship with his father. Brian Johnson is someone who has contemplated suicide (Hughes, 1985). The film explains how the characters are afraid of making mistakes. The characters befriend one another and even kiss. Teenagers also make “uninformed decisions because they face different challenges in their lives” (Shaffer, 2008, p. 74). However, the film’s portrayal of John Bender is unrealistic (Hughes, 1985). For example, Bender is a criminal and has an antagonistic relationship with the teacher. Every drug addict will develop a strained relationship with his teachers or parents.

The society’s view of the stages of development is critical because it helps its members address most of the challenges affecting the youth. The film’s depiction of the stages of human development can help parents establish the best relationships with their daughters and sons. The society can use the film to deal with different stereotypes affecting its people. The film helps society to examine and address the issues affecting the youth. The movie explains why (and how) adolescents face difficulties in their lives (Kail & Cavanaugh, 2012). They develop their impressions about the world. This affects their decisions and ideas. The film can also deceive the youth to take drugs such as marijuana and cocaine.

This film by John Hughes has changed my view of development in the stages presented. The film informs the audience about the nature of the challenges faced by the youth (Shaffer, 2008). I will encourage my relatives and friends to watch the film because it presents the best ideas about these stages of development. The film also explains why teachers and parents should be ready to help their children. The approach will help them realize their goals and cope with the challenges affecting their lives.

To begin with, Andrew Clark dislikes his father (Hughes, 1985). This arises from poor parenting styles or inability to form his identity. John Bender is from an abusive family. This explains why he faces the challenge of poor parenting styles. The challenge has also made him a criminal. Brian appears to face personal challenges because he has thought of committing suicide (Hughes, 1985). The film also portrays Claire as a virgin (Hughes, 1985). She also comes from a strict family. Allison and Claire have been unable to create a friendship with the other teenagers.

Most of these challenges are typical in the stages of development. A child who lacks proper parental love will always be troubled. This is why Bender uses drugs. Adolescents from strained relationships with their parents. This is the same case for all the characters in the film. Such challenges will always affect individuals negatively (Shaffer, 2008). Parents and guardians should be aware of these challenges to help the affected children. The film portrays Brian Johnson as someone who has encountered a unique challenge in his life (Hughes, 1985). The character becomes discontented and unhappy. Brian contemplates suicide and develops a negative view of life.

I will always apply the knowledge gained from the movie to my daily life. I will analyze the ideas carefully to make the best decisions in my life. I will always focus on the positive side of every stage of human development (Crain, 2011). The movie encourages me to address most of the problems affecting my life. The film will also help me as a parent. These ideas will also guide my children throughout the major stages of development.

Crain, W. (2011). Theories of Development: Concepts and Applications . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Feldman, R. (2013). Development Across the Life Span. New York: Pearson.

Hughes, J. (Executive Producer). (1985). The Breakfast Club [DVD]. New York, USA: Universal Pictures.

Kail, R., & Cavanaugh, J. (2012). Human Development: A Life-Span View. Cengage: Cengage Learning.

Shaffer, D. (2008). Social and Personality Development. Cengage: Cengage Learning.

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IvyPanda. (2024, January 7). “The Breakfast Club” Film Analysis. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-breakfast-club-film-analysis/

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . "“The Breakfast Club” Film Analysis." January 7, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-breakfast-club-film-analysis/.

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‘The Breakfast Club’ (Brian): “Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club”

THE BREAKFAST CLUB by John Hughes

From : Movie

Type : Dramatic

Character : Brian Johnson is funny, smart and "sort of a nerd"

Gender : Male

Age Range : Late Teens

Summary : Brian writes a letter to Mr. Vernon in the closing monologue of the film.

More: Watch the Movie

Click Here to Download the Monologue

Brian: Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you’re crazy for making us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us… In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal… Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.

More Monologues from ‘The Breakfast Club’

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Sincerely Yours, The Breakfast Club

BRIAN: Dear Mr. Vernon. We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did was wrong, but we think you’re crazy to make us to write an essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, the most convenient definitions. You see us as a Brain, an Athlete, a Basketcase, Princess, and a Criminal. Correct? That’s the way we saw each other at 7 o’clock this morning. We were brainwashed. – Opening monologue, The Breakfast Club (1985)

Above is one of the most famous monologues in film history. This is the tale of how it almost never was… or, at least, how it was almost never famous .

Floating around online is an early draft of The Breakfast Club script (PDF link). There is no date attached, nor does it specify exactly which draft it is: the front page is entirely missing. It is, however, significantly different to the film which made it to the screen. Detailing even the major changes is a task for another day, and would involve comparing the script not only with the final film, but also the deleted scenes on the recent brand new Blu-ray release .

But I thought comparing that opening monologue to the one in this unspecified draft might be fun. Let’s take a look at it…

…what’s that? It isn’t present in the film’s opening at all?

Yes, that famous opening monologue is entirely missing. There’s other images which made it into the final film, of the “rare tour of a high school at dawn on a Saturday”: the ‘Senior Spirit Soars’ banner, the graffitied locker. But the monologue – and its link with the imagery of the computer room, changing room, etc – is completely absent.

So, the question you’re presumably asking now: is the same monologue present at the end of the film in this draft? The answer is yes… but perhaps not quite how you’d expect.

