Our next episode is on The Breakfast Club — what should we talk about?

When I think of this movie, Perks of Being a Wallflower, Mean Girls, heck even Easy A, there’s something true revealed about the adolescent period of time on film but I find examples of good versions of the Bildungsroman to be few and far between. Curious why y’all think that is.

What genre is this? Comedy? Adventure? Coming of age? Not exactly any of those. It’s strange to think about it with this story. What changes in the story. Beside their expanded understanding of each other, will anyone or their society change?

HemlockSillage

I have a lot of teenage cousins who will tell me that different teen-aimed books/shows/movies don't feel realistic to them. Like they don't accurately capture teenage mentality, or as my cousin says "it feels like adults trying to write teenagers." How do movies like The Breakfast Club or other John Hughes movies handle this?

Sheela

The movie asks you not to, but did you forget about them?

Mortegris

Curious to hear your thoughts on what elements need to be in play to successfully pull off a movie confined to essentially a single location in more or less “real time.” How do these creative limitations impact the story structure? What are things to include / avoid? What are examples of movies that do this well / not well, and how does Breakfast Club compare?

Dan Hoy

Interested in what your takes are on the different genre beats this pull from. Finally reading Truby's new book after getting it because of your podcast with him and the talk about it, so it'd be interesting to hear a discussion through that lens.

Kevin Dublin

You probably know about it, but Molly Ringwald wrote a great 2018 article about The Breakfast Club in the #MeToo era. I know even when the film was released people were not happy with the film, but it seemed to really grab what was “okay” in the 1980s (as a really young person), and I am so glad the world has changed a lot since then. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/what-about-the-breakfast-club-molly-ringwald-metoo-john-hughes-pretty-in-pink I was in elementary school when TBC came out, but when I eventually saw it years later after high school, I instantly recognized the characters and saw myself in Brian (AMH). I deeply understood his feelings about being a nerd and not part of the social class of the school. The desire and total inability to be part of the popular kids group, having a separate friends group of unpopular kids, yet disliking and deeply distrusting the popular kids at the same time. I understood why he brought a gun to school. The movie bounces around like any good 80s movie, with shenanigans, montages, and character growth, but I think most kids of the 80s can see themselves in one of the characters, at least in some aspect of their daily worries & frustrations, relationships with their parents, the school punishment system, and the school social world. Maybe in the 90s, Empire Records is a more cartoony “work” version of this - but I think TBC endures because people see a young frustrated version of themselves when they watch the movie - even if they’re no longer that person anymore. Does the LFtS / BTS crew see a part of themselves in any of the characters? Or does it all feel like a Glengarry Glennross stage play?

John willis

Would love to hear about John hughes’ dialogue approach with the group

I think the film relies on the viewer's expectations of how each of the characters conforms to a stereotype, before defying and complicating our understanding of them by the end. But I'm curious how films like Breakfast Club use and manipulate viewers' expectations to tell their stories—as well as how they anticipate what the audience's expectations will be.

I didn't watch this movie for the first time until a few years ago. It was very, very, very predictable. But that's not a criticism. I'm curious if the archetypes for the characters were well established at the time? I'm also curious what movies this one inspired? My assumption is that the predictability stems from all of the movies I've seen that came after this. And I'm guessing you'll have to mention the soundtrack, or at least the popular song from the soundtrack.

Outlaw