Watch it, and show it to your kids with appropriate context, and never ever allow anyone to make any money from it.
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And what, really, is wrong with that? It acknowledges that, first, our standards of what is socially acceptable changes over time - and isn’t that a good thing? I mean, our grandparents and parents lived in a time where segregation was acceptable, and at a time where women were regularly fired and sexually harassed in the work place. That was common place and normal for years. None of that is remotely acceptable any more. This is true of our popular culture as well. The fact is, that Claire’s acceptance of Bender’s abuse is a problem and not a great message to send kids today. I don’t know if you have kids, but if a boyfriend of one of your daughters treated her in the way Bender treated Claire, I assume you would be unhappy about it and encourage her to dump the creep, yeah? And yeah, MENTAL abuse SHOULD be considered problematic. It’s not a cute courting ritual, it’s abusive.
I also don’t see a reason why emotion isn’t so bad here. We’re human beings, not robots, I see no reason not to take that into account with a logical examination of what is problematic and why. I also think that Ringwald DOES break down what she sees as the problem in a very rational way.
And “sexual liberated” doesn’t include men getting to treat women poorly. It’s accepting that sexual partners are just that - partners, and that abuse isn’t and shouldn’t be part of it.
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First off, I would like to apologize if I come off as smug. Smugness is not what I was feeling. “Profound irritation” is how I would describe it. I did read her essay, and was immediately irked by the nakedly manipulative emotional tactic of using the reaction of her 10 yr old daughter to an image in an r rated movie as a starting point. The first half of this essay she comes across as a prudish, concerned christian mother.
It is my opinion that the strict taboos on sex and nudity in this country are at the root of a lot of the problems related to sexuality.
Why is not wanting your panties peeked at or being physically assaulted prudish? This is what happens in the movie, exactly what happens.
This isn’t about sexual taboos, it’s about men in films acting in ways that dehumanizes women and it being considered just a laugh. It’s really not. So, yes, this is actually an emotional issue for many people, because it contributes to the idea that treating women like objects is not only OK, but that it will lead to a romance.
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Reflecting back on a movie she made as a teenager because her kid wanted to watch it is manipulative?
Ringwald is in her 50’s and a mother now; it seems like she’s just talking about her past roles in movies with some problematic content as viewed through the lens of a responsible adult, years after the fact.
Unwanted attention/touching is a real problem in our society, and media that normalizes such behavior by playing it for a joke only exacerbates the problem; Ringwald isn’t wrong for acknowledging that.
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Well, I don’t think I was advocating treating women poorly. I think as far as the narrative of The Breakfast Club goes this scene, with the 5 of them was the dramatic heart of the movie, and Bender’s treatment of Claire is not handled casually. That Claire forgives him is perhaps questionable, but I also don’t see it as being totally unrealistic either. As for myself, I harbored a major crush on Ally Sheedy, and I found the way her character was handled, and her transformation into an “acceptable” girl especially disturbing.
My problem with emotion is that it is a persuasive tool that can be used to support any position. Emotion is what Fox news runs on. Right and Wrong is a consensus thing and i feel that it is hard to argue effectively about emotionally charged issues. The fact that people are genuinely upset about gay people getting married obscures the fact that there is no logical reason to prevent them from doing so, for example.
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You do realize that this:
Is an entirely emotional stance?
Ally Sheedy wasn’t that person, and that transformation never really took place.
Edited to add: it was a bullshit trope. So are the other things that Ringwald wrote about in her essay. How do you figure that your response is valid but the others aren’t?
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This scene rings true though. I saw variations of this play out in real life when I was a teen, more than once. It is not unrealistic that they became romantically involved. Most teenage boys do not make aggressive sexual advances, but pretty much all heterosexual teenage boys are interested in looking up skirts. This was a movie that was trying to authentically examine the realities of teen life through their eyes, and it did a mostly decent job of it. I think using this movie as the center of a discussion about problematic art is a poor choice.
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The movie itself isn’t problematic, nor is the art; some of the ideas contained therein are problematic:
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It’s okay to demean and belittle someone because you “like” them, or because you have been treated badly yourself.
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Boys are naturally horny all the time, and that’s why their lewd behavior towards girls is “no big deal;” it’s even funny!
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Stuck up girls “need” to be ‘taken down a peg.’
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A girl should conform in order to fit in with more popular people.
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If you treat a girl like crap instead of fawning over her, that will make her want to pursue you.
All those ideas are problematic, and they are all conveyed in the Breakfast Club; which is still a movie that I really like, despite its numerous flaws.
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Err, yes, I am aware that Ally Sheedy is an actual person and that the events of movie did not actually occur, but thanks for the dripping condescension.
I am also aware of the meaning of the sentences I type. My adult opinions about the way her character was handled were mixed with long forgotten teenage feelings about a quirky young actress and I had a heightened emotional reaction to it. If I had never seen the movie before, my evaluations would be the same, but without the emotional content. It’s a movie for teenagers and I have relationship with it because I saw it when I was a teenager, and processed it with teenage emotions.
If I were to write an essay about why I thought the treatment and portrayal of Allison was problematic, I would not bring up my adolescent feelings for the actress Ally Sheedy, as I feel that would weaken my argument.
I don’t agree that this is an idea being advocated by the movie. Teenage boys and men are quite capable of behaving this way, obviously. This is a fairly authentic portrayal of teenagers and their behaviors. Bender is the most charismatic character in the movie, but I didn’t consider him to be heroic or a model of behavior in any way. I was a nerdy kid, guys like Bender beat me up in grade school.
Teenage boys are horny all the time and believe me, it’s no joke. It is really intense. I wish there was a way for women to experience the pubescent boy mind.