Firstly, let’s remind ourselves of the version of the monologue in the final film, as it’s actually slightly different to the version at the beginning. 1

BRIAN: Dear Mr. Venon. We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain… ANDY: …and an athlete… ALLISON: …and a basketcase… CLAIRE: …a princess… JOHN: …and a criminal. BRIAN: Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Breakfast Club.

Now, let’s take a look at how that moment is scripted in the earlier draft:

CLOSEUP – VERNON He’s puzzled by the paper. It’s not at all what he expected. We hear, one by one, the kid’s voices fade up, beginning with Brian. BRIAN (V.O.) Dear Mr. Vernon… We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you’re crazy to ask us to write an essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us. John’s crazy and bad, Cathy’s beautiful and spoiled 2 , Andy’s strong and mature, Allison’s looney tunes and Brian’s brilliant. That’s pretty much how we see ourselves. What we found out, sir, was that we’re all crazy and bad and beautiful, and spoiled and strong and mature and looney tunes and brilliant. Take it or leave it… Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.

The basics are there… but stripped of any power at all. The descriptions of our heroes are just that: descriptions, not archetypes . “Beautiful and spoiled” is nothing compared to “a princess”. Moreover, part of the power is those archetypes being spoken in the first person: this early draft keeps those descriptions resolutely in the third, distancing us from everything we’ve just watched. Hell, even the sheer rhythm of the speech feels all wrong.

In rewriting, John Hughes turned the speech from something normal into something extraordinary. And by adding the monologue to the beginning of the film too, he not only increased its power tenfold, but gave the film a structure it previously lacked. As originally scripted, we simply meet our characters, and start the detention. In the final film, we immediately want to know the answer to the big question: what will our gang discover about themselves throughout the film?

It’s easy to get attached to the first draft of any writing, whether it’s something as complex as a screenplay, or just a short blog post. We all know that redrafting our work is the key to making it better. And yet emotionally, it’s sometimes difficult to force ourselves to do what needs to be done. We can all occasionally get attached to thinking our first stab at something is “pure”, and any subsequent attempt to improve it could ruin things.

The truth: if John Hughes can’t get it right first time, there’s no reason to think you have. And if he’d stuck to his first draft here, we’d have lost out on one of the single best moments of 80s cinema.

The art of writing is in the rewriting. That’s the cliche. But the above is the proof.

UPDATE (11/02/22): Hello there! This page gets a ludicrous amount of Google love, for reasons I have yet to ascertain. But if you enjoyed this, please take a look around the rest of the site, especially this stuff I vaguely think is quite good . Or don’t, y’know. But you can’t blame a guy for trying.

Which is weird logistically, but perhaps not emotionally .  ↩

It’s commonly known that Claire in the film was originally called Cathy. I find it pleasing to actually see proof of it in the early script draft, though.  ↩

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One comment

RW on 8 December 2023 @ 7am

A year ago, you marveled at how much people come here and read this entry. I’d say it’s the same reason that we still come back and put that DVD or Blu-Ray in the tray and watch the movie. It’s the same reason why we punch our hands in the air to Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” every time we hear the song play. Like John Hughes creation, you’ve struck a nerve. Oh, not that instant, sharp throbbing pain of smacking a funny bone or something of that nature, but more of the nerve laid bare by revelation of our own Breakfast Club moment. Like Brian writes, “ …we found out is that each one of us is a brain… and an athlete… and a basketcase… a princess… and a criminal.” It revives something deep inside that many never even realizes is still inside us. I don’t find it surprising at all that people continue to find your page. Don’t you forget about you.

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• Cast & crew
• User reviews

The Breakfast Club

Five high school students meet in Saturday detention and discover how they have a great deal more in common than they thought. Five high school students meet in Saturday detention and discover how they have a great deal more in common than they thought. Five high school students meet in Saturday detention and discover how they have a great deal more in common than they thought.

• John Hughes
• Emilio Estevez
• Judd Nelson
• Molly Ringwald
• 1K User reviews
• 163 Critic reviews
• 66 Metascore

• Andrew Clark

• John Bender

• Claire Standish

• Allison Reynolds

• Richard Vernon

• Brian Johnson

• Allison's Father
• Brian's Sister

• Andy's Father
• Claire's Father
• Allison's Mom
• Brian's Mom

• (uncredited)

• Brian's Father
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia The scene in which all characters sit in a circle on the floor in the library and tell stories about why they were in detention was not scripted. Writer and director John Hughes told them all to ad-lib.
• Goofs Throughout the movie it appears that Bender is wearing Claire's diamond earring in his left ear, even though she doesn't give it to him until the very end of the film. However, it is actually an ear cuff that is worn anywhere above the earlobe on the outer part of the ear. It is clearly seen when he puts on her earring.

Andrew Clark : We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all.

