The Breakfast Club
written and directed by John Hughes tells the story of five high school
students who sacrifice a Saturday in detention. While they are there they
realize they have a lot more in common then they think. There really aren’t any
good versus bad guys in The Breakfast Club, but I’d say character is both a
good and bad guy (girl) in their own way. For instance, John Bender is
definitely a bad guy, he has a bad attitude but he’s also a nice guy deep down.
This is show when he and Claire get together. Claire is popular and people
think she’s stuck up, but she’s really not. Andrew is a good guy, but he did
tape a classmate’s buttocks together, thus proving why he is in detention.
The characters each have a stereotype that is perceived
by others about them. Claire is stereotyped as a “princess” because she’s
popular, Brian as the “brain” or geek because he’s smart and writes the essay
for everyone, Andrew as an “athlete” or jock, Bender as a “criminal” or punk,
and Allison as a “basket case” or weirdo. They are stereotyped by how they act
and what they wear. John Bender is the main protagonist in the movie.
The cultural values are idealism, fear, and family.
Idealism being that they are all struggling with the need to be perfect in the
eyes of their parents and friends. An example of this is when Brain got an “F”
in his woodshop class because he figured it couldn’t be too hard if the stupid
kids took it, but it turned out harder for him when he didn’t do too well on
his project. Brian knew he couldn’t go home with an “F” and show his parents,
so he brought a gun to school and was planning on committing suicide but the
gun went off in his locker which is how he ended up in detention. Family
meaning that they are all worried about what their families are going to think
of them and how they don’t want to end up like their parents. An example of
this is when Andrew reveals that he taped a classmates backside together
because his dad used to to mess around when he was in school but he didn’t get
caught. Andrew also struggle with being perfect and being number one in his
dad’s eyes. So by doing that Andrew thought that he could impress his dad. Fear
would be that each character knows that besides that Saturday on detention,
they all won’t be seen together again. They fear that because of the
stereotypical cliques and what their friends think, that they all can’t be seen
together again for fear of ruining their reputations too.
The two women in The Breakfast Club, Claire and Allison
are portrayed as the “typical” and “atypical” females. Claire is the ‘typical”
female, a princess, she wears pink, her outfit has different shades of pink in
it, and she wears makeup. In school Claire is seen as the popular girl, she
skips class to go shopping. She is also very feminine unlike Allison. Allison
is the “atypical” girl, a basket case, she wears all dark clothes, she doesn’t
really talk, and when she does talk she makes up lies. Allison is very dark,
but towards the end of the movie after she reveals some things about herself,
and when Claire gives her a makeover she becomes a little more feminine.
The tone of The Breakfast Club can be described as angst
or teen angst. As teenagers, sometimes we feel that we are misunderstood and
are succumb to peer pressure. We often tend to worry about what others think of
us too. I feel as if the tone of this movie is very true to real life because
as a teenager we do have the so called “teen angst” and we sometimes do feel
misunderstood. At times we feel as if people don’t understand how we feel or
what we’re going through. The overall tone of The Breakfast Club definitely
reinforces the values of the characters because throughout the movie, we find
out a lot about each character.
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