The cinematic masterpiece The Breakfast Club is considered
by many to be one of filmmaker John Hughes best works. A story of five vastly
different high school students who bond over the course of a Saturday detention
session. The lesson of the film is that these characters that think they are
different, in reality, aren’t. They are all portraying a role assigned to them
by their peers, parents, and teachers. They are more than just the cliques they
belong to and portray. It’s a cute tale from the Eighties. Unfortunately, the
Eighties is where it belongs.
Like many of Hughes’s films, they seem to portray a simpler
time. True, his films are not period pieces from some bygone era. His best
works are from a mere 20-30 years ago. Hardly the blink of an eye in the grand
scheme of things. But for human society, a lot can change in just a handful of
decades. And that is why The Breakfast Club would not work if set in our Post
9/11, 24 Hour News, Social Media, Streaming Video world. The archetype versions
of the characters presented in the original film simply don’t exist anymore.
The popular perception of the American Teenager has changed
greatly since The Breakfast Club first met that Saturday morning years ago.
Filmmakers like Larry Clark (Kids, Bully) showed a hyper-sexualized teen party
scene involving multiple partners, rape, and the free exchange of STDs. And
horrible incidents like Columbine had teenagers perceived as potential time bombs
just waiting to go off. And sadly a
modern version of The Breakfast Club would have to be populated with those
modern teens.
Only in the 80s
First of all, there are some things about this film that
right off the bat makes no sense. Why in a fairly large High School are there
only five people in Saturday detention? Also why are the only five people in
detention white as the freshly fallen snow? This movie is supposed to take
place in a suburb of Chicago, a fairly large and ethnically diverse metropolis.
This isn’t the Deep South where some schools still try to employ segregation.
Could it be that the Principal of this school is a closet racist and in another
part of this school there is a group of five African American students and five
Latino students, all of different backgrounds going through their own bonding
experience? And if there was, when are we going to see those movies? (Sadly
John Hughes was unable to make them before his death).
Claire; The Princess
As portrayed by Molly Ringwald, Claire was a rich
sophisticated popular girl. She comes off as a bit of an oversexualized bitch,
but as we the audience get to know her, we find out she has deep thoughts, is
still a virgin, as is attracted to the criminal nature of Bender. In short, she
is much more interesting than her character would suggest.
Sadly in our current class obsessed culture, that would not
be the case. Rich people are evil as portrayed in modern fiction. The only
times rich people are not evil are when they are using their vast wealth to
fight crime (thank you Batman and Iron Man). Otherwise, rich people tend to be
the token bad guys. Or at best they are self-obsessed narcissists like in The
Social Network. Because our good guys are the underdogs, having to struggle for
everything in life giving them much needed character and drive.
If anything, the new version of the Breakfast Club might
reveal that it is Claire who got all the others in trouble and being forced to
have to spend their Saturday in detention. Claire would have had her Daddy make
a call to the principal whose job would be threatened and she would spend the
day doing drugs and screwing her boyfriend, probably one of the members of the
Brat Pack in College. Maybe Rob Lowe. Because while 80s Claire was still a
virgin, modern Claire would be the promiscuous teen she was accused of being.
The constant sexual imagery bombarded to modern day teens, Claire might even
have a scandalous sex tape floating around.
Brian; The Brain
In the original film, Brian is kind of a nothing. So much
focus is left towards developing potential romances between Andrew and Allison,
and Claire and Bender, that Brian is left kind of ignored. Which is probably
why he ends up actually doing the essay assignment that is their punishment.
Which also allows him to get that final word in at the end of the film,
explaining the ultimate lesson to us the movie goer. He is innocuous and so
when he makes that final revelation, it is just that more powerful.
But in our contemporary reality, Brian would be an ultra
driven future success story. It is already established in the John Hughes
Version that Brian is a good student and loving son. The revelation that he has
a fake ID so he can vote says much about his character. He cares about
maturing.
Modern Brian would be getting ready to launch his startup
app for the iPhone. Something involving ridesharing or food delivery or
something people always need. He’s not even in college yet but he’s already
thinking about his future financial empire. Most likely Brian is in detention
because he was caught trying to buy cocaine from Bender, something to keep him
awake during those long programming sessions.
Andrew; The Athlete
One would think, Andrew being a jock wouldn’t be that much
different today as it was in the 80s. We hear about Andrew being pressured to
win by his father, him bringing a huge amount of food with him to detention in
order to maintain his muscle mass, you could see such a character still
existing today.
Except with the huge industry that revolves around student
athletes today, Andrew’s need to succeed would be much greater. It is doubtful
he would even be in detention if he was any kind of star on the athletic team.
His coach would get him out, or the principal would forgive him, so that Andrew
would not lose valuable training time.
Obviously for Andrew to even be in detention he would have
to have done something serious. Not the mean spirited prank he is in for in the
original film (taping a guy’s butt cheeks together). More likely he violently
attacked a fellow student. And the source of his rage is obvious; steroids.
Andrew’s need to be a successful athlete would force him to turn to illegal
substances. Despite the fact that he is destroying his body, no one around him
cares as long as he continues to win.
Though Andrew might even have been doing steroids in the
original film. If you watch that scene where he is running around the library
after hotboxing it in the records office. That is not the behavior of someone
who has just smoked pot. He is wired and aggressive, the opposite reaction most
have to marijuana.
Allison; The Basket
Case
While the movie refers to the character of Allison as a
“basket case” in reality she is what we would refer to now as “Emo.” Black
clothes, kind of quirky, but definitely not the mentally damaged vision the
term “basket case” brings to mind. And even by the end of the movie, she has
put on make up and changed clothes and made herself to look rather attractive.
She develops a relationship with Andrew and is no longer quite the weirdo she
was at the beginning of the film.
Modern day Allison would probably be cutting herself, on
several different medications, and would not be in a normal High School.
Someone who is constantly threatening to runaway from home would be in some
sort of Psychiatric care. While in the John Hughes movie she jokes about having
an affair with her shrink, in the modern version she might just actually be.
Bender; The Criminal
Bender is the character that would not survive at all into
the remake of The Breakfast Club. In the 80s you could get away with having a
character that was a “Criminal” but was actually just a trouble maker and
disrespectful. In the reality of the film, Bender was just lashing out because
of the abuse he felt from an overbearing father at home. If anything, his
hijinks were rather tame. Very much what you would expect from John Hughes’s
vision of a “Criminal.”
In a post Columbine world, Bender would have shown up to The
Breakfast Club with a sawed off shotgun and/or a semi-automatic weapon. There
wouldn’t be a fun scene of Bender sharing his weed with the recent of the
Detention. Bender would have smoked some Crystal Meth before blowing off
Richard Vernon’s head. He would stalk the halls looking for Claire, who was his
target all along, taking out Brian and Allison along the way, Allison being an
easy kill as she mutters to herself in the fetal position on the floor.
Andrew might try to confront him in a fit of ‘Roid Rage but
would be knocked out with the butt of the gun before being shot. Bender would
then take his own life, saying “No Dad, What about you?” Carl the Janitor would
be left to clean everything up after the calling the cops.
And that is the sad modern version of The Breakfast Club. No
Claire and Bender romance; No Allison and Andrew romance; No fun dancing after
sharing marijuana. And definitely no “Don’t You Forget About Me” with Anthony
Michael Hall voice over. Just a lot of sad people, with sad lives, ending
tragically.
Sincerely Yours,
Not The Breakfast Club.