• Crazy credits Opens with the following which then explodes from the screen. "And these children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds; are immune to your consultations, they are quite aware of what they are going through." - David Bowie
• Alternate versions When they sneak out of the library, there is a scene where Dick is at the vending machine getting some candy. He loses his money and starts kicking the machine. Every one has to run by this door one at a time to get where they are going. They all run by just missing being noticed. Ally Sheedy however slowly walks by stops and stares at Dick kicking the machine then slowly walks past unnoticed. Molly Ringwald then says "She's nuts but she's cool"
• Connections Edited into The Breakfast Club: Deleted Scenes (2018)
• Soundtracks Don't You (Forget About Me) Music and lyrics by Keith Forsey and Steve Schiff Produced by Keith Forsey Performed by Simple Minds

User reviews 1K

• Apr 4, 2005
• What does Bender's joke mean?
• Why does Mr. Vernon hate Bender so much?
• February 15, 1985 (United States)
• United States
• Official Facebook
• Der Frühstücksclub
• Maine North High School - 9511 Harrison Street, Des Plaines, Illinois, USA (school exterior, school interior hallways, library used as model for re-build in gym, football field - fist-pump scene)
• Universal Pictures
• A&M Films
• Channel Productions
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $1,000,000 (estimated)
• $45,875,171
• Feb 18, 1985
• $51,525,171

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 37 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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What About “The Breakfast Club”?

By Molly Ringwald

Earlier this year, the Criterion Collection, which is “dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world,” released a restored version of “ The Breakfast Club ,” a film written and directed by John Hughes that I acted in, more than three decades ago. For this edition, I participated in an interview about the movie, as did other people close to the production. I don’t make a habit of revisiting films I’ve made, but this was not the first time I’d returned to this one: a few years back, I watched it with my daughter, who was ten at the time. We recorded a conversation about it for the radio show “This American Life.” I’ll be the first to admit that ten is far too young for a viewing of “The Breakfast Club,” a movie about five high-school students who befriend one other during a Saturday detention session, with plenty of cursing, sex talk, and a now-famous scene of the students smoking pot. But my daughter insisted that her friends had already seen it, and she said she didn’t want to watch it for the first time in front of other people. A writer-director friend assured me that kids tend to filter out what they don’t understand, and I figured that it would be better if I were there to answer the uncomfortable questions. So I relented, thinking perhaps that it would make for a sweet if unconventional mother-daughter bonding moment.

It’s a strange experience, watching a younger, more innocent version of yourself onscreen. It’s stranger still—surreal, even—watching it with your child when she is much closer in age to that version of yourself than you are. My friend was right: my daughter didn’t really seem to register most of the sex stuff, though she did audibly gasp when she thought I had showed my underwear. At one point in the film, the bad-boy character, John Bender, ducks under the table where my character, Claire, is sitting, to hide from a teacher. While there, he takes the opportunity to peek under Claire’s skirt and, though the audience doesn’t see, it is implied that he touches her inappropriately. I was quick to point out to my daughter that the person in the underwear wasn’t really me, though that clarification seemed inconsequential. We kept watching, and, despite my best intentions to give context to the uncomfortable bits, I didn’t elaborate on what might have gone on under the table. She expressed no curiosity in anything sexual, so I decided to follow her lead, and discuss what seemed to resonate with her more. Maybe I just chickened out.

But I kept thinking about that scene. I thought about it again this past fall, after a number of women came forward with sexual-assault accusations against the producer Harvey Weinstein , and the #MeToo movement gathered steam. If attitudes toward female subjugation are systemic, and I believe that they are, it stands to reason that the art we consume and sanction plays some part in reinforcing those same attitudes. I made three movies with John Hughes; when they were released, they made enough of a cultural impact to land me on the cover of Time magazine and to get Hughes hailed as a genius. His critical reputation has only grown since he died, in 2009, at the age of fifty-nine. Hughes’s films play constantly on television and are even taught in schools. There is still so much that I love in them, but lately I have felt the need to examine the role that these movies have played in our cultural life: where they came from, and what they might mean now. When my daughter proposed watching “The Breakfast Club” together, I had hesitated, not knowing how she would react: if she would understand the film or if she would even like it. I worried that she would find aspects of it troubling, but I hadn’t anticipated that it would ultimately be most troubling to me.

It can be hard to remember how scarce art for and about teen-agers was before John Hughes arrived. Young-adult novels had not yet exploded as a genre. Onscreen, the big issues that affected teens seemed to belong largely to the world of ABC Afterschool Specials, which premièred in 1972 and were still around as I came of age, in the eighties. All the teens I knew would rather have died than watch one. The films had the whiff of sanctimony, the dialogue was obviously written by adults, the music was corny.

Portrayals of teen-agers in movies were even worse. The actors cast in teen roles tended to be much older than their characters—they had to be, since the films were so frequently exploitative. The teen horror flicks that flourished in the seventies and eighties had them getting murdered: if you were young, attractive, and sexually active, your chances of making it to the end were basically nil (a trope spoofed, years later, by the “Scream” franchise). The successful teen comedies of the period, such as “Animal House” and “Porky’s,” were written by men for boys; the few women in them were either nymphomaniacs or battleaxes. (The stout female coach in “Porky’s” is named Balbricker.) The boys are perverts, as one-dimensional as their female counterparts, but with more screen time. In 1982, “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” which had the rare distinction of being directed by a woman, Amy Heckerling, got closer to an authentic depiction of adolescence. But it still made room for a young male’s fantasy of the actress Phoebe Cates striding topless in a soft-porny sprinkler mist.