I didn’t come away with this from the movie, but perhaps you are right about this.
On this idea we agree.
This is, unfortunately, a mating strategy that is utilized by some men, and it can be effective. Claire is too good for Bender. Attacking her fragile teenage self esteem is a psychological tactic to “bring her down to his level”. I don’t feel like the movie is promoting this behavior, but that may be because I thought Bender was an asshole and was not particularly interested in Claire, so the idea of Bender being “rewarded” by Claire’s romantic attention was not a strong one.
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Did you miss the part just before that in the essay that explained why she was showing this to her 10 year old daughter? Her daughter’s friends had seen it, and as a responsible mother, she sat down to watch a movie with her daughter. This is not prudish, just concerned.
My daughter wanted to watch all kinds of “problematic” (or just R-rated) movies when she was young. We watched them together, and I answered all the questions that came up. To me, watching with your kid is just good parenting, and not prudish or necessarily christian.
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Oh? So Bender didn’t end making out with Claire at the end, despite treating her like shit?
Hint: I don’t care.
Hormones and ‘feelings’ are no excuse for bad behavior; no matter how strong the impulses… and until we start teaching our kids that from an early age, it’s going to be problematic. Fuck “boys will be boys” that’s just some enabling, apologist bullshit.
You just said it was an idea that wasn’t advocated by the movie; yet I and others see it, clearly.
Says who? Society? Her peers? Claire herself? Stating it as a matter of fact rather than an opinion is classism.
I am well aware of the tactic, and the fact that many guys don’t just use it against “teen girls with fragile self esteem.”
You can feel however you wish.
Yet he harassed her and vied for her attention the entire movie; that doesn’t read as “disinterested” to me.
Again:
ETA:
Same here and good on you.
My kid has watched most of my beloved 80’s/old school flicks with me, and I’ve been there to explain the problematic parts.
For instance, Mrs. Doubtfire;
In my memory, it seemed harmless enough, but then upon rewatching with my kid, I suddenly realized what an ugly, transphobic streak the movie has (the bathroom scene where “the nanny” is caught peeing standing up) and I was mortified.
Being that my kid has friends who are trans, we talked about it afterward, and why the ideas conveyed in the filmc are outdated, ‘uncool’ and antisocial.
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Yeah, our 7th-grade Social Studies teacher had us watch it in class. It inoculates you against a LOT of political rally cliches.
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Some of the criticism reminds me a little of criticism leveled at gangsta rap- when does “realistic” become “normalizing”? Teenagers (are? were?can be?) shit to each other- most of what I’m hearing described as “problematic” can also described as “kids actually behaved this way regularly”. Heck, I saw the Claire/Bender dynamic play out in real life a dozen times. I’m guessing most people here can probably remember a dozen things that happened in their school that were worse than what happened in any Hughes movie. Maybe problematic is just another word for “we have met the enemy and he is us”. That doesn’t excuse any bad behavior, but if anything Breakfast Club understated the horror that was junior/high school. I remember the rap against Hughes’ movies at the time was that they were sanitized popular mass market entertainment. Just because teens glommed onto them and found meaning doesn’t change that it was simplified stylized crap all the way down.
And I do dislike the term problematic, for about the same reasons Cory thinks it’s brilliant. I think its vagueness is a cop out, it’s a weasel word, it’s lazy short hand and that’s the place where clear thought goes to die. If it’s sexist, racist, of its time, whatever- say what it is and be prepared to defend it. Maybe its a victim of overuse- people too often use “problematic” to enjoy something while claiming to be above it all and avoiding any actual intellectual work. He thinks it’s great to have it both ways- and I think that’s a fault, not a feature. It’s like “guilty pleasure”. Just have the guts to say you like it and give the people around you just a tiny modicum of credit.
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Given the rather high number of studio only “gangstas” out there, I’d say that the concept of “realism” is highly debatable.
Take for instance NWA, the originators of what they called ‘reality rap,’ (but which got branded by the White music execs as ‘gangsta rap.’)
Out of all the members of NWA, only Easy E had actually lived the dope-dealer ‘hood life’ they so vividly described; whereas Dre was in an R&B group and Ice-Cube was a student who actually did well in school.
While the reality NWA spoke of does exist, there’s an argument to be made that they also helped normalize certain aspects of it.
As for guts;
I still like John Hughes movies, though I see and acknowledge the problems therein.
I still like NWA for speaking their truth about police violence, despite the fact that many of their song lyrics (and behavior, in some cases) helped normalize misogyny against Black women within the Black community.
But I can’t and won’t pretend that anything is “flawless” just because I happen to like it.
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I used poor phrasing here. I am not criticizing her for allowing her daughter to watch this movie. She is using this story, and her daughters shock at this image, as her jumping off point. It is a persuasive technique, and the engine that runs her essay.
Good point, that highlights the fluid relationship of reality and culture. I get the feeling people on average prefer seeing something close enough to real that they can give it credit for seeming “real” (that ever deceptive ‘truthiness’), while wanting it to be just ever so slightly better than reality because who doesn’t want to look in the mirror and see something a little better than they actually are (especially in something for kids). I think that’s one reason Breakfast Club is so popular- the ending invites the viewer to imagine what happens in the future, and invites them to imagine things will be better. I dunno, I don’t have kids but if kids nowadays have more respect for personal space than in my day, and don’t verbally abuse each other, hats off to the youngins. (Then I will eat that hat).
Definitely, and it’s annoying when the default assumption is otherwise.
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I wonder where today’s John Hughes movies are. You know, the same behaviors and trends set against a backdrop of video games, active shooter drills, Snapchat, readily available porn and smartphones. I’m just curious as to how they’d capture the current American high school environment and make it feel real without being exploitative.
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And saying this as a male.
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