What happens when people stop being polite and start being real? This is the opening line to MTV?s hit show The Real World. This colorful show has been a staple for MTV viewers since 1992. The show consists of seven strangers who are picked to live together for six months. These strangers are given a house to live in, usually in a large city, where their lives are taped 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This real life soap opera is then aired on MTV for all of us voyeurs to watch. The Real World is meant to be a microcosm of the youth driven society within the U.S. These seven unique personalities are forced to live as a single communal unit. As these strangers begin to warm up to one another, the communal unit begins to boil. The newness of being amongst strangers wears off very fast and the butting of heads between the roommates signifies the cutting of the ribbon to this roller coaster ride. As with any roommate situation tempers will flair and toes will stepped on. As the show unfolds, the participants in this real life soap opera find out quickly whose temper raises fast and who likes to step on toes. Though these roommates come from different backgrounds and have very different cultures, there is one definite constant among them all, they are all force to live together in The Real World. Like the roommates in MTV's reality based soap opera, the five characters in John Hughes' film The Breakfast Club are forced to "live" together and forced to develop relationships amongst themselves despite their obvious differences.

The Breakfast Club (1985)

Rating:
R

Director:
John Hughes

Starring:
Emilio Estevez - Andrew Clark
Molly Ringwald - Claire Standish
Judd Nelson - John Bender
Ally Sheedy - Allison Reynolds
Anthony Michael Hall - Brian Johnson
Paul Gleason - Richard Vernon

Plot:
The story takes place in your average suburban high school. Five unique students are forced to spend Saturday at an eight-hour detention in their school?s library. These students don't want to be at school on a Saturday and thus a common bond begins. Each of these students is supposed to represent one of the many cliques found on a high school campus: Andrew Clark (Estevez) the jock, Claire Standish (Ringwald) the prom queen, John Bender (Nelson) the stoner, Allison Reynolds (Sheedy) the basket case, and Brian Johnson (Hall) the brain. Richard Vernon (Gleason), the school's worn out principal, is the chosen candidate who is forced to keep the students in line during detention.

Vernon's prison guard mentality makes him a villain in the eyes of the students. Along with their hatred of having detention, the students find a common bond and hatred for their captor, principal Vernon. Even though these five students share these two bonds together, there is instant friction within the group. When these different egos and attitudes are brought together and subjected to a hostile environment (Saturday detention) a clash between them is sure to happen. John Bender, the stoner, is the driving force behind the initial clash within the group. He begins to rudely make fun of each of the other students? cliques that they represent. Along with taking verbal punches at his fellow peers, Bender also verbally assaults principal Vernon. These two hot heads try to edge each other out in a verbal warfare, with neither one willing to give. Vernon quiets Bender down with his assignment of two months worth of Saturday detention to Bender. This only causes Bender to be more verbally aggressive towards the other students. Bender?s taunts against the other students are initially malicious and juvenile, however these taunts force each student to consider how they choose to view their peers. Though Bender is loud and obnoxious, his points about life in high school hit the hearts of the other students.

Each of these students come from a different social class and school clique but now they are forced to endure the rest of Saturday detention together. The five students decide to put differences aside and learn to accept one another. The hatred for Saturday detention and principal Vernon has finally brought this group together. After the alliance is formed among the students, they decide to have a little fun at Saturday detention. This fun includes roaming the halls of the school, smoking pot, dancing, and causing a ruckus in the library, and messing with principal Vernon. These five students were able to tear town the walls that each of them had built up towards the others. In doing so they were able to open themselves up emotionally to people they may never have been open to.

Character Development:
Hughes did a wonderful job with the character structure for the film. The development of these unique characters adds a sense of believability to this lighthearted plot. I would imagine that if we think back to our high school days most of us can relate to these characters in one way or another. The sense of realness comes from the development of each of these characters independently and collectively. Though a scene out of The Breakfast Club was unlikely to occur at your high school, the characters depicted in the movie do accurately represent a portion of high school groups. Whether it was the nerds, jocks, stoners, or geeks most of us had a connection to one of these groups. It is hard not to be touched by the characters in the movie. Without these great character roles this movie would be a meaningless story about a bunch of crazy teenagers. Thankfully, Hughes was able to take these characters and apply real life personalities to them. The characters made the movie the movie didn?t make the characters.

Recommendation:
A teenager is a bottled up mess of hormones that is ready to explode at any second, this makes the high school experience an interesting ride. The Breakfast Club wonderfully depicts the day in the life of this pub@scent beast, the teenager. With the great cast and a wonderful director this movie is an all time classic.


F.Y.I.:
The Breakfast Club is a favorite for television stations to play on Saturday afternoons. These stations include TNT, USA, TBS, and FOX. The television version is great for the younger ones since the regular VHS or DVD version is rated R and contains explicit language.



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older