And then Hughes came along. Hughes, who grew up in Michigan and Illinois, got work, after dropping out of college, writing ad copy in Chicago. The job brought him frequently to New York, where he started hanging around the offices of the humor magazine National Lampoon . He wrote a story called “Vacation ’58”—inspired by his own family trips—which secured him a job at the magazine and became the basis for the movie “National Lampoon’s Vacation.” Another story caught the eye of the producer Lauren Shuler Donner, who encouraged him to write what became “Mr. Mom.” Those movies helped him get a deal with Universal Studios. “The Breakfast Club” was to be his directorial début; he planned to shoot it in Chicago with local actors. He told me later that, over a July 4th weekend, while looking at headshots of actors to consider for the movie, he found mine, and decided to write another movie around the character he imagined that girl to be. That script became “Sixteen Candles,” a story about a girl whose family forgets her sixteenth birthday. The studio loved the script, perhaps because, in form at least, it had more in common with proven successes—“Porky’s” et al.—than it did with “The Breakfast Club,” which basically read like a play.

A meeting was arranged, we hit it off, and I filmed “Sixteen Candles” in the suburbs of Chicago the summer after I completed the ninth grade. Once we were done shooting, and before we began filming “The Breakfast Club,” John wrote another movie specifically for me, “Pretty in Pink,” about a working-class girl navigating the social prejudices of her affluent high school. The film’s dramatic arc involves getting invited and then uninvited to the prom. In synopsis, the movies can seem flimsy—a girl loses her date to a dance, a family forgets a girl’s birthday—but that’s part of what made them unique. No one in Hollywood was writing about the minutiae of high school, and certainly not from a female point of view. According to one study, since the late nineteen-forties, in the top-grossing family movies, girl characters have been outnumbered by boys three to one—and that ratio has not improved. That two of Hughes’s films had female protagonists in the lead roles and examined these young women’s feelings about the fairly ordinary things that were happening to them, while also managing to have instant cred that translated into success at the box office, was an anomaly that has never really been replicated. (The few blockbuster films starring young women in recent years have mostly been set in dystopian futures or have featured vampires and werewolves.)

I had what could be called a symbiotic relationship with John during the first two of those films. I’ve been called his muse, which I believe I was, for a little while. But, more than that, I felt that he listened to me—though certainly not all the time. Coming out of the National Lampoon school of comedy, there was still a residue of crassness that clung, no matter how much I protested. In the shooting script of “The Breakfast Club,” there was a scene in which an attractive female gym teacher swam naked in the school’s swimming pool as Mr. Vernon, the teacher who is in charge of the students’ detention, spied on her. The scene wasn’t in the first draft I read, and I lobbied John to cut it. He did, and although I’m sure the actress who had been cast in the part still blames me for foiling her break, I think the film is better for it. In “Sixteen Candles,” a character alternately called the Geek and Farmer Ted makes a bet with friends that he can score with my character, Samantha; by way of proof, he says, he will secure her underwear. Later in the film, after Samantha agrees to help the Geek by loaning her underwear to him, she has a heartwarming scene with her father. It originally ended with the father asking, “Sam, what the hell happened to your underpants?” My mom objected. “Why would a father know what happened to his daughter’s underwear?” she asked. John squirmed uncomfortably. He didn’t mean it that way, he said—it was just a joke, a punch line. “But it’s not funny,” my mother said. “It’s creepy.” The line was changed to “Just remember, Sam, you wear the pants in the family.”

My mom also spoke up during the filming of that scene in “The Breakfast Club,” when they hired an adult woman for the shot of Claire’s underwear. They couldn’t even ask me to do it—I don’t think it was permitted by law to ask a minor—but even having another person pretend to be me was embarrassing to me and upsetting to my mother, and she said so. That scene stayed, though. What’s more, as I can see now, Bender sexually harasses Claire throughout the film. When he’s not sexualizing her, he takes out his rage on her with vicious contempt, calling her “pathetic,” mocking her as “Queenie.” It’s rejection that inspires his vitriol. Claire acts dismissively toward him, and, in a pivotal scene near the end, she predicts that at school on Monday morning, even though the group has bonded, things will return, socially, to the status quo. “Just bury your head in the sand and wait for your fuckin’ prom!” Bender yells. He never apologizes for any of it, but, nevertheless, he gets the girl in the end.

If I sound overly critical, it’s only with hindsight. Back then, I was only vaguely aware of how inappropriate much of John’s writing was, given my limited experience and what was considered normal at the time. I was well into my thirties before I stopped considering verbally abusive men more interesting than the nice ones. I’m a little embarrassed to say that it took even longer for me to fully comprehend the scene late in “Sixteen Candles,” when the dreamboat, Jake, essentially trades his drunk girlfriend, Caroline, to the Geek, to satisfy the latter’s sexual urges, in return for Samantha’s underwear. The Geek takes Polaroids with Caroline to have proof of his conquest; when she wakes up in the morning with someone she doesn’t know, he asks her if she “enjoyed it.” (Neither of them seems to remember much.) Caroline shakes her head in wonderment and says, “You know, I have this weird feeling I did.” She had to have a feeling about it, rather than a thought, because thoughts are things we have when we are conscious, and she wasn’t.

Thinking about that scene, I became curious how the actress who played Caroline, Haviland Morris, felt about the character she portrayed. So I sent her an e-mail. We hadn’t seen or spoken to each other since she was twenty-three and I was fifteen. We met for coffee, and after we had filled each other in on all the intervening years, I asked her about it. Haviland, I was surprised to learn, does not have the same issues with the scene as I do. In her mind, Caroline bears some responsibility for what happens, because of how drunk she gets at the party. “I’m not saying that it’s O.K. to then be raped or to have nonconsensual sex,” Haviland clarified. “But . . . that’s not a one-way street. Here’s a girl who gets herself so bombed that she doesn’t even know what’s going on.”

