The Breakfast Club

The Characters

Brian

Brian is the common nerd stereotype, taking all math and science classes, acing everything, and standing up for what’s right. But this is only what we see on the outside. Behind all his smiles, Brain is a young teenage pressured boy, struggling to ace his assignments. Due to the pressure forced upon him by parents and school, he becomes highly suicidal and attempts to kill himself with a gun hiding in his locker. This puts him in detention for a Saturday which will change his life, for the better.

Claire

There is more to being the stereotype princess we think Claire is at the beginning of the text. Claire’s parents use her to get back at each other since their divorce. But Claire’s home life is just as bad as her school life, her friends pressure her to do things she doesn’t wish to do but cannot simply say ‘no’ for she finds it harder then it seems. Throughout the text, we find Claire is a nice innocent girl with more depth than first thought. John also realises this as they begin to fall in love after they met in detention from Claire skipping school to go shopping.

Allison

Being an outcast is what Allison likes best. She is quiet, artistic, and unique but a compulsive liar. With no friends, she likes the quiet and being able to be herself for this is what she knows best as her parents neglect and ignore her constantly at home. But as Allison beings to use her voice and open up, we realise how misunderstood she really is, for after all, she only went to detention for she had nothing better to do. And after Claire’s makeover to Allison, we find what a beautiful girl lies beneath, and so does Andrew as be begins to fall hard for her.

Andrew

Andrew is a nice, caring, outgoing and athletic teenager whom most guys aim to be like, but there is more than meets the eye. Beneath he is a boy just trying to please his dad. But with all the pressure, it builds up and makes him tape a boys ‘buns’ together, landing him in detention. This isn’t such a bad thing for him as he see’s past the stereotypes and finds the true friends and with Allison, a true love.

John

John is your common rebel, breaking the rules, talking back, and just being plan mean towards everyone. But after being landed in another Saturday detention, we learn that John is just an out spoken, disrespected child who is being abused by his father, trying to find an escape with his anger. He takes it out on Claire, who to him is a wealthy rich perfect girl. But after finding out her full story, he falls in love with his once ‘punching bag’ for insults.

Costumes

Brian

During the film Brian wore a dark green jumper with a white top underneath, paired with a pair of cream pants, and black skater shoes with white socks. To go with this, Brian had a black watch and a stylish pair of black sunnies to make his look work. This all worked well with Brian’s blonde curly short hair.

Claire

Claire with her short red hair out, earrings, rings and a watch had the perfect look with medium make up and nail polish. She wore a pale pink shirt, long brown skirt, brown knee high boots and matched it all with a brown shoulder bag giving her the good look for an 80’s school prom queen.

Allison

To create the look of a mysterious teenager, Allison did it well. With her short brown hair, light pale makeup and grey shoulder bag it suited well with her outfit made up of a pair of black boots, a long grey dotted dress and a black hooded jumper. But after her makeover, Allison’s look completely changed to light pale pink make up, a white sleeveless top dressed with a black belt, a black skirt and topped all off with a white flower headband to give Allison the girly look Claire was aiming for.

Andrew

Being the jock that he is, Andrew wore a blue singlet, blue jacket hoodie, and blue jeans all topped with his wrestling jacket and a pair of white sneakers. With all this and his neat short blondish hair, Andrew looked like a smart teen you would want to be best buddies with.

John

With the rebel look he had to portray throughout the text, John wore a white tee covered by a flannelette shirt and ripped denim jacket. With his black pants, fingerless gloves, knife and long brown/black messy hair and earring, he looked like the teenager you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of.

How the students felt towards each other

At the beginning of the test, the students were unaware of each other’s true personalities, only knowing what they had heard from others and the horrible school rumours. But as they grew to learn about each other and remove the unlikely rumours, they learnt about each other’s past, present and future and how they really felt towards things. This made them grow respect, friendship and love between each other, something that would out last their life’s troubles.

Plot

The breakfast club is film about five students with nothing in common, forced to spend a long Saturday detention together in the Shermer High School library. As the time flew by and they began to talk, they started to learn about each other. Brian the nerd, Claire the school prom queen princess, Allison the quiet weird girl, Andrew the jock and John the school rebel. These labels are soon removed to discover what truly lies beneath each other teens, as they make new friends, find love and just be teenager.

Settings

The film ‘The Breakfast Club’ was shot in Shermer High School in 1984. The main setting for this text was the schools large library. But as the students roomed about other sub settings were created such as outside the front of the school, the venting system, a storage cupboard, the teacher’s office and many corridors connecting all the classrooms.

Music

At the beginning of the film, the music began with rock/alternative/soul music with lyrics and long instrumental parts, giving the setting of the 1980s well.

When swearing begin to happen during heated moments, dramatic music sounds were played over them to add the theme tune to the scene. As the teenagers got high and danced around, an uplifting 80s tune played making you want to get up and dance.

Themes and issues

The Breakfast Club focuses on a wide range of themes containing main different issues such as love; finding your true love in someone you wouldn’t look twice at. Friendship; making new friends despite how different you thought each other were. Stereotypes; the labels people are left with simply because how others think they are, not what they truly are. Communication; the lapse of communication between teenagers and parents which can cause hurt and misunderstanding for both. Anger; finding a way to let out the anger caused by many problems in your teenage life. Family; dealing with family problems from abuse to neglect and all in-between. Pressure; Finding ways to deal with pressure occurring from home and in your school life.

Other teen films

Compared to other teenage films, ‘The Breakfast Club’ is a different, not focusing on brainless plots, comedy or the body, but instead what it is like to go through life as a teenager with all different amounts of pressure and home or school problems. It focuses on removing the stereotypes people are labelled as, instead of creating new ones which affects the real high schools of today.

Review

Brian, Claire, Allison, Andrew and John are 5 seriously misunderstood teenagers put in detention for breaking many different school rules, and simply because some had nothing better to do. As we follow there story’s slowly being unravelled throughout the text, we learn about their true self’s and not the labels they had been given by others. A skill which all current teenagers should use to look past the labels of others around them. We are taken through their lives and how they are coping as we see them make friends, fall in love with people they wouldn’t look twice at and find ways to overcome their problems as they join together to form ‘The Breakfast Club’. It is a film which will take you through the true life of some teens and open your eyes to the lives they lie beneath.