Breakfast Club

Written by: Norith Soth

Before we wore clothes, before we drank milk, before we shaved… we told stories.  And the same stories continue to circulate and confront us.  Like a cinematic Tootsie Roll pop, there is sometimes a hidden story inside the very movie you are watching.

Too cool for school… and existence itself.

Today, we observe John Hughes’ teenage masterpiece, “The Breakfast Club.”

WHAT HAPPENS:  A group of wrongdoers  is punished by being condemned in a room for an eternal length of time.  Hello?  “The Breakfast Club” is Jean Paul Sartre’s one act play, “No Exit.”
The group in “The Breakfast Club” only has to endure each other’s company for 8 hours, whereas in “No Exit” it’s eternity.

Shit, it ain’t that bad. Okay, it is that bad.

 

SIMILARITIES: The group in “The Breakfast Club” and “No Exit” are similar in like soooo many ways,  mmh-kay? They both like did something so bad, they are locked in a room for like a ridiculous amount of time.  No Exit is for eternity.  Breakfast Club is all of Saturday, which is like super close to eternity for a teenager.

That’s not the only thing, alright?  Both groups are like at each other throats from minute one. They’re hating on each other like Crips and Bloods, Republicans and Democrats, or Capulets and Montegues. Estelle, like Molly Ringwald, insists a mistake has been made. Ines, like Alley Sheedy, tries to figure out what people did to get “here.” Joseph, like Judd Nelson, is the one planning the escape. Both groups have a host. “No Exit” features a “Valet”, and “Breakfast Club” offers a teacher named “Mr.Vernon.” Hello, they both start with V’s!

Okay, but here’s the real dead ringer.  Both groups, or whatever, have to endure the same instrument of torture. Each other. They have to get to know each other whether they like it or not.  Oh my God, what a nightmare, right?

As “No Exit”‘s Jospeh says, “hell is other people.”

What? We’ve all done it.

UNIVERSALITY: The “clan in a room” story is perhaps too close to home because, let’s face it, you’re probably in a room right now where you have to tolerate people you can’t stand (Twelve Angry Men, Glengarry Glen Ross, What Happened Was…?). Yet, you need these f–ing people’s help to get anything done.

MESSAGE: Stories are social mirrors.  Their purpose is to broadcast messages we can’t admit to ourselves.  So, why do we respond so strongly to disturbing tale? Because our life is a locked cage with people we have to deal with over and over again (parents, friends, spouse, children) and the only to way accomplish anything is by understanding who they are on the inside, which is like, oh my God, a horrifying notion, but one we can never escape.