There was a time in my early twenties when I had too much to drink at a party and ended up in a bedroom sitting on the edge of a bed with a producer I didn’t know, lightheaded and woozy. A good friend, who had followed me, popped her head in the door a couple of minutes later and announced, “Time to go now, Molly!” I followed her out, trying not to stumble, and spent the rest of the night violently ill and embarrassed—and the rest of my life grateful that she had been there, watching out for me, when I was temporarily incapable of watching out for myself. I shared the story with Haviland, and she listened politely, nodding.

Haviland, like me, has children, and so I decided to frame the question hypothetically, mother to mother, to see if it changed her point of view. If one of our kids had too much to drink, and something like that happened to one of them, would she say, “It’s on you, because you drank too much”? She shook her head: “No. Absolutely, positively, it stays in your pants until invited by someone who is willing and consensually able to invite you to remove it.” Still, she added, “I’m not going to black-and-white it. It isn’t a one-way street.”

After our coffee, I responded to an e-mail from Haviland to thank her for agreeing to talk to me. Later that night, I received another note. “You know,” she wrote, “the more I think of it this evening, oddly, the LESS uncomfortable I am with Caroline. Jake was disgusted with her and said he could violate her 17 ways if he wanted to because she was so trashed, but he didn’t. And then, Ted was the one who had to ask if they had had sex, which certainly doesn’t demonstrate responsible behavior from either party, but also doesn’t really spell date rape. On the other hand, she was basically traded for a pair of underwear . . . Ah, John Hughes.”

It’s hard for me to understand how John was able to write with so much sensitivity, and also have such a glaring blind spot. Looking for insight into that darkness, I decided to read some of his early writing for National Lampoon . I bought an old issue of the magazine on eBay, and found the other stories, all from the late seventies and early eighties, online. They contain many of the same themes he explored in his films, but with none of the humanity. Yes, it was a different time, as people say. Still, I was taken aback by the scope of the ugliness.

“A Dog’s Tale” has a boy watching his mother turn into a dog. “Against His Will” features an “ugly fat” woman who tries to rape a man at gunpoint in front of the man’s wife and parents because she can’t have sex any other way. “My Penis” and “My Vagina” are quasi-magical-realist stories written from the points of view of teen-agers who wake up in the morning with different genitalia than they were assigned at birth; the protagonist of “My Penis” literally forces her boyfriend’s mouth open to penetrate him, and the male in “My Vagina” is gang-raped by his friends once they discover he has one. (The latter story ends with him having to use the money he saved for new skis on getting an abortion.) The “Hughes Engagement Guide” is an illustrated manual on how to protect yourself against women. It gives examples of women “bullshitting to not put out,” and teaches readers how to do a “quickie pelvic exam,” how to detect “signs of future fat,” and how to determine if a woman has any ancestors of different races, based on what her relatives look like—there is an accompanying drawing of an Asian person and an African-American—and on and on.

The October, 1980, issue included a piece, co-authored by Ted Mann, titled “Sexual Harassment and How to Do It!” The guide explains, “If you hire a woman from another field or with a background that is not suited to the duties she is to assume, you’ve got the glans in the crevice, or, if you prefer, the foot in the door.” It continues, “Not only will her humility prepare her for your sexual advances, it will also help steel her for her inevitable dismissal.” There are sections describing different kinds of secretaries based on their ages, and how best to reward and punish them. (The older ones are “easier,” the younger ones “preferable.”) There’s even a section on arrest: “Sometimes even guys with cool sideburns and a smooth line of patter get arrested for sexual harassment and are issued summonses.” It goes on to suggest different methods for cozying up to the police officer.

It’s all satire, of course, but it’s pretty clear that it’s not the chauvinists who are being lampooned but the “women’s liberation movement.” Women had begun to speak out, in the mid-seventies, against harassment in the workplace. (The beloved movie “9 to 5,” in which three women get revenge on a sexist boss, was released in December of 1980, two months after the Hughes-Mann piece ran.) Mann is now a writer and producer who has been nominated for seven Emmys, most recently for his work on the Showtime series “Homeland.” I sent him an e-mail asking what he now thought of the piece he wrote with Hughes. He replied that he didn’t remember ever having written it. “It looks like one of our art director Peter’s desperate page fillers,” he explained, referring to Peter Kleinman. “It wouldn’t fly today and it never should have flown then,” he went on, adding, “These were degenerate cocaine days.”

I can’t vouch, personally, for any cocaine days that John may or may not have had. When I knew him, he never expressed an interest in doing drugs of any kind, including alcohol—with the exception of cigarettes, which he smoked constantly.

John believed in me, and in my gifts as an actress, more than anyone else I’ve known, and he was the first person to tell me that I had to write and direct one day. He was also a phenomenal grudge-keeper, and he could respond to perceived rejection in much the same way the character of Bender did in “The Breakfast Club.” But I’m not thinking about the man right now but of the films that he left behind. Films that I am proud of in so many ways. Films that, like his earlier writing, though to a much lesser extent, could also be considered racist, misogynistic, and, at times, homophobic. The words “fag” and “faggot” are tossed around with abandon; the character of Long Duk Dong, in “Sixteen Candles,” is a grotesque stereotype, as other writers have detailed far more eloquently than I could.

And yet I have been told more times than I could count, by both friends and strangers, including people in the L.G.B.T. community, that the films “saved” them. Leaving a party not long ago, I was stopped by Emil Wilbekin, a gay, African-American friend of a friend, who wanted to tell me just that. I smiled and thanked him, but what I wanted to say was “Why?” There is barely a person of color to be found in the films, and no characters are openly gay. A week or so after the party, I asked my friend to put me in touch with him. In an e-mail, Wilbekin, a journalist who created an organization called Native Son, devoted to empowering gay black men, expanded upon what he had said to me as I had left the party. “The Breakfast Club,” he explained, saved his life by showing him, a kid growing up in Cincinnati in the eighties, “that there were other people like me who were struggling with their identities, feeling out of place in the social constructs of high school, and dealing with the challenges of family ideals and pressures.” These kids were also “finding themselves and being ‘other’ in a very traditional, white, heteronormative environment.” The lack of diversity didn’t bother him, he added, “because the characters and storylines were so beautifully human, perfectly imperfect and flawed.” He watched the films in high school, and while he was not yet out, he had a pretty good idea that he was gay.

“Pretty in Pink” features a character, Duckie, who was loosely based on my best friend of forty years, Matthew Freeman. We’ve been friends since I was ten, and he worked as a production assistant on the film. Like Emil, he’s out now, but wasn’t then. (It’s one of the reasons I’ve often posited, to the consternation of some fans and the delight of others, that Duckie is gay, though there’s nothing to indicate that in the script.) “The characters John created spoke to feeling invisible and an outsider,” Matt told me recently. They got at “how we felt as closeted gay kids who could only live vicariously through others’ sexual awakenings, lest we get found out with the very real threat of being ostracized or pummelled.”

John’s movies convey the anger and fear of isolation that adolescents feel, and seeing that others might feel the same way is a balm for the trauma that teen-agers experience. Whether that’s enough to make up for the impropriety of the films is hard to say—even criticizing them makes me feel like I’m divesting a generation of some of its fondest memories, or being ungrateful since they helped to establish my career. And yet embracing them entirely feels hypocritical. And yet, and yet. . . .

How are we meant to feel about art that we both love and oppose? What if we are in the unusual position of having helped create it? Erasing history is a dangerous road when it comes to art—change is essential, but so, too, is remembering the past, in all of its transgression and barbarism, so that we may properly gauge how far we have come, and also how far we still need to go.

While researching this piece, I came across an article that was published in Seventeen magazine, in 1986, for which I interviewed John. (It was the only time I did so.) He talked about the artists who inspired him when he was younger—Bob Dylan, John Lennon—and how, as soon as they “got comfortable” in their art, they moved on. I pointed out that he had already done a lot of movies about suburbia, and asked him whether he felt that he should move on as his idols had. “I think it’s wise for people to concern themselves with the things they know about,” he said. He added, “I’d feel extremely self-conscious writing about something I don’t know.”

I’m not sure that John was ever really comfortable or satisfied. He often told me that he didn’t think he was a good enough writer for prose, and although he loved to write, he notoriously hated to revise. I was set to make one more Hughes film, when I was twenty, but felt that it needed rewriting. Hughes refused, and the film was never made, though there could have been other circumstances I was not aware of.

In the interview, I asked him if he thought teen-agers were looked at differently than when he was that age. “Definitely,” he said. “My generation had to be taken seriously because we were stopping things and burning things. We were able to initiate change, because we had such vast numbers. We were part of the Baby Boom, and when we moved, everything moved with us. But now, there are fewer teens, and they aren’t taken as seriously as we were. You make a teen-age movie, and critics say, ‘How dare you?’ There’s just a general lack of respect for young people now.”

John wanted people to take teens seriously, and people did. The films are still taught in schools because good teachers want their students to know that what they feel and say is important; that if they talk, adults and peers will listen. I think that it’s ultimately the greatest value of the films, and why I hope they will endure. The conversations about them will change, and they should. It’s up to the following generations to figure out how to continue those conversations and make them their own—to keep talking, in schools, in activism and art—and trust that we care.

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By Tad Friend

By Louis Menand

Screen Rant

25 best quotes from the breakfast club.

The best Breakfast Club quotes are as funny and relatable now as they were in 1985. These lines are simply unforgettable.

• The Breakfast Club quotes are memorable and relatable, making it a definitive movie of the 1980s.
• The heartfelt sentiments shared between the characters in the film still strike a chord, despite some dated humor and references.
• John Hughes' writing is highly regarded, and the best Breakfast Club quotes serve as a timeless reminder of his talent.

Iconic teen movie director John Hughes followed up Sixteen Candles with The Breakfast Club , and The Breakfast Club quotes are incredibly memorable. A tale of five students undergoing detention on a Saturday, this movie was an immediate sensation for teens and general audiences everywhere. It became regarded as one of the definitive movies of the 1980s as it's easy to relate to the film's characters. They each get a plethora of memorable lines as they joke, argue, and begin to reveal their true personalities and anxieties. The best Breakfast Club quotes still hit home for many movie fans.

While some of the movie's humor and cultural references might be a little dated today, the heartfelt sentiments shared between the characters as they bond due to their forced proximity still strike a chord. Whether they're about self-image, social pressure, or just witty banter, the best Breakfast Club quotes are a timeless reminder of why John Hughes' writing is held in such high regard and why The Breakfast Club is still a movie that has its scenes recreated for a parody or homage even today.

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25 “well brian, this is a very nutritious lunch. all the food groups are represented. did your mom marry mr. rogers”, john bender.

It's an iconic scene when the kids all pull out their lunches and the eclectic meals speak volumes about all of their lives and personalities. Claire (Molly Ringwald) has her perfectly arranged sushi, Andrew (Emilio Estevez) is eating like he's training for a triathlon, Allison (Ally Sheedy) constructs a fascinatingly gross sandwich out of what appears to be Pixy Stix and cereal, and Bender ( Judd Nelson ) decides to eat with Brian (Anthony Michael Hall) as he hasn't brought any food, resulting in this brilliant Breakfast Club quote as he critiques Brian's wholesome lunch.

24 “I Am The Eyes And Ears Of This Institution, My Friends.”

Mr. Vernon is remembered as the authority figure who is so hard on the teenagers in detention, but there is another adult in the school with them when they have Saturday detention. That is Carl (John Kapelos), the janitor. He’s the one responsible for keeping the entire high school clean - and seemingly, the only one. He’s a little more observant than Mr. Vernon, and he understands that teenagers and school officials are not going to see eye-to-eye, something he even voices to Mr. Vernon at one point. Carl seems more amused by the antics of the teenagers than anything else.

23 "You Know, I Have Just As Many Feelings As You Do, And It Hurts So Much When Someone Steps All Over Them."

Claire standish.

One of the running themes in The Breakfast Club is that the teenagers only think they know one another. What they really know is the images projected by one another to fit into their particular cliques. Bender repeatedly refers to Claire as cold or even frigid early in the movie, but she eventually points out that she has feelings just like everyone else does. Over the course of her time in detention, she becomes more vulnerable, and loosens up to be honest with everyone, saying some things that everyone in the room, and in the audience, can identify with. Claire's quotes reveal there's more to her than her just being the most popular person in town.

22 "Sweets, You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried."

John Bender might be one of the most beloved characters in the movie, but his Breakfast Club quotes prove that he’s not exactly a nice guy. His rebellious nature leads him to lash out at those he doesn’t like and to try to get under the skin of those he does. When he takes an interest in Claire, he repeatedly insults her, needles her with remarks that he knows she doesn’t like, and won’t allow her to just ignore him. He very much has the attitude of a little boy pulling the pigtails of a little girl on the playground to get her attention. It’s immature, and in the confined space of detention, it doesn’t win him any favors until he starts being less antagonistic with the others.

21 “I’ve Seen Her Dehydrate Sir, It’s Pretty Gross.”

Andrew clark.

Though the teenagers in the library might not initially get along, they are united in hiding their antics from the authority figures in the school. When they ask to be able to get water, go to the restroom, and things like that just to get out of the library, Mr. Vernon (Paul Gleason) isn’t keen on letting them. Andrew backs Claire up, deadpanning this line about having seen Claire dehydrate in the past. It’s not going to be the most memorable against some of the other quotes from The Breakfast Club , but Emilio Estevez’s delivery of Andrew's line is perfect.

20 "Why, Because I'm Telling The Truth? That Makes Me A B***h?"

Claire gets a lot of insults from the rest of the group because she’s seen as cold and unfeeling. Claire, however, also appears to understand the cliques of their school better than anyone in the room. She understands the fears they all have of not fitting into their respective friend groups, of being ostracized by the student body for not sticking to the status quo, and she’s the only one willing to point out that despite the bonding in Saturday’s detention, none of them will be hanging out together at school the next week. For that, the others think she’s being callous, but with how well everyone sticks to their roles, she’s likely right.

19 “Eat. My. Shorts.”

Bart Simpson might be known for using this particular phrase to taunt other characters in The Simpsons , but he’s far from the only pop culture character to use it. In the 1980s and ‘90s, the phrase was a fairly common insult that was considered PG, marking The Breakfast Club as a product of its time. The term almost feels out of place since The Breakfast Club isn’t afraid to use more colorful language or curse words even in some of the movie’s best-known quotes.

18 "Do You Know How Popular I Am? I'm So Popular. Everybody Loves Me So Much At This School."

When the group decides to smoke together, despite Andrew’s initial protests, they all begin to be much more open with their comments. Though Claire has, at that point in the movie, started to open up more and become a bit more vulnerable, this is the point where she also starts to loosen up. Claire remarks on her own popularity, but it’s not meant in a serious way. It helps to humanize Claire a little bit and give her some levity instead of leaving her as the serious one of the group as everyone starts spilling secrets.

17 "I See Me, And I Don't Like What I See, I Really Don't."

Brian johnson.

It doesn't take long into their day of Saturday detention for the group to start spilling their deepest secrets to one another. Their insecurities and their fears are all laid out on the table despite them all thinking that they'll never talk to one another after detention is over. In this Breakfast Club quote, Brian admits that he doesn't like what he sees when he looks in the mirror. Brian's struggle with self-esteem and satisfaction is one anyone can relate to on some level, which is part of what's made the movie's appeal so enduring.

10 Best Brian Johnson Quotes In The Breakfast Club

16 "you do everything everyone tells you to, and that is the problem.", allison reynolds.

Allison hits the nail on the head when it comes to the more popular people in the school with this Breakfast Club quote. They are yes-people, not thinking for themselves, but quickly succumbing to the effects of peer pressure. It's the pressure that sees both Claire and Andrew eventually break down during the day. Allison, on the other hand, does what she wants, or tries to. Allison points out that doing exactly what other people want is a problem. She might lie once in a while to get reactions out of people, but Allison is more in tune with who she wants to be and who she really is than anyone else in the room.

15 "Does Barry Manilow Know That You Raid His Wardrobe?"

With this line, the audience knows exactly what they are getting from John Bender. He wastes no time in insulting Mr. Vernon as soon as detention begins. The reference might be a bit dated for teens watching the movie today if they're not familiar with the singer, but his particular style would have been fresh in the minds of 80s audiences. It's clearly meant to be an insult, despite contention from Manilow fans.

14 "Don't Mess With The Bull, Young Man. You'll Get The Horns."

Richard vernon.

This is such a great and weird saying for an authority figure to use when they believe they're above reproach and just don't have time to deal with any kids challenging them. That's exactly the kind of figure Vernon presented in the movie. So focused on wielding his own power over the students, Vernon can't deal with the fact that Bender, or any of the kids, would question him at all. This is one Breakfast Club quote that's often been repeated in movies and television series since, mostly sarcastically.

13 "Two Hits. Me Hitting You. You Hitting The Floor."

This Breakfast Club quote comes from Andrew early on in the movie when he's really aggressive towards Bender and his whole attitude. He never fully drops his criticisms of Bender, but his opinion does clearly soften by the end of the movie. This is partly because Andrew gets in touch with the fact that his aggression stems from a desire to gain approval from his father, and this line smartly sounds like something Andrew heard someone else say, maybe even his own father, and then repeated in order to put up his tough-guy facade.

12 "Could You Describe The Ruckus, Sir?"

This particular question is a fan favorite for the audience members who identify with The Breakfast Club's Brian. He is the kind of kid who always does what he is told and pushes himself to be the perfect student. The line is innocent enough to come across as helpful but hints at the guy who wants to climb outside the box society puts him in. When Vernon returns to the library and says he " heard a ruckus ," it is early enough in the movie that any of the kids could give each other up, but they don't. Even Brian keeps his head with a smart comeback.

11 "I Don't Have To Run Away And Live In The Street. I Can Run Away And Go To The Ocean, I Can Go To The Country, I Can Go To The Mountains."

Bender is the character labeled as the rebel, but maybe Allison should have been. She ends up as "the basket case" because she says outlandish things that surprise people, tends to have sticky fingers, and doesn't conform to anyone's idea of what a teenage girl should be. While all the characters get the chance to voice their unhappiness, Allison is the one character who actually seems like she is ready to leave her hometown behind and go somewhere where she can just be herself. A lot of teenagers and adults have identified with that aspect of her character over the years.

10 “It Is Now 7:06. You Have Exactly 8 Hours And 54 Minutes To Think About Why You Are Here – To Ponder The Error Of Your Ways.”

Assistant Principal Richard Vernon gives the perfect start for a quiet Saturday of detention for five students with unclear crimes. With his full authority and obvious skepticism about the character of the kids from different cliques, he gives out the ultimate goal of the detention – a self-evaluation essay. It establishes his character really well, not just the premise of the movie, and it's become one of the most memorable Breakfast Club quotes as a result.

9 “I Hate It. I Hate Having To Go Along With Everything My Friends Say.”

The gang shares their hidden sentiments beneath their stereotypical traits. Claire confesses that she constantly has to succumb to peer pressure. When Brian brings up how the five will go on being friends after their detention, Claire says that she doesn't believe that will happen. When Brian suspected her of being conceited, Claire revealed, “ I hate having to go along with everything my friends say ," before she goes on with a tirade about feeling peer pressure. The line speaks volumes to those who have felt social pressure in their lives before.

8 “You Ought To Spend A Little More Trying To Do Something With Yourself And A Little Less Trying To Impress People.”

Principal Vernon may be an oftentimes unjustly harsh authority figure, but he raises good points for the kids. All he is concerned about is the rebellious state of the current generation of children he is overseeing. So it's understandable why he would use a tough tone towards the gang, particularly towards Bender, when he drops this pearl of wisdom.

10 Best Mr. Vernon Quotes In The Breakfast Club

7 “you wanna know what i did to get in here nothing… i didn’t have anything better to do.”.

This Breakfast Club quote is one of the most surprising. To break the ice from Brian’s dark reveal of why he ended up in detention, Allison shares that she did not have a reason to be there at all. It is a much-needed bit of levity for the gang after a long sharing session wherein each one shared their impressions of themselves and of each other.

6 “I Could Disappear Forever And It Wouldn’t Make Any Difference.”

This is a line shared by Andrew earlier and brought up by Bender during their sharing session when he begins to berate Claire after her trick of putting on lipstick using her cleavage. Andrew once again begins to get aggressive with Bender and his attitude, so the group goes back to arguing again. Bender is clearly a character with a lot of personal issues and an abusive life at home, the way that he acts out and triggers negative behavior in other people, almost on purpose it would seem, all feels very naturalistic. The way that Bender repeats this line really makes it sound like he believes it.

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Analysis Of The Themes In The Film Breakfast Club